Dell Studio 15 1558 Thread

I was planning on doing a fresh install. But I first thought I'd out the factory install first. I basically just uninstalled the stuff I didn't want... (DELL Dock, McAfee, etc...). And so far it's been working great.

I usually do a fresh install. But in this case it was not necessary. Although with a fresh install you can recover some space from your HDD though by reformatting the partitions (getting rid of Dell's recovery partition).

 

Agreed. Dell's image for the Studio 1558 is surprisingly not crapified. Takes far less time to remove the small amount of crap than to install every driver and go through all the boot cycles. Personally, I would leave the recovery partition along, just in case. At least three times in the past I've wished I could go back to factory default rather than a clean install because there was something wrong with the newest drivers posted to the site.

 

If you have a product like Acronis however, you could take an image of all of your partitions, prior to wiping them ... and then if you need to restore ... you can.

Funny thing though with this approach ... in the effort to clear up space ... you have to use space somewhere else

 

Too many computers, too many images at this point. I like to keep the factory restore and/or image on the hard drive of the computer it's for, if possible, in addition to a decrapified backup image elsewhere. I never trust a single backup to survive.

 

I'm wondering if it's necessary to update to this A06 bios thing? I've not heard much about it, and Dell didn't send out an email saying it was needed. If it's not I'd just as soon leave well enough alone.

 

A06 bricked my studio.

I have had a couple of occasional random shutdowns where it just switches off like the power was cut. I thought it might be a heat management issue with the BIOS, so I decided to upgrade (I had been on A04). I downloaded the package and ran it and it hung on "Verifying block 75 of 84..." I waited ages, but it was locked up tight: no mouse, no Ctrl+Alt+Del, not even the power button would shut it off. Eventually (after waiting quite a while longer), I had to pull out the battery. After that it wouldn't turn on. The power light comes on but nothing shows on the screen at all (not even the Dell log).

Called Dell and went through lots of troubleshooting with no success. The motherboard needs to be replaced. I only have mail-in service, but since it's so new, they're going to send a tech to me (good news because I'm leaving the country in a week and a half and won't be back for 2 months!).

As a bonus, I mentioned that I had one bright pixel and they said they'd replace the screen too (I didn't think they replaced for just one, so it was a nice surprise). Then, since they're replacing both MB and screen they offered me a refurb replacement instead which I probably would have taken if I was sure it would get here before I leave. But as it is they're coming out to fix it.

I found a thread about a similar issue with the BIOS update bricking the studio 1555 here. Apparently Dell eventually pulled that revision.

I don't know if this will affect others, but you may want to hold off a bit just in case..

 

Just updated to A6 from A5 without any problems. Did it because I have had issues with blue screen when resuming from hibernation/sleep.

 

does 1558 have Xp 64 bit drivers , coz i need to load Xp 64 bit for my office work ... hummm any ideas of procedure to follow fo installing Xp 64 bit.

 

I doubt you need Xp 64 bit fo yo office work as much as any 64 bit OS. 64bit xp is usually just for itanium processors (except 64-bit xp pro ). If you can, avoid 64-bit xp like the plague. Drivers will be few and far between, and it's highly unlikely more will be coming out. If you really need to install 64-bit xp, considering dual-booting to a more competent and complete installation as well, because at best you'll get something like safemode in the xp environment.

 

Might be worth installing xp64 it in vmware. If you get it all up and running ok, you can then wipe win7 and install it native.

 

I had a blue screen when resuming from sleep once too. Actually, when I reopened the laptop after it being in sleep mode overnight, it began the reboot process and after it rebooted it asked me if I'd like to send the error log file to Microsoft. As if it crashed while it was asleep. I haven't experienced that since. I'll post up here if I get it again. I'm on AO4 (from the factory).

Also, please keep us posted about if your A6 BIOS update from A04 clears up that problem.

Thanks,

Ben

 

Im glad I have absolutely no issues with my 1558

 

me either knock on wood

 

Have already had Dell send me a replacement hard drive and memory for what I think was a messed up accelerometer sensor in the drive, and now a tech is scheduled to come by Friday to swap out the mobo and hdd again (don't know why i need to swap the hdd again since the mobo SHOULD be identical) because it's still locking up on me.

