Dell Studio 15 1558 Thread

Install quickset and it will sort out your issues.

 

Yes, here ... Quickset is your friend ...

 

Also ... looking at this picture ... no wonder the touch/mouse pad can get a little warm sometimes ... there is a heat sink sitting right under it.

I also like the fact that the motherboard battery is available for access.

 

I'm assuming this is normal but I'll ask anyway. If you look at the LCD (1080p) from the side, you can see three darker areas on middle of the top and bottom of the screen, is this normal? I'm assuming it's from the backlighting (it's most noticible on a white background).

 

I am looking forward to buy a Dell 1558 with I3-530m 4GB 1080P Intel Graphics and 9 Cell. How many hours of battery life can I expect?

 

Guys, I need help quick.
I'm going to order Studio 1558 in 2 days. I've previously settled on 1080p screen, but I've read many complaints about the text size being too small for comfortable reading. For photo, movies, it is fabuluous.
Can anyone confirm this ?

Is there any picture/image that compares the text size on 720p & 1080p ?
Thanks

 

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Intel X25-M Mainstream SSDSA2M080G2XXX 2.5

 

You can change adjust the text size and it will be fine.

 

Hi!

I recently got a 1558, and the problem I am having is the audio hissing when earphones are plugged in.

Does anybody here know a fix for this problem?

Thanks in advance.

Regards,

Dave

 

You can always zoom for larger text size on these type of software
IE/Firefox/Chrome/Word/Excel/Acrobat so text size being small will not be a problem while using these.

 

Sorry, missed your post. I ordered the 6300 separately after Dell messed me about a bit. History of the saga is buried in this monster thread!

 

After a fresh install of Win 7 I am having a couple of issues:
1. My audio on the bottom right icon has a cross and it when I trouble shoot it asks me too install the IDT audio driver. After the driver is installed it works fine and cross is gone. Problem is everytime I boot I have this issues and I have to isntall the driver. Also when cross is present then I have warning in device manager for IDT High Definition Audio Codec. (pic attached).

2. Cannot find the BT. I installed the BT program but I cannot find BT anywhere in programs or when I use the f2 key for wireless.

 

For audio install correct driver 6.10.0.6267 works fine.

For bluetooth there should be a blue icon on notification area, if not check notification area settings.

 

i got the i5 1558 last week and am generally happy with it apart from the DVD drive. It is a lot louder than my Dads Acer which is a tray type DVD. Does anyone else find the DVD drive excessively loud or is this a fault with mine?

Cheers

J

 

It is very loud... but I've come to learn that this is normal and nothing to worry about. I'd still prefer a slot-loading to a tray-loading DVD drive

 

Mine is loud too, sometime seems a plane is taking off.
Also clicks one or twice at reboot.

I am told this is normal.

 

Just be careful with the IDT drivers as they have been know to cause issues with low volume....I had the issue with low volume and once the IDT drivers were uninstalled and the microsoft drivers installed its back to normal....

 

Anyone? They seem almost too uniform to something wrong.

 

Is anybody else here getting occasional and random blue screen of deaths on their Studio 1558? Apparently it's due to a IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL issue and references ntoskrnl.exe (Windows file). This has happened to me both before and after a reformat. I'm using the A04 BIOS, but it also happened with the A03 BIOS.

Any insight would be much appreciated

 

No issue with mine.

 

it looks like clean instal the windows is more trouble than good things. at least for some so i dont even bother with it until i need too do so.......IMO

 

I did the clean install ... I wanted to get the 20GB back that Dell stole in the restore partition ... of course I saved the contents prior to wiping in case I needed to go back ... but it is nice to get that 20GB back.

 

I posted links to all the drivers required to get your machine back up and running with minimal hastle.

Your machine will fly with all the Dell stuff on it. But get rid of it and it'll fly much faster.

I had zero issues in wiping and doing a clean install.

 

hi guys ,my first post on here,i,m awaiting arrival of my dell 1558 from the outlet,its grade 1 scratch or dent ,black ,chainlink colour,i5 540 cpu,1 gig ati 5450 gpu ,4 gig ram ,1080p screen ,intell 6200 wifi,500 gig harddrive ,win 7 pro,it cost me £532 all in ,did i get a good deal ?? it states LG/PHILLIPS for the lcd display are they good ? what should i expect in terms of condition with a grade 1 scratch ,dent ? i,m hoping its not to bad

 

Could you provide a link to the download as I'm going round in circles on the AMD site!

