XPS M2010 Owners?

maybe way too late to make this, but I can't find much on this laptop on NBR, never really a dedicated thread. anyone still own this machine? got a few questions I'd like to ask.. lol

 

alright doesn't look like many people still own this thing... but here goes.

I recently just bought a used one from ebay while I fully understand it's Graphics card dying issue. needless to say after owning it for less than a week, my GPU gone bad and I heated up infront of a heater for around 40 mins and that did the trick, revived my graphics card and all is well now.

cons
- crappy GPU
- unstable GPU
- max 3.25gb memory, old chipset
- T7600 terminal CPU upgrade
- SATA 1.5gbps? IDE connector
- heavy

pros
- decent looking
- detachable keyboard
- big screen
- heavy, manly
- old school
- good bios


few things I want to know:
- if the graphics card is upgradable in this thing, the socket at the bottom of card isn't one of those we see nowadays just slide in and work, more of a connector socket type. Mobility Radeon x1800, any chance upgrading that to x1800 xt? or just what is the best GPU that will work inside this machine?

- HDD uses IDE connector and max at around 120 MB/s. optical drive bay also uses IDE connector but im unsure what kind of speed it provides. ATA 100+? if so I could install another hardisk in it, need to know the bandwidth limit of that cable.

- I was told chipset limits ram to 3.25gb after 4gb are installed, terminal CPU is T7600, is this the dead end?

- msata SSD work in this?

- if unable to upgrade GPU, is there anyway to control voltage of x1800? it defaults to core 450mhz and memory 500 mhz but it doesnt go down nor up. I want it to go down during idle, kinda like CPU/GPU clock changing/ speedstep w/e you call it, so it's cooler when idle etc.

any advice would be great!

 

The Radeon X1800 is only GPU option for the M2010. It *might* be possible to mod the M2010 to take the cards from M90/M1710/E1705, etc, but I haven't tried it and I don't remember what interferes with what. Also, most of the cards for those machines are defective as well. You can probably find a way to adjust the voltages and clocks on the X1800, but I don't know what to use or how to do it.

HDD uses a SATA connector. You can use any SATA HDD or SSD, the speeds will just be capped at SATA I. You can still utilize the high I/O of a good SSD, though.

The RAM thing is something like that. T7600 is indeed the fastest CPU, unless you can somehow take advantage of the unlocked multi of a T7600G (which I don't think you can).

You could put an mSATA drive in an mSATA/SATA adapter in place of one of the standard HDDs, but that would be kind of pointless, no?

 

I went and download atitool or w/e its called, I was able to adjust clock/memory speed for the card but can't change voltage. in the first place voltage can't be detected for some reason with any of the tool i use. Hwinfo, GPUz, GPU monitor, GPU meter etc, all do not show voltage and i'm kinda stuck.

for msata, not using an adapter but msata SSD into msata slot, if its got one.

T7600G, unlocked multiplier I just looked it up and CPU-world says it does have it. I could use throttlestop and try to overclock it, should work.. right?

 

I might be buying one of these heavy beast.Is the video card defective just like those nvidia ones were?

 

It's not exactly the same problem, but yes, those X1800 video cards are just as prone to crapping out as the Nvidia junk.

 

to be exact, GPU chip doesn't have much issue, apparently someone said it's the memory ICS causing the failure because it's not soldered properly thats leads to people cooking the entire thing.

I bought a used on from ebay, machine came and GPU failed in a week lol but I brought it back with a regular room heater. took out the GPU and put it pointblank infront of the heater and let it cook for 20 mins on each side that did the trick.

 

Right, you can reflow the bad RAM chips just as you would one of the Nvidia chips, but it isn't a permanent fix by any stretch of the imagination, and you will most likely have to do it again in the future. And again. And again. Eventually.

 

yes, sadly =(

 

I have 2 of them. The 2nd one had 7 motherboards and 5 video cards swapped out through warranty.
Now that warranty is over, and they won't sell me anymore, I am using a new one 2710 touch.

The M2010 is by far without dispute my favorite computer, ever.