 

I will also add that I am very pleased with this laptop. I am having a tech come by to check for a possible loose connection with the display. Sometimes when tilting the angle of the disply slightly it will flicker on and off.

But it doesn't happen often and when it does it always comes back on immediately. So it is still usable. But still, even with these few quirks, I am very pleased with this machine

 

One more doubt..
I have prepared recovery DVD's and want to to delete the recovery partition which is around 15 GB.

After deleting the partition I want to add the 15 Gb space to existing OS

ex : c: \ 15 GB Recovery d:\ 280 Gb OS

Delete C:\ and add it to D making it to 295 GB.

how do I do that.

 

Hehe don't get me wrong I'm absolutely pleased with my 1558

And I'll keep you posted if A06 fixes that bsod after sleep - so far so good

 

hi all ,
i want to install ubuntu 10.04 on my studio in dual boot mode.

i tried to install , it installed , but after restrting from second time onwards blank screen is coming and boot options are not coming ,

i tried for 4 times but unsuccessful , i did below steps

-my hdd is 320 so i seperated 200(for win 7) , 50 (for personal ) , 40 unallocated for linux

-inserted ubuntu 10.04 rc1 cd

- in fourth step when selecting disk , i selected manual option(3rd)
- and i selected 40GB unallocated and formatted to ext4 and selected as root and install
- after reboot in boot options i can see 4 options i selected win 7 and from win7 i restarted
- after that black screen coming , boot options are not coming


can anybody help me please ?

 

Ubuntu has had problems with video card drivers from the day first line of code was written for it.

You have to run it in vga mode or something. You can find help from ubuntu forums.

 

If it helps, I have ubuntu running in vmware and it runs beautifully.

 

Thanks, I think I'll leave well enough alone then. I've not been having any problems.

 

Hi, I'm looking at a studio to do music production with. Does anyone have any experience with this? Software i'd be using would be Serato, Tracktor Pro and Abelton Live 8.

The specs I was thinking about are:
Intel® Core™ i5-430M 2.26GHz (2.53GHz Turbo Mode, 3M cache)
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English
15.6” Full High Definition (1080p) High Brightness LED Display with TrueLife™ and Camera
4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR3 at 1066MHz
Intel® HD Graphics
8X Slot Load CD/DVD Burner (Dual Layer DVD+/-R Drive)
56 Whr Lithium Ion Battery (6 cell)
Dell 1501 Wireless-N
High Definition Audio 2.2

Please keep in mind i won't be gaming on this, and will most likely be buying and external sound card. Any thoughts would be appreciated .

Cheers!

 

I wacked A06 the other day. No issues thus far.

 

First off, grab the lts .iso, not the rc1. There were alot of changes between the two.
Are you saying you're not able to boot into Windows 7 or into Ubuntu? Unless you messed up Grub2, the Windows 7 partition and bootloader should have been left alone. You should be able to pop in a Win7 install or recovery cd, fix the bcd, and redo the ubuntu install. The best place to figure out what went wrong would be the ubuntu forums, though.

 

I did this on my 1558, and it was more complicated than I expected...

First, find a free partition editor that works in Windows 7 x64bit. I used Partition Wizard Home Edition. http://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html

Second, use the partition editor to delete D: (back up whatever you want to save from D!).

Third, use the partition editor to delete the recovery partition.

Fourth, use the partition editor to extend the C: drive to cover the remaining space.

Fifth, "Apply" all these changes; the partition editor will reboot your machine and make the changes you requested.

Sixth, (very important) Windows will not boot properly on the first try, since all the boot info was stored on the recovery partition. FIND YOUR WINDOWS 7 INSTALL DISK, and boot into it to rebuild your boot manager. I had to use the "repair" option two times before Windows booted up properly. Now my Win7 boots perfectly as expected.

Note: If you do not have the Windows 7 DVD, you must create a " Windows System Repair Disc." This guide ( http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/create-system-repair-disc-windows-7-and-vista/) will show you how to do it. (Windows 7 has a utility to burn a special repair disk; just type "repair" in your Start menu, and select the first option ("Create a System Repair Disk").

This process works, but you might want to ask a geek friend for help if this is the first time you've ever edited partitions.

Good luck!

