9100 Question

I just got my 9100 last weekend. Below is my specs.

2.8GHz HT,
WSXGA+
256M RAM (I am planning to upgrade by myself.)
60G HD
64M Vedio Memory
4x DVD RW
...

The first look is amazing. But I have some doubts that I want share everyone.

(1) I am using WSXGA+. The font looks prefect. But images on Internet explorer always look fuzzy, and the images are all loaded much slower than my Pentium 2 desktop. For example, when I load NotebookReview.com, I can see the gray background slowly spread from top to bottem (1 to 2 seconds). Does anyone has similar experience?
(2) The first thing I want to do is reinstall Window XP pro. But I didn't receive a disk with all drivers on it, as mentioned on the owner's menu.
(3) The sound is clear, but I don't feel any effect of subwoofer. I can't hear any base sound as I heard from normal subwoofer.

Can anybody share their experience?

Thanks.

 

Hi smallapple,

I had exactly the same problem myself when I got my I8600 with WUXGA screen (fuzzy images, slow upload, notebookreview loading with grey background creeping up too slowly). Here's the solution!

Go into your Start menu and select Run. Type 'regedit' into the Open: command line window. Then navigate to the following key: HKEY_CURRENT_ USER/Software/Microsoft/Internet Explorer/Main/UseHR. The default setting for this is (Hex) 1. Right-click on that USEHR entry, select Modify, and change the setting to (Hex) 0. And voila! The problems will go away.....

Hope it all works out! Can't help you with the subwoofer as I have an 8600, but it may be that the sound setting aren't set up properly. Or maybe you're expecting too much from the laptop's subwoofer! I don't think it's supposed to be like a normal one.... [?]

 

As for the Drivers, go to www.dell.com and under support you should find the most up to date drivers for your laptop. You can then burn them to a CD and be ready to go.

 

Magiciaen, thanks for your answer. I will give it a try. Can you tell me what's that UseHR setting is for?

nesbo, dell tech support is going to mail the CD to me. Thanks for you post anyway!

 

I too have the kind of fuzzy text in some web stuff and the Notebookreview page loads slower and types slower than before. Can someone explain why this is to me rather than just a fix??
But web pages in general are much faster than my old laptop. And the text issue seems like some setting thing. Nothing to mean this isnt a good laptop.

As far as the subwoofer, Well Im an audio engineer that worked in major studios for 8 years. I say this because while I talk about laptops, I am not as knowledgeable about this as some people here so you should take any advice from me as something to think about, not the end all info.
But music and sound is my thing. And I can say this laptop sounds really good compared to ANY laptop Ive heard. Ive tried many in stores and my old one and this is way better. Regarding the subwoofer, well this is not going to give you boomy sound. It is a "sub" only in the sense that it probably only has low end frequencies routed to it. In other words, like large ones, the full signal of audio usually goes to the regular speakers (sometimes only the upper frequencies depending on the setup) and the low end audio goes to the sub. But you still need to push enough air to really hear that low end. This "sub" will not push much air but in relation to the tiny laptop speakers, it will handle the low end signal independently and with a little more power than the 2 regular speakers. Its kind of just relative. In relation to these tiny speakers, it is adding signifigant low end. Just like to two large speakers, a large sub adds more low end. If theres a way to turn off the sub speaker in here(havent checked yet), try that and see if theres a difference. Make sure you play something that has some good overall sound. Then see what this "sub" is doing. It is small enough though that it will never push enough air to "feel" the bass.
gotta go.
dave

 

PS, I dont know if youve looked at where the sub is but its in the battery. Its not that big. It is called a Subwoofer due to its function in relation to the normal speakers, not due to its size.