 

chances are there are no issues with mobo, probably just the video card itself going bad. currently waiting for my T7600g to arrive, this will be the longest wait lol then I have to try to add backlit to that bluetooth keyboard lol, bought a seperate keyboard to test disassembly and a el-usb wire for backlit.

 

ah, anyone by any chance know the CF performance in this machine? I am deciding on a compact flash card but if performance is too low (read/write) then i'll skip on this.

the card I am looking at is Komputerbay 128GB Compact Flash Card CF 1000x 150MB s Extreme Speed UDMA 7 128GB | eBay

however according to wikipedia this laptop came out in may 2006 and CF 4.0 revision (133MB/s) also came out in 2006, CompactFlash - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

basically if this port is 3.0 then I'll skip the compact flash, if not I'll go for the purchase.



edit: T7600G works in this laptop but only at maximum 2.83ghz otherwise it will have clock mod or chipset throttling. unclewebb explained it maybe limit of motherboard or power adapter or even bios.

havent tried any other graphics card but don't got the money at the moment.

GPU fan, instead of connected to mobo the power and ground are hooked up directly to a USB port from the inside so it will spin up at right from the start, max fan speed and is much faster than when its connected to mobo.

WEI:
CPU 6.3
memory 6.1
GPU 5.9 (overclocked)
GPU 5.9 (overclocked)
disk 7.8 (raid 0)

 

Hi

Came across this thread while searching up on the M2010. I've got 2 of these old beasts! The first I've owned from new and had about 7 years. Didn't have any issues for first 5 years but GPU had failed twice since. Managed to get it going by baking it but not really a long term fix.

How have you wired your GPU fan to USB? I know the inside of this machine quite well but not sure how this would be done and what adapters you would need.

 

i'll take a picture for you tonight. you can also use hwinfo64 fan control to have GPU fan always run, but only at 2300 RPM which is much lower than soldering directly to usb port for power. don't need any adapter, just cable.

 

Any way you could post a picture of that mod?

I got one of these recently for free. Brand new condition with all the extras. She works fine right now but I would love to throw a different gpu in this. You know for science. Besides the Dell propriety slot, form factor, and power consumption what else is their to look for? Why can't I just plop a quadro GeForce go in this bad boy and call it a day?

 

well i have almost no time nowadays but my current process is at trying to get a bios mod out for this machine. GPU is pretty much dead end but tbh i havent tried what commander wolf suggested, an nvidia GPU mod to make this machine take it and when I do have extra cash i'll put it into this see how that turns out.

for CPU T7600G can definitely go towards 3.2+ ghz, or even with a bit extra PLL OC would help. problem is I can only clock as high as 2.5 or 2.6 at most, in idle I can even go towards 2.8ghz issue is that under load clock modulation and chipset clock modulation would throttle to just 25% of its original speed.. render machine usable until a hard restart.

with pllmod theres a tool forgot its name I could change pll and change FSB and make 2.6ghz stable but its rather annoying have to adjust it each time computer boots up (including restart). according to unclewebb throttlestop showing CPU throttle would likely be due to hardware limitation, or simply bios limits amount of current going into CPU, or PSU just SUCK. if it's PSU then theres also a need for dual PSU mod which I have no idea where to start at all.. (m18x people have done dual PSU mod guess i can start there)

other interesting things is GPU fan soldered directly to one of back usb port for full speed at all time, and another USB port to a internal usb wifi module for a 50mbps connection that can see 5G network. then replace existing wifi pcie card for something like sata adapter for an additional storage device..

 

also, my bluetooth keyboard stops working and can't connect at start up regardless of dell reset process.. and can't use it during post.. can only pick it up after window boots up quite annoying. anyone has a fix for this?

 

hi.I know that this is a dead issue, but it is still possible there are people who have this notebook as old junk and want to improve it any methods. I had the crazy idea to put in deLL XPS m2010 motherboard from Alienware m18x r3. can someone tell me the size of the motherboard m18x r3?

 

or input micro/pico-ITXe motherboad ???

 

mobo might fit but, display can only be 18"