When I installed v10.3, I got a file called catalyst_mobility_64-bit_util.exe which went off and downloaded all the bits and pieces.

 

Already tried 10.4 and the problem with the huge cursor occurred quite often with that version so I switched back to 10.3.

 

I have never ... knock on wood ... had this large cursor ...

 

I have the exact same problem. I have already discussed this issue in this thread (at the beginning of the thread You can find it by my name). Seems that we are the only 2 people who have this problem with 1558.

Unfortunately I haven't found any solution and belive me - I have searched for it!

 

Ah! Sorry for the late response! That is correct. The link will download a small file which will then download the necessary driver and Catalyst Control Panel.

Is the confusion on which one to pick?
I will have to double check, but I think I chose the Radeon (first) option.

 

Yah, confusion is on which one to pick. I can't even find the catalyst mobility pages! I must be really blind as a bat!

 

Here is that 10.4 Catalyst link:
ATI Catalyst? Mobility Display Driver

Not sure what happened on that other one. Either I posted the wrong one or they changed the URL... Prob. me!

 

what are the benefits of using the 10.4?

 

One thing of note that it DOES NOT SUPPORT:
"Switchable Graphics enabled notebooks using Intel chipsets." Probably have to stick with Dell drivers for the time being for that.

Release notes Check those out for all the skinny. There are LOTS of fixes in this release. See pages 5 through 8.
One thing of note that it DOES FIX:
"A high CPU usage is no longer observed when GPU encoding is enabled for dual
core systems".

 

emtownsend,
I have the same setup as yours except you have 7 Pro and I have Premium.
Have you installed 10.4? Any visible improvements?
My GPU already runs quite hot. Mostly 50-55C range so not sure if I want to load it any further. My CPU normally are around 45C and go to 60+C under load only.

BTW, I noticed ATI CCC contains a built video converter to convert from one format of video to another.
Also Creative X-Fi sound any good as I have heard noise issue with it so in my fresh install I have not installed it.

 

No real difference that I have noticed on day to day things which is about all I've been able to do so far. I wonder if the 10.4 driver will help the temps? I guess I can check mine out. What did you use for that?
One thing I noticed on both 10.3 and 10.4 is not being able to run any of the PCmark products. Actually, they run fine, but when it comes time to get my score, they all say "N/A". I was hoping to get scores and post those, but no such luck...
No noise at all on my X-Fi clean install. I use the headphone jacks to run to my desktop speakers and listen to my iTunes.
Let me see what I can find for the GPU temps and I'll post.

 

Just replaced my stock 320GB WD Scorpio Black 7200RPM with a 640GB Hitachi 5400RPM 8M drive. I don't notice any slowdown. It is nice to have all that room too. It is a dual 320GB platter design. It is very quiet as well.

 

I used PCWizard 2010 to check temps for CPU and GPU. You can get it from download.com

I guess I will install the X-Fi using the CD that came with the laptop if it is good.

Btw,
I see a completly different driver for the GPU as I have the one that is the latest at DELL. here is a snapshot

 

Hi, does anyone know if you buy a 1558 WITHOUT a backlit keyboard whether you can add one yourself later? As in, will it have all the connections you need? Before when I asked I didn't go into if the connections would be there.

Basically, I'm back to trying to decide whether to order online and save money with my 10% off code and Quidco (sales lady backtracked and now says I can't get the 10% off if I call to order, which is the only way to get them to give me a U.S. keyboard in the UK) and then put in a backlit U.S. keyboard myself, or pay way too much for the same thing just to have it come with the keyboard I want when the laptop arrives. I would like to know if I should save the 30 quid when I order online by NOT selecting the backlit keyboard option, as I'd be pulling that keyboard out and putting in my own, anyway. But if my backlit won't work if I don't order the keyboard to come backlit, then I'd better pay that extra 30 quid up front.

 

i,m led to believe that the connections are there,however ,ive just tried to buy a backlit keyboard from dell and they wanted £90,less 10% told me because mines a outlet machine they wont discount it further !!