 

Hi smallapple & Sequoia225 (wow... sounds like a cocktail!),

The function of the UseHR registry key is to tell Internet Explorer whether to employ autoscaling for high resolution (that's what UseHR stands for "Use High Resolution"). The default value is set to '1' which means that IE6 automatically scales up the size of graphics and text to look normal size on the SXGA or UXGA screens. As you know, normal screen resolution is 96dpi. But on the UXGA it is 200dpi!! So the problem is people are designing their web pages for the lower resolution and not the higher one, so if you view it on a 200dpi screen without adjustment the text is too small. With UseHR set to '1', IE6 does this automatic rescaling.

The caveat then is it is slower to upload web pages (because of the time it takes to rescale) and the graphics then looks blocky compared to the resolution of the screen. (But at least the text is readable!). Now, by altering UseHR to the value of '0', what you are doing is switching off the auto-rescaling function in Explorer! So the display just displays as normal, with no rescaling. Upload time is faster, and fuzziness and blockyness goes away. Problem is that the text size is then really small. However, that doesn't really bother me 'cause it doesn't strain my eyes, but this may be an unacceptable sacrifice for some people....

Let me know if the solution works out for you!

By the way, here's a link to the Microsoft website that explains all this stuff:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/workshop/author/dhtml/overview/highdpi.asp

 

Ok Im confused.
Magiciaen,

I found a solution that is related to yours. But I havent changed anything in regedit....


SIDENOTE: I do a lot of customizing in many areas of software on my old and now new laptop and also took apart my former laptop to the last screw and fixed several problems so Im pretty good with laptops but REGEDIT is something I have no experience in messing with other than many people warn about it. So Ive never touched it out of fear of screwing it up and having no help to fix it. If I understood it better I may be more brave in dealing with it.
If someone could tell me a bit about this and why it is safe/unsafe for me go into regedit and change various things, I would appreciate it. I see many little cool things in PC magazine that deal with making these changes and am too afraid to try it.

OK BACK,

What I did regarding the screen/text/forum slow loading pages issue was go to Display settings, under advanced, and changed the DPI setting from large size (120) to normal size (96). This is under the ATI settings.
Is this the same thing that you did but a different way? If not, how is it different?
My text and things seem smaller but all text is clear now and the notebookreview forum pages now load instantly cause it doesnt redraw the backround.
So is what I did fine, wrong, different, stupid?????
Please shed some light here for me.
Thanks a bunch.
dave

 

thanx for the help guys. My roomate has a 8500 that had the same problem. This fixed it right away. (don't forget that you have to reload IE)

Anyway, I am planning on buying a 9100 in the next few days, and I appricate knowing this tidbit of info. thans again.


Zach

 

Hi Sequoia,

Nice solution man. But it isn't quite the same...... 'Cause now the general fonts for the laptop (e.g. on desktop etc.) are small, as well as in IE6. If you change the registry key, you are only turning off the autoscaling function in Explorer itself. The dpi settings for the windows, desktop etc. remain unaffected. In fact, you could even then go to Explorer and increase the text size without affecting the graphics resolution by going to view/text_size and choosing which one you wish for. The problem here though is that the increased text size is only increased for the main body of text in the page, not in the frames etc. But it's a compromise!

As long as you know what you're doing, messing with regedit isn't really a problem. In fact, if you make an exact note of what changes you made, you can always turn them back with no harm done. [^]

 

Do you happen to know of how I can learn more about the registry stuff so I will feel better about changing it??? Are the fixes that you mention and also the ones I see in PC Magazine going to be common to most systems despite the differences in hardware and software and brand?? Is it reversible if something gets messed up??

d

 

Probably the safest thing to do is backup any keys you change first. To do this, in the right side of Regedit, right-click on the selected folder and choose "Export". Give the file a name (it should end in .reg) and save it somewhere (maybe create a Registry Backup folder in your My Documents folder).

This will save the current settings for the registry key you are editing in the .reg file. Then, if anything goes wrong, you can restore the key by double clicking the .reg file.

The reason you are scared away from editing the registry is that many programs, including Windows, saves configuration settings there. If these get changed or corrupted, the program may not work as expected. However, careful changes such as this one won't do any harm.