Thomas

 

I got my studio 15 today and hooked it up to my TV via the HDMI. It worked immediately and I got great video and sound on myTV. However, the screen on the computer stayed on. I would like to use it to watch movies on my TV... is there a way to turn the computer monitor off while I am watching a movie through the HDMI connection?

 

push f1 until it says projector only

 

Just picked one up from the outlet.

First outlet purchase. So I'm crossing my fingers. But it was nearly 50% less than new after a coupon so I couldn't resist.

 

Was hoping someone has had some luck in fixing a "freeze" issue with the 1558. I ordered mine from costco.com, i7, 8gb ram, win 7 64 bit, ati 5470 1gb, 9 cell bat, 500gb seagate 7200.

The laptop freezes occasionally, no BSOD, just freeze and have to unplug, pop battery out and reboot. Happens at random times (surfing web, working in office, idle on desktop with nothing running in background). Happened many times the first few days, then nothing for a week or two, now happening once or twice a day again. Great laptop but this is getting annoying. Happened before I installed any additional software on computer.

Any suggestions? I have tried:
1) upgrade to A06 bios released on 6/1
2) complete reinstall of windows
3) Ran the FN-Power key diagonistic test on startup with no issues
4) All drivers and windows updates installed.
5) Ran Advanced System Care to clean registry
6) Contacted Dell Support.. No help beyond what I already did above.

I have a 90 day window to return to Costco if I need to.

Thanks in advance for any advice any readers may have.

 

Bet you have i7 720 - if so it's definitely a heating problem. Ask them to change the i7 to some new 32nm processor or downgrade to i5

Oh and after installing A06I haven't had any problems with bsod after sleep!

 

ok , i burned iso to cd ,

i am not able to boot into both , basically after system startup i am not getting boot options screen , only blank screen is coming , i have not touched any thing related to grub at the time of install.

please help me .

 

Try different video driver, on ati 10.3 I had that problem but on 10.4 was much better, on 10.5 had once but too soon to complain.

 

I upgraded to a06 bios and just noticed one difference. The battery charging rate gradually drops from 2900mW to 300mW(as reported by everest) and charging really gets painfully slow when charging from 80 to 90%.
Anyway, I guess that my only add days to the battery's life.

Has anybody else noticed the same thing??

 

Just making sure my system temps are not to high. Specs: Studio 1558, i5-520, 4gb ram, 320 gb hd, ati 4570 512mb. I am also using ati 10.5 drivers and bio A06.

While playing BFBC2 for about an hour my gpu temp was maxing out at 101 C and my processor is maxing out at 96 C according to gpu-z and HW monitor

Is this to high or is this normal?

 

I had the same problem til today. I went through a few rounds with tech support. I ran through 12 passes of memtest, three rounds of Dell boot diagnostics, and a number of Seagate diagnostic tools, BEFORE calling them, but they made me do it all over again. Tech support shipped me a new HDD and RAM, but that didnt solve the error. Called back in again, this time the swapped out everything inside but the CPU, heatsink, and WLAN card. So far it's stable. Burning hot though. Might need to call in and get the heatsink swapped now...

Reinstall? Not sure why you wouldn't be able to boot into either. I'd boot to LiveCD first and backup whatever you need first though.

Video drivers are unrelated to the lockup. I had lockups on Catalyst 8.692 (Dell's, I think), 10.3, 10.4, 10.5. Nothing to do with playing videos or games, it could happen when I was just writing out an email with nothing but a browser open (regardless of whether it's chrome, opera, or firefox)

 

hello,
i bought the dell studio 1558 and they didn't provide me with the windows7 installation disk. I want to do a clean installation of windows7 (not the factory setting). Can anybody tell me how can i do that without the installation disc.

 

Hi all, I just tried to install mp3directcut, and got a message that the self-extracting file was trying to create a path with invalid characters (bascially, that the name of the folder it was trying to create was wrong). I don't know if I should be worried about a program that has the file path wrong, but also, I couldn't see what was wrong with the folder name. Here is what it tried to create:

C:\Program Files (x86)\mp3DirectCut

Any idea why that wouldn't work?

 

My first issue, or disappointment?, with my 1558. I have Avatar in 1080p x264 BlueRay format. It's an .mkv file and Im using VLC to play it. Unfortunately my PC is struggling to actually play it.

