Studio XPS 1640 horrible experience! multiple problems!

Hello all,
this my first and probably last post. I just want to make you aware of my 3-4 months drama with this system and Dell "Phillipindia".

Here it goes... around 4 months ago I decided to replace my 3 year old Inspiron. I look at what dell has to offer and was immediately attracted by the look and specifications of their studio XPS 16.

So I choose one, max it up almost to the top, slide $2k and waited In about 20 days the system arrived... new, nice and shiny... first impressions where more than good... amazing screen colors, crazy performance, backlight keys, stylish design, burns bluray, amazing speakers... only downside at time what that the laptops was like a magnet for fingerprints... I remember that this little thing upset me in way at that time.

Well the story dramatically changed as I start using it more intensively... Couple of hours with some office applications, zend studio and some other everyday apps were making the touch pad uncomfortably hot... and when i say hot i mean hot really hot not warm but hot. Taking it to the next level and dropping few of the latest games on it... playing for about 20 minutes result in automatic system shutdown...

I open the laptop by unscrewing only 10 retarder screws on the bottom of the laptop... still cannot figure out who decide to put 10 freaking screws that people will have to unscrew to do simple thing as memory upgrade for example. Any way what I discovered to be the problem was a chip that appeared to be south bridge... conveniently placed under the touch pad in a very small gap between the mother board and the chassis... just laying peacefully there in its completely dead zone without any airflow, heat sink or whatever to help it get rid of the heat... then I figured out that the person that put it there must be the same genius that put the 10 screws on the back cover. Anyway I tried to figure out a way to help this chip cool down a little bit... but there was simply no space... besides maybe for those that don't have the broadband mini card... this people may attempt installing some kind of heat sink with copper pipes that will extend from the ATT card nest to a plate that will be on the south bridge... Way crazy mod for a 3 day old system that just cost me 2k.

So as anyone from you would do in my case... I decided to chase my rights and called dell's customer service. Welcome to phillipindia complete dissatisfaction... please hold, let me transfer you, i am not in position, call dropped, i will call you back... blah such a crap... I dont know how much is dell saving by outsourcing tech and customer support to Philippines and India but my guess is they are loosing more than that in lost customers. Anyway after long and painful phone conversations on multiple different indian accents I manage to get arrangement for system exchange as the last guy convince me that this is solely isolated case and out of 2 million units sold I am the first guy calling for overheating issue.

The replacement arrived in approximately 25 days. I opened it and boom it was scratched on two places. However decided that I can live with that... Fire it up, put it right next to the other one and immediately notice that the screen is not the same... dell send me the WLED instead of the RGBLED... And I liked the freaking screen also paid around $300 upgrade price. I call them again... same story... one guy even told me that I should be happy as they gave me free upgrade and the one I have now is way better than the original. transfer... transfer... etc another system exchange....

After another 25 days I started to worry and call them again... guess what my case number, dispatch number where not in their system anymore... big drama.. call... transfer... transfer... this time escalate call and in couple of days a guy called me. I explain him what happen and he promised another exchange and upgrade to 1645 with i7 and in the matter of facts as I am writing this, the order shows in my account as in production. And guess what the screen is showing there as WLED again.. I dont know what to do with this people... they seems to me as half retarded!

I want to list here the part numbers for the lcd panels and if someone has experience with that maybe can tell me what the **** is wrong with dell.

Original (This screen is 100% RGBLED)
320-7329 16.0 inch Wide Screen 16:9 1080p FullHD RGBLED LCD W/2.0 MP, XPS 1640

Replacement (This is 100% NOT a RGB, I compare them side by side)
320-7332 Premium HD WLED Display Obsidian Black, Leather, 2.0 MP Webcam

2nd Replacement (Any clue what that one can be?.. anyone?)
320-8335 Premium FHD WLED Display, Obsidian Black, 2.0 MP Webcam

Also I forgot to mention that some collection agency is bothering me lately... looking for the original system to be returned... As I swear to god that until dell fix this mess they wont receive anything back.

Thanks for reading

 

The second is the 900p WLED and the last is the 1080p WLED.

To be honest, IMO, the LG 1080p WLED is nicer than the RGBLED. Colors may be better with the latter, but overall contrast and blacks is WAY better with the LG.

 

Wow, ok interesting story and may I be the SECOND person to complain about the "built-in toaster" at the front of the laptop. I'd been giving serious consideration to contacting Dell about the hotspot Southbridge as well, but after reading about your troubles, it's given me a moment of pause. What I don't understand is that Dell has records of what they build for people and if you contact them to complain about a problem with your machine and they send you a replacement (which SHOULD be new as you BOUGHT a warranty), that the replacement should have the same hardware as what you already had.

I've been in the mood to b*tch and argue...maybe I'll call.

 

I had already decided for Dell SXPS 1640. But reading after your horrible store, I'll have to think again and have to look for other brand/models.

 

The 1645 runs cooler, supposedly.

 

Nope, i7 is slightly hotter if compared with P-series.

As for bulforce, I see this more of another rant/complain about customer service instead of the machine. Anyway, my xps 1640 is working fine. Guess it's just luck

 

While the i7 may have a higher TDP, the 1645 overall runs cooler. The mobo layout is different as well.