 

I found one for £30 quid on another site, but now can't find the link or find it in Google. Well, there goes that idea.

 

Thanks for the heads up on the PCWizard. I'll check it out.
Here is the info from my 10.4 install:

Driver Packaging Version 8.712-100302b-096986C-ATI
Catalyst™ Version 09.7
Provider ATI Technologies Inc.
2D Driver Version 8.01.01.1010
2D Driver File Path /REGISTRY/MACHINE/SYSTEM/ControlSet001/Control/CLASS/{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}/0000
Direct3D Version 8.14.10.0735
OpenGL Version 6.14.10.9704
Catalyst™ Control Center Version 2010.0302.2233.40412

 

Video Benchmark cut and paste from PCWizard:

CPUIDMark Raster Lines : 90383.72 Marks
CPUIDMark Random Pixels : 245.08 Marks
CPUIDMark Random Lines : 21530.48 Marks
CPUIDMark Random Circles : 59.86 Marks
CPUIDMark Random Rectangles : 445.31 Marks
CPUIDMark FPS : 202.785 FPSMarks
CPUIDMark Video : : 112867

DirectX Benchmark:

Texture : 2116 FPS
Texture (Fullscreen) : 104 FPS
Particles 3D : 13 FPS
Vertex : 235 FPS
Billboard : 444 FPS

System:

Processor Global Performance : 102747.90 Marks
Cache and Memory Global Performance : 50394.00 Marks
Memory Global Performance : 13729.59 Marks
Video Global Performance : 619.00 Marks
Hard Disk Global Performance : 108.00 Marks
:
CPUIDMark System : : 16760

Current realtime stats:
CPU: 1312 MHz
CPU Temp: Varies from 114F to 230F
Core 1 load: 8%
Core 2 load: 0%
CPU Voltage Anywhere from .93 to 3.3
GFX temp: 125.6F
GFX load: 0%

All this with nothing running except background processes (like dropbox), and Firefox that I am typing in.

 

Anybody facing issues with catalyst 10.4??
My 3d mark 06 score went down from 3800 to 3400 after driver update.....

that's around 10% reduction!!!

Might need to roll back

 

Hum... I hadn't benchmarked before going to 10.4...

 

OK I ran the PCWizard2010 benchmark of the key components and here are thre results. Test was run with nothing running on the background

Processor Benchmark

CPUIDMark Mips (x86-32 Integer) : 38095.90 Marks
CPUIDMark MFlops Single Precision (x86-32 Float) : 42501.00 Marks
CPUIDMark MFlops Double Precision (x86-32 Float) : 26828.95 Marks
CPUIDMark Mandelbrot Parallelized (x86-32) : 41979.77 Marks
CPUIDMark Processor : : 37351 :


Video Benchmark

CPUIDMark Raster Lines : 229476.70 Marks
CPUIDMark Random Pixels : 613.88 Marks
CPUIDMark Random Lines : 53761.37 Marks
CPUIDMark Random Circles : 149.26 Marks
CPUIDMark Random Rectangles : 1113.68 Marks
CPUIDMark FPS : 509.35 FPSMarks
CPUIDMark Video : : 285624 :


Video/DirectX 3D Benchmark

Texture : 2296 FPS
Texture (Fullscreen) : 109 FPS
Particles 3D : 36 FPS
Vertex : 201 FPS
Billboard : 749 FPS


Multi-Thread Benchmark

Not Optimized : 11614.81 Marks
1 Thread : 14548.84 Marks
2 Parallel Threads : 26121.25 Marks
Saving of Time(Optimized / No optimized) : 25.26%
Saving of Time(2/1 Threads) : 79.54
CPUIDMark Threading : : 6248 :

 

Wow iafzal3, how did you get such high scores? Are you on the Dell drivers or ATI? If on Dell, then these 10.4 aren't all they are cracked up to be...
I'm just now downloading the new Starcraft II Beta and would love to play it on this laptop. I'm not kidding myself, I know it will be a stretch, but I would still like to do it and having the fastest drivers will really help!

 

I am running what is posted on Dell driver section. Just ran the benckmarks tab given on the bottom for indvidual components. Make sure nothing is loaded up or running when you run tests to get the correct results. Your results should be close to mine.
I played the SC II beta last week on this laptop. It runs well on medium to high setting but the laptop gets a little warm after a little while.