Lots of freezing and pixelation. It's not a corrupted file as sometimes it works for a short while (10 secs without freezing). At the moment it's playing and its frozen 80% of the time but the sound is still going in the background. Half the time I get the "VLC.exe has stopped working" error too.

Im surprised at this as my PC should be able to cope with the load. In my Windows Task Manager it doesnt seem to be exhausting the CPU either. Not sure where the bottlenexking is actually happening here...

Anyone experienced this? The file im playing is 19GB in size..

 

Hey, have you try playing the file while you have your laptop plugged in?
ATI PowerPlay might be causing problems or the fact that your processor is set to it's minimum state when not plugged in, both in order to maximise battery life.

So just plug it in and try it!

 

I use it plugged in pretty much all the time. Ive tried a few things so far:
- Set it to High Performance in Windows Power Options on the battery
- Set it to High Performance in Windows Power Options in the charger
- Set it to Balanced in Windows Power Options on the battery
- Set it to Balanced in Windows Power Options in the charger

All the above yield the same stuttering result. I also did a forum search and saw people recommended downloading HWMOnitor - I thought maybe my pc could be throttling? Here's a screenshot of my HW Monitor when VLC freezes.



How do I go about changing the ATI PowerPlay stuff?

 

Just wondering, what resolutions are supported by a 1080p Studio 15? Like, if I thought 1920x1080 was too large for the 15" screen would I be able to drop it down to something like 1600x900?

 

odd though since I have the i3 but with 6gb of ram. Any blu ray I have played including any burned disc, I haven't had one play back problem yet. I wish I could help.


Btw, no major issues at all. However people are stupid. I bring my laptop to work. One person's like well its just a normal laptop my dad bought me one for $400 and they put mine down. Until I tell them its 6gb of ram, blu ray burner, full hd screen, 500gb hd. Now instead of putting it down they're all jealous instead,lol. I'm not saying its the best top of the line computer you can find but its better then the piece of s**t they bought for $400.

 

I got stuck with Tata Photon plus with windows 7 64bit. It installed but no signal and no net connection...any help

 

- 1920x1080
- 1680x1050
- 1600x900
- 1280x1024
- 1280x720
- 1024x768
- 800x600

Also, and even better, if you find things too small just set the text to Medium of Larger and it'll increase the text size to 125% or 150% respectively. It's an option in the screen resolution window. Your laptop will be set to Medium by default when you receive it (if you have the 1080p screen). This way it runs at 1080p but the txt is bigger - you keep the detail and the txt is simply resized.

I run mine on Smaller (100%) though, its no problem and takes a few hours for your eyes to adjust to the slihtly smaller than usual textsize.

 

It's frustrating as it's the only issue ive had with my laptop and it's a problem I think I really shouldnt have. It's defo not the CPU if you have an i3 and can run 1080p flawlessly.

 

Hey everyone. Had my recent order put on hold. I'll be switching my payment method on Monday since I'm unable to do it over the weekend apparently. Before I do so I wanted to make sure this was a decent deal. I do not plan to game on this at all. (I have a decent desktop for gaming.) It will mainly be used for work and my HDTV / media center remote + XBMC and Boxee.

$579 after tax and 15% discount for the following:

I think it seems like a pretty solid deal. But I wanted to go ahead and get some other opinions before finalizing the order on Monday. Thanks!

 

Bout the .mkv playback... I have a Dark Knight 1080p mkv video 14Gb in size n i had stuttering playback on windows media player classic n I had to change some codec settings on FFDshow video.. If u see the list of codecs... some say disabled and some say libavcodec... I changed some to libavcodec and it works flawlessly now.. I'll let u know specifics wen i find out!

 

Awesome info man. Thanks a lot! I'm looking forward to the specific details. Plz post em up when you get a chance. I even went as far as thinking my HDD wasn't fast enough and started considering an SSD. You'll save me £300, or ~$500, (rubbish markup in UK!) if you solve this one . Thanks mate

 

If you're running windows 7 then you don't need that ffdshow rubbish (bloatware). Just install mkv splitter, because windows 7 can decode x264 videos by default. It can even hardware accelerate x264 videos.

 

So .mkv splitter should sort out my stuttering issues?