Dell 1537-laptop newbie

Hi,

I've bought a Dell 1537 laptop. It is a P8400, 3GB, 250GB, GMA4500MHD, TrueLife 1280x800.
I have some problems with it, and since I'm new to the world of laptops, I thought you might help me out.

I was very dissapointed when I discovered that it has no support for WinXP.
I've installed Vista SP1 Business, but I still miss my trusty XP.
I've seen that there are some XP drivers on samsware, but I wouldn't install them unless I was assured that they are as good as the latest ones from Dell.
(I've installed the latest ones, and flashed the BIOS to A08)

Here are some of my problems:
1)There is a constant noise, from the moment I start the laptop, it sounds like the fan, but I think it's from the HDD(Hitachi HTS543225L9A300). Why would the fan kick in it the cpu has the room temp? I've heard the fan, but when the CPU touched 50C.
Is there any chance I could get rid off this noise?
Also can I lower the noise of the HDD when it writes?

2)Sometimes I also hear a high pitched noise, I think it's that CPU whine problem. Is there a solution for it?

3)I've removed the IDT drivers, and let Vista install its own, the sound improved a lot, but there still is some sort of a resonance, at medium to high levels. Anyone else had this problem?

4)Can I adjust the size of the memory shared for the video card?

5)I have the impression that the image is not that smooth(I can see the pixels quite clear, and rounded letters/objects seem "pixelated"), and that I have to take a bit of distance from the LCD, to improve it(I'm using the native resolution, the dpi is set to the lowest level, 96dpi if I remember correctly).
Any advices?
(The colours are OK, but the angles are awful.)

6)Can I hide the partition that came with the laptop? Dunno for sure, what's on it, I assume it is MediaDirect.

7)Is there any chance I could use an external eSATA hdd and boot OS from it?


I look forward to reading your advices and thoughts.

Regards,
Nick

 

Hey there!

You just received your new lappy and are having all these troubles???

My suggestion to you would be to take advantage of the 21 day return for a refund or a replacement for a *new* one..and get a new one.

Unless, you want to call Dell and have them fix all these issues.

I say this..because..in todays economy..and the money you just spent on the lappy, you shouldn't have to spend any time, fixing or remedying these problems yourself.

You didn't get what you paid for. You paid for a new lappy...and it should perform at 100% with no faults.

So it's up to you...try and remedy yourself, call Dell have them fix under warranty, or simply return for a replacement of a new one...

I would take the latter of the choices!

Cin

 

I'm wondering if there's anything that can be fixed. I think that the whole 1537/studio 15 range has these problems.
And, I live in Romania, I don't think I would get my money back or a new laptop, though I would want it.

 

It's not every Studio 15 that has these problems. Mine does not have a loud hard drive at all, nor any CPU whine.

 

Ok your in Romania..you have a completely different return policy vs. the US.. If you are going to persue a return or a replacement for new..you need to *hop* on that right away per se!

Someone I know very well has the S15, and has no problems with it..so yours could just be an isolated case. Don't give up on it.

Just contact Dell and have them either fix the problems or replace for new.


Cin

 

I have the same hard drive as you, and I too have a constant "whirr" noise coming from the drive. I suspect this is probably what you are hearing as well. Just as you, I thought it was the fan kicking on and running constantly... but after further investation, I realized it was the HDD.

I only notice the noise when I'm in a completely quiet room, but it can be distracting after a while. The access noise for this drive seems to be very good, in my opinion... very quiet. Just the constant "whirr".

I've decided not to fret about it, as I intend to upgrade to a SSD at some point down the road. But if it bothers you, you might want to return the lappy to Dell while you still can.

Just my .02...
--Eric

 

Thank you guys for your support, I really appreciate it.

I've entered the service tag on Dell.com but I couldn't contact the technical support, it says that the laptop was bought outside US. I've tried on Dell.ro, but they don't have any type of internet based support, they only have a phone technical support(IMHO it's better in writing than by phone).
Should I call them?(I'm expecting some fast/rude answers)
Meantime, I've sent an email to the shop that I bought it from.

Oh, did I mention that one of the 4feets doesn't make contact with the sitting surface? I believe that either it is shorter, either the plastic was badly molded.

 

LE: I've got a message from the shop i bought it from. They say that they will replace it.

On Wednesday, I'm going to the shop to replace it. I wish I could replace it today. And at the same time, I'm wondering if I'm doing the right thing....Should I expect other problems with the new one?
I'm pretty sure that I can't get rid off that HDD noise, CPU whine, speaker resonance and the unsmooth screen.

 

I'm glad they are replacing it for you. I don't expect you to have any prob with your replacement one...think positive

Cin

 

I've heard a lot of complaints against Hitachi hard drives being noisy. Your exchange system may have another noisy Hitachi drive or a quieter Western Digital drive. Either way, it won't hurt and there might be a chance you get a quieter drive.

 

My WD drive is dead silent. I couldn't tell you about the Hitachi drives, though; I've never used one. If it's really unbearable, you could always buy a quieter Western Digital or Seagate drive and install it yourself. It's an extremely simple process.

I have never had any CPU whine and my display is perfectly flat and smooth. I'm sure a replacement will get rid of these issues.

 

my WD is not dead silent, but it is silent enough
I don't heart it 97% of the time

 

I hope that the replacement will solve my problems.
This is what Everest shows for the LCD screen:

 

I've got it replaced.
It has the same HDD(Hitachi HTS543225L9A300), same motor noise...but it's a bit more silent when writing.
There still is a high pitched noise, but only sometimes.I've discovered that the real CPU Whine is much much more bothering.