 

OK, rebooted, cleared all junk and re-ran the benches...
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
ATI Catalyst 10.4 running native 1920x1080 @ 100% (Dell defaults to 125% video)

Processor:
CPUIDMark Mips (x86-32 Integer) : 36979.90 Marks
CPUIDMark MFlops Single Precision (x86-32 Float) : 48621.95 Marks
CPUIDMark MFlops Double Precision (x86-32 Float) : 30703.95 Marks
CPUIDMark Mandelbrot Parallelized (x86-32) : 42034.47 Marks
CPUIDMark Processor : : 39585

Video:
CPUIDMark Raster Lines : 227786.20 Marks
CPUIDMark Random Pixels : 622.90 Marks
CPUIDMark Random Lines : 54178.39 Marks
CPUIDMark Random Circles : 150.17 Marks
CPUIDMark Random Rectangles : 1117.32 Marks
CPUIDMark FPS : 512.12 FPSMarks
CPUIDMark Video : : 284367 :

DirectX/3D:
Texture : 2263 FPS
Texture (Fullscreen) : 110 FPS
Particles 3D : 36 FPS
Vertex : 216 FPS
Billboard : 735 FPS

CPU:
CPUIDMark Cache L1 : 70003.56 Marks
CPUIDMark Cache L2 : 42469.20 Marks
CPUIDMark Cache L3 : 35421.52 Marks
CPUIDMark Memory : 32854.31 Marks
Latency Cache L1 : 3 cycles
Latency Cache L2 : 10 cycles
Latency Memory : 193 cycles
CPUIDMark Memory : : 41080

Multithreaded:
Not Optimized : 11672.02 Marks
1 Thread : 14628.44 Marks
2 Parallel Threads : 25488.10 Marks
Saving of Time(Optimized / No optimized) : 25.33%
Saving of Time(2/1 Threads) : 74.24%
CPUIDMark Threading : : 6279

CPUIDMark Mips (x86-32 Integer) : 36979.90 Marks
CPUIDMark MFlops Single Precision (x86-32 Float) : 48621.95 Marks
CPUIDMark MFlops Double Precision (x86-32 Float) : 30703.95 Marks
CPUIDMark Mandelbrot Parallelized (x86-32) : 42034.47 Marks
CPUIDMark Processor : : 39585

Benches for my new Hitachi 640GB 5400RPM 8MB Cache (320GBx2 platters) hard drive:
Sequential Writing : 75.6 MB/s (Cpu usage : 0%)
Sequential Read : 85.76 MB/s (Cpu usage : 2%)
Buffered Writing : 145.29 MB/s (Cpu usage : 6%)
Buffered Reading : 157.3 MB/s (Cpu usage : 8%)
Random Reading : 38 MB/s (Cpu usage : 14%)

Bandwidth 1 KB : 51426.64 MB/s
Bandwidth 2 KB : 50300.69 MB/s
Bandwidth 4 KB : 48931.46 MB/s
Bandwidth 8 KB : 52116.44 MB/s
Bandwidth 16 KB : 55818.14 MB/s
Bandwidth 32 KB : 55297.35 MB/s
Bandwidth 64 KB : 28796 MB/s
Bandwidth 128 KB : 28937.49 MB/s
Bandwidth 256 KB : 28928.79 MB/s
Bandwidth 512 KB : 26984.51 MB/s
Bandwidth 1 MB : 26840.01 MB/s
Bandwidth 2 MB : 26689.18 MB/s
Bandwidth 4 MB : 9606.27 MB/s
Bandwidth 8 MB : 9489.48 MB/s
Bandwidth 16 MB : 9584.55 MB/s
Bandwidth 32 MB : 9626.7 MB/s
Bandwidth 64 MB : 9624.74 MB/s
Bandwidth 128 MB : 9575.24 MB/s
Bandwidth 256 MB : 9476.14 MB/s
Bandwidth 512 MB : 9613.04 MB/s
Bandwidth 1024 MB : 9637.03 MB/s

 

What screen size does your laptop have? I could not tell from your sig ...

 

The 15.6" LED 1920x1080