1420 Is Here!! Pics Momentarily

that gadget thing on the side must EAT memory up

 

My gadgets from top to bottom are:

Battery Monitor
Shutdown Gadget
Multimeter(D)
Drive Info
iStat Wireless
NetGadget (flat option)
Accu-Weather Mini Forecast
SearchGadget (small graphic)

 

why would it? that's the vista sidebar. doesn't use as much memory as you think.

 

I'll get a read on the memory usage of the sidebar after I install 3DMark...I can tell you with it running I have 730 MB used.

 

Yeah but Vista itself eats like 500meg alone if not a bit more, with no sidebar.

 

I'll have a screenshot from the laptop in a minute, I've got the memory trace on the performance tab of the task manager going, so I'm letting it get solid state then I'm going to kill the sidebar, and see the difference.

It's really weird posting from two computers at the same time lol.

 

*awaiting 3dmark scores* kill everything before you run it to get the highest possible score

 

Ok I'm not going to bother with a screenshot...It dropped from 728 to 690 MB when I killed the Sidebar. Pretty negligble.

Oh and I have 64 running processes now with everything pretty much set up. (I didn't take a reading before I started uninstalling everything, sorry).

My XPS 410 with Vista Business has by comparison 67 processes running and this computer was done via reformat / clean install.

 

Actually to be daring I'm just going to restart and then run it. If I'm not happy with the score then I'll fiddle with killing apps and processes.

 

Ok I have restarted...I have 65 running processes, 690 MB of memory allocated. Starting 3DMark06 now, stay tuned for the results...

 

We have the same monitor and keyboard but I ordered a Vostro 1500.

 

1354, pics coming soon.

 

You all are going to hate me for the next post.

 

<- Why the heck does the first picture in any thread I post today not show up?? I keep having to post a duplicate image link so that the rest of my pictures show up.

 

1354? so if notebookcheck used a normal (not underclocked) DDR3 8400m GS card and got an average score of 1456 does that mean the 8400m GS that comes with the 1420s are not underclocked 128mb of DDR3?

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVidia-GeForce-8400M-GS.3709.0.html

wow the 8600m GT is a huge difference from the 8400m GS =\
it gets a score around 3500

 

Well yeah it has twice the memory bandwidth and twice the number of shaders and twice the amount of memory I'd expect it to do a tad better.

And don't start with the whole overclocked underclocked nonsense. We have no idea of the configuration of the 8400M GS that Notebook Check used.

All we know is that someone around here got a 1408 with an HP that has the 8400M GS and I got a 1354. I still haven't even looked in Rivatuner yet.

Oh yeah and NiBiTor doesn't work in Vista - it can't talk to the card BIOS so it's useless (ask me how I know).

 

is that a good 3dmark score?

I know very little about graphics...

 

What blows is because this isn't an approved driver I can't publish the project from the 3DMark website...

 

To give you a point of comparison, the XPS M1210 discrete graphics card, the nVidia GeForce M 7400, scores about a 700.

And it can run World of Warcraft and Fear just fine (I know, I've seen the videos).

This is just fine for this class of laptop.

My desktop with an ATI Radeon 1950 Pro with 512MB of GDDR3 SDRAM scores 4970 by comparison.

 

Hey phobos, what were all those things that came in your box? I only got like 3 cables. Take a look:

 

Here are the detailed results from the 3DMark website, I screenshotted them out of the project for everyone.

 

alulabear I always order a 2nd power brick.

 

hey phobos did you install the nvidia drivers from that one site...the one that has all the notebook GPU drivers i forget whats its called, its on multiple posts in the forum.

the hp one scoring higher than the dell laptop? hmmm i thought the hp 8400m gs only came with 64mb of dedicated memory

 

jkim here's what I wrote on the 3DMark ORB before I found I couldn't publish the results:

 

Here's a screenie from RivaTuner just now...

 

I was wrong it wasn't the HP it was the M1330:

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3826

Dell XPS M1330 (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, NVIDIA GeForce Go 8400M GS 128MB) 1,408 3DMarks

 

Does anyone how Intel x3100 will fair comparatively? Neither me nor my wife (primary user of the laptop) is a gamer but I would like to know if I have the possibility to play a new enough game once in a while on 1420 with x3100.

 

new driver + kill some processes = new score, but that doesnt' really matter too much to me. just glad to get some ball park numbers

 

oh okay. i thought the dell gods just hated me or something.

 

you won't be able to play "new games" with the x3100. games that require dedicated graphics card will most likely be frustrating to play if they run at all.

define "new enough game"

 

People say you can play World of Warcraft even with an X3100. I'm sure you can play lots of different stuff if you tweak the settings.

 

UPDATE ON THE BELKIN SLEEVE

I just put the laptop in the case. As I was putting it in I suddenly realized it might not fit with the 9-cell battery...

BUT it fit fine. Oh, and the zipper unzips a bit more than I originally noticed - it goes about 3/4 of the way around the edge of the case...

 

Hey Phobos: You know what I find a bit odd. People have said the 9 cell sticks out on the 1520 as well. Yet if you ever had a 1505, the 9 cell was flush. I wonder what Dell did to make the batteries stick out more. Maybe push the butt in of the laptop?

 

the batteries in the 1505/6000/6400 series all go on the bottom of the laptop.

since the case was redesigned for the 20's the battery setup has been relocated, probably to keep it less hot.

 

the 1420 is mighty sexy phobos =)

i'm not too thrilled about how easily the jet black lid absorbs oil from your fingers. are you having the same problem?

 

yeah just saw that.. it's like they slide in the back like a express card or memory card almost.l

 

Yeah. I washed my hands soap and water immediately before I touched the thing and still...finger prints.

Oh well, no biggie.

 

Ok so my laptop has been on for all of about 5 minutes since I turned it on the first time at 1215pm today. So it's been on for basically 9 and a half hours straight. I can tell you that the exhaust is warm, and the left side palmrest is warm also.

Neither are remotely close to what I personally would consider hot.

Can anyone recommend a utility to do temp monitoring? I haven't done that since I used to build my computers on my own. Back then I used Motherboard Monitor but that's long gone...

 

use speedfan

 

I8kfanGUI most likely would work...designed specifically for Dell Inspirons...

 

Ok this is working...My CPU temp is 53C right now...It's probably in the 80s ambient in my room here.

I'm going to loadup Orthos and see what happens...

 

World of Warcraft...

 

That's average, not real different from the 05's

 

Ok I'm confused...Speedfan says 39/41 while i8kfangui says 55/57...???

I think for the time being I'm not going to trust either.

 

Hey Phobos, have you adjusted your display settings yet? Brightness, Contrast, etc. I feel like the factory settings are just kinda washed out. I was wondering if there was a good way to do this process.

 

Haven't fiddled with it at all

 

Hey Phobos, any chance you could put the 1420 manual up someplace? I can't find it online at Dell.

Edit::: Just found it buried underneath everything of course.

 

can you post the windows vista experience index?

 

hey hey hows the measurement phobos
in anycase, have you thought about doing a full review for us at NBR? you do get paid for it