This model has no badly molded plastic. All feet make contact with the surface, and the plastic that sits over the speakers is perfectly flat.

The display is the same. In Vista, do I have any chance to make the icons appear smaller? The actual 7-8 vertical icons are not enough.

Can I hide the partition that came with the laptop? Dunno for sure, what's on it, I assume it is MediaDirect/FreeDOS.

Is there any chance I could use an external eSATA hdd and boot OS from it?

Has anyone experimented with WinXP drivers? Would Vista have any kind of advantege over WinXP?
I really want to switch to XP.

Thank you.

 

Glad to hear the more annoying issues have gone away.

Also, if your BIOS supports it, you can enable HDD Acoustic Mode to make your hard drive run a little slower, but noticeably quieter.

Right click anywhere on the desktop, and select "View". You should have the options of Medium, Large, or Classic icons. I believe Medium is the default. Try Classic, they are smaller and you can fit more on the screen.

I don't know about hiding it, but I erased mine. I never used MediaDirect and I wanted the space.

eSATA does work with the hybrid USB/eSATA port on the left, though I'm not sure if you can boot from it. I would guess that you cannot.

There are a few threads about getting XP to work on the Studio 15 series, with resources for the drivers required to run, since Dell does not officially support XP for this model.

If I were you, I would just get used to Vista. It's a superior operating system to XP in pretty much every way, and the Studio 15 is more than powerful enough to take advantage of it.

 

Are there real advantages over WinXP? (better functionality, better laptop control[ex. power management schemes, or similar stuff, etc.])
I'm thinking at that extra space(Vista takes ~18GBs more than XP)
I'm worried about that on XP I wouldn't be able to get rid off the latest discovered bugs, and to take advantage of the newest improvements, that Dell drivers should take care of. (Otherwise, now I would have had the Bliss desktop theme

 

Vista is a newer operating system, and comes with all the advantages that you would expect out of that. Better security, frequent and painless automatic updates if you want them, stability (I've gotten far fewer Blue Screens with Vista on two computers than I ever did with XP), and of course, neat features. As for the increase in size...well, XP took more hard drive space than Windows 98, which took more than 95, which took more than 3.1, which took more than DOS. It's just the logical progression. Operating systems and software get more advanced, and by consequence, bigger, and the standard sizes of hard drive grow comparably. When I first got Windows XP, 120GB was considered a pretty big hard drive. Now I got 320GB with this laptop because it was the cheapest option.

Of course, there's also the fact that Dell does not support Windows XP on the Studio 1537. It was never offered as an option, and Dell does not have official drivers for the 1537's hardware for XP. All the drivers currently available were hunted down all over the internet from third parties. Also, you can still download the Bliss wallpaper for Vista if you want it. (Although Bliss is originally a 4:3 aspect ratio wallpaper, so it will look awkward and stretched on the 1537's 16:10 widescreen display)

I'll put it this way: there's no good reason not to get Vista over XP, if your computer can run it (and the Studio 15 kicks Vista all over the sidewalk).

 

After reading the dedicated topic for installing WinXP on Studio 15, I've decided to remain with Vista.
But, Vista is much more sensitive when it comes to crashes, resets,etc.
On both laptops(the first one and the replacement one) I had some discs that couldn't be read, and the eject button or the shortcut for it did not work. The system did not want to respond anymore, or it had a huge lag, so I decided to power it off(the hard way, by keeping the power button pressed). When powered on again, it asked for the Windows Vista DVD, because something got corrupted and needed a repair.

 

Problems again, I wanted to install a game and on the fifth CD, the installation stalled, I've tried to eject the CD, but did not work, and I had to do a forced shutdown, because the laptop did not respond anymore. Ofc, Vista got damaged and asked for the DVD, in order to repair itself.
I've updated to the last firmware. The DVD-RW is the TSST model.

A few hours ago I tried some multisession, unfinalized DVD's and it hardly read 2 out of 6. To remove the ones that couldn't be read I had to restart the system,because the eject button didn't work anymore. But in order to restart and not to shut down forced, I have to wait till it decides to spin down the disc, about 5-10mins.

Now even the Vista DVD isn't recognized anymore. After I insert it, it spins a bit, then it sounds like it's struggling to read, and then it stops. (This takes about 3-5mins)
Surprisingly some CDs work with it.

 

Why can't I video chat? / Whats wrong with my camera?

I just got a dell studio 1537 with the integrated 2.0 megapixel camera and facial recognition. I have been using the camera for the past 2 days now and everything has worked fine, i was video chatting fine two days ago on digsby, where i could be seen and heard perfectly, but now i can't video chat at all. It went from being perfect two days ago, to not being able to see me but you could still hear me earlier today, to now not being able to see or hear me. When using the camera with the preinstalled software everything works fine, but for some reason i'm not able to video chat or record videos on AIM, digsby, and facebook (only ones i have tried). On facebook it says that my camera cannot be found or is being used by another program, which doesn't make sense because it is built in. The only things i have done in the past 2 days is download firefox, and AIM.............please help me figure out whats wrong with it

 

Try reinstalling your webcam driver from your drivers disk. If that doesn't help you can perform a system restore back to 2 days ago when your webcam was working properly.

 

If you're using the factory installation of Vista, I highly recommend that you reformat and re-install Vista. I had nothing but issues with my 1535's factory installation. Audio kept cutting out every time I plugged in HDMI, requiring me to do a System Restore after every time I used it. And after a while, even that stopped working. I ended up reformatting and installing Vista from scratch using the disk Dell provided, and never had that issue again. A few months later I reinstalled again, this time with Vista 64-bit instead of 32, and to this day I have not had any of those issues.

 

What should I use to calibrate the colors for the LCD screen?