The 1640 got notoriously hot around the touchpad and I have yet to hear the same problem with the 1645.

 

I would suspect that what you have is the stock configuration for about $800-$850... the story with you is definitely different as you basically purchased a computer that has the chassis as the only common thing with mine. You paid for the look and I paid for the power. I may be wrong, but considering in my case the replacement unit had the same overheating problem and you are saying that your don't the only reasonable explanation besides the one that includes dell intentionally sending me overheating laptops... is that your laptop is pretty bear bone configuration that a lot of other people around the net confirm is not getting hot but just warm.

And yes my story is not only about a dell engineer that create this poor internal design but is also about the customer service that is under any kind of standards.

I will not recommend dell to any of my friends from now on, no matter if the i7 have or have not heating problems. I am sure that they are shipping not tested systems and those systems tend to have problems.

And to all Mac supporters I will say only one thing, go **** yourself and next time when buying laptop... choose something for what it can do... not for how it is looking from the outside. This idiots at apple are pushing the whole industry into some kind of fashion direction... And my poor engineer... the one that put the 10 screws on the cover(in my previous post)... the poor guy has to deal with such a limited space, so the computer won't be able to cool properly BUT will look stunning at the showroom... AND will probably be dead in less than 2 years as its constantly running hot.

Period.

 

I have that same display in my xps 1645, I was assured that this was RGB when I asked dell, and there are other threads here stating the same as the description is misleading. I received the laptop a couple weeks ago, and aside from the throttling issue, it is a very nice laptop (which will be returned if that isn't fixed, but I'm being patient).

I do not have a standard Display to compare it against, but the colors are exceptional, and it does appear to be the full 16" vs the 15.8.

Hope that helps..

FYI.. laptop get's warm at most, never to a point I would consider hot. The power supply is a different issue though, but you don't have to touch that while you are using it.

 

What I notice as a sure sign when using RGBLED is that if you go fast from full brightness to minimum, the screen will kinda fade for a sec and you will be able to see how it will adapt and become brighter and with full colors. Best to check that in a dark room.

What is the throttle issue ? It looks like my senses were right and dell fix the heat issue but now there is something else.

 

My monitor does that, the color shifts when you change brightness, and the settles back.. I also notice that when you put something in front of it, it reflects different color light depending the angle, for some reason it's very pronounced using my spyder colour meter, but not so much on plain paper.

The throttle issue deals with the processor speed being throttled back for what appears to be power issues. In gaming it is noticable that the processor scales it's multiplier back to almost half speed. It appears to be tied to limited power from the power supply. I have observed power supply pulling over 95W just prior to throttling down, at which point it settles around 60W with the processor at ~50% speed. There is another thread in here about that issue, that I recommend you read. Some have stated that a 130W supply works better, all have noticed the issue to the same extent does not exist on battery power alone (which can supply more amperage than the brick). Dell is currently looking for a solution.

This usually does not appear to slow the computer down for normal usage, but it does while gaming or sometimes CPU intensive tasks (such as benchmarking)

linky: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=437800

 

Well another amateur mistake in the sxps line. I am now 100% convinced that dell needs to get rid of the guy that placed those 10 retarded screws on the bottom of the laptop, I am sure that is the same guy the place south bridge in that dead zone on the 1640... and definitely must be the same guy indeed that calculated 90W will be enough for an i7 with all possible upgrades.

BTW here what it says in dell's training website:

Besides that... I was thinking today that someone should start a petition and force dell to recall all those 1640s as they are definitely a defective by design product. I am sure that if there are enough people... dell with replace all those machines. Hopefully after the winter as they are doing pretty good job now... heating our homes.

 

Seriously bulforce, it's just you.

And no, my machine ain't 800 bucks.

 

We have about 15 of these units around the office. So far they have been flawless, never heard any heat complaints and mine does not run hot at all. As for the 10 screws, I dont expect to ever have to remove them as I'm sure is the case with 90-95% of the consumers who purchase this system.

 

I can raid in WoW for hours on end and have no issues with heat. The palm rest does get warm, but not hot. As does EVERY laptop I've ever owned.

I simply love my machine.

 

Lol, and I wondered why there was a serious temperature difference in my living room!

yeah, that brick is one heck of a hot one...I'm still waiting for it to explode. So has anyone confirmed (like in the case of the 1645) that the adapter is NOT powerful enough to handle the demands of the 1640? If I call Dell and complain about the seriously hot adapter, would i stand a chance of getting a more powerful adapter to supply the laptop? Am i asking too many stupid questions?

In the case of the petition and some of the disgruntledness of our thread originator, i can feel his pain, but at the same time, there has to be compromise when you deal with a laptop. It is a physical fact that laptops will run hotter than a desktop (space for one, fan size for another), but you really just have to pick the lesser of the two evils. While the XPS1640 is sexy (and yes, black glossy things can be sexy), the hardware is nothing to sneeze at. If you want "pretty things" on your desk, then you will pay for pretty as in the case of Apple (the only Apple product I own is the ipod) whereby all of their products are rather inflated in price to help fund the marketing department to bash Windows users a little more and more. If you want power, either build the machine yourself or go with power when customizing through a company like Dell, HP, Sony, etc.