Dell Inspiron 9400 With Intel Duo Core Available (specs)

Got a phonecall from my contact on Dell here in Sweden and he said that there are no delays here. My order is to be shipped in about two weeks. And i got the 2GHz.

 

Oh yeah! I just checked mine also. It went into production mode also. My estimated delivery is now posted as January 27th again. Woohoo!! I wonder though if the laptop comes with a security lock and cable? Anyone know?

 

Well lots of action here in the last day!! I just checked my order and now I too have a delivery date of February 1st!!!

Sooooo excited. My only concern is from the limited information/reviews out there they Go 7800 card doesn't sound like it's all that great.

Does anyone know if we can upgrade the video card to the Go 7800 GTX - can the 9400 take it? Note: I don't care at all about battery life, I'm going to be plugged in almost always anyways.

The only reviews I've found are the same one posted over again (with some slight wording changes but obviously the same review). I've searched for hours every day since Jan. 9th trying to find out any and all info about the 9400 and specificaly the Go 78000.

Maybe everyone can post any links to reviews they find here? When will NotebookReview.com have a review?

 

Security cable was an extra option I believe. (i didn't buy one from dell)

 

Can you guys buy separate graphiccards over there? The PCIe ones.

EDIT

From what I've heard, the 7800Go is better than Go6800Ultra but not as good as Go7800GTX.

 

well if you read the manual(the link fff found)..you can't upgrade the graphics core.

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Nvidia has almost got the tech available to make such a switch easy in future lappies.

 

It seems that people have been able to upgrade the GPU in the Inspiron 9300's so I would think you could in the 9400 too? I didn't see it in the manual either (not too much in it really) but still hope it's an undocumented ability.

 

I ordered my 9400 on the 15th, but the very next day, Dell automatically cancelled my order! They then ordered me the same laptop...but it was cancelled again!!!! They called me today and told me they were having problems with the computers or with the special offers or something, but I finally managed to order my laptop over the phone I really cant wait...1.83 ghz, WUXGA screen, 1 gig ram

The estimated delivery date is the 20th of February tho

 

The manual just seems to describe replacing parts that are accessbile via panels on the bottom. You just probably have to completely disassemble the laptop to replace the GPU and they're not going to describe how to do that in the manual. Just guessing though.

 

Flame X - what country are you ordering from? 20 days later then my delivery date in Canada (ordered on the 9th).

 

Im from the UK...but I dont really understand, because on the .pdf document I got, it said the 20th of Feb, but over the phone I was told that it should dispatch within 5-6 days :S

I would love it if I could go and personally pick it up, since the Dell headquarters is only 10 minutes from my house

I do have a question tho...does anyone think the 1920x1200 resolution is too high? I ordered it, but im worried maybe it will be too much on my eyes. I know it will look great for gaming, but you know...Ive heard about apparanty "white glowing" issues, but im not too bothered about that.

 

Flame X:...so did your system end up costing you more?
I have a bad feeling they are backing out of their coupons in a most unfair way. Time will tell. My friend's order is still in flux with the threat of cancelling due to "technical difficulties" --a bogus reason given so many here say their orders now have a ship date and not a cancel date.

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I did not know you could upgrade the Inspiron 9300's graphic subsystem. But i did read on the forum's that Dell's XPS line allowed for 1 graphics update (which, with the manual,..is why assumed you would not be able to.)

 

even though today was the deadline for the special offers, I still ended up paying the same ammount of money, so no I didn't pay extra (thankfully).

 

That cannot be done with the Inspiron 9400 and e1705. The only reason the Inspiron 9300 can be upgraded to the 7800gtx (voiding warranty) is that the Insprion 9300 and XPS m170 use the same motherboard. They have separate bios applications to accomodate the name. You can flash the Inspiron 9300 bios with a cracked version of the XPS m170 bios to change the bios to a XPS bios meaning a 7800gtx card can be installed. Now the Inspirion 9400 and e1705 have a new motherboard, and it seems as if the regular 7800go is locked for the machine. And you cannot flash the machine with a XPS bios because of the change in motherboard. I know it sucks....

The XPS machine this is talking about is the XPS Gen2 which had the 6800Ultra. You can purchase the 7800gtx from Dell for $599(Don't get it from Dell) and upgrade the XPS Gen2 to the XPS m170 specs with the 7800gtx card. The video card and a new name were the difference between the XPS Gen2 and m170. Hope this clears up everything.

 

So the 7800Go is not a "downtuned" 7800GTX? It cannot be "unlocked" into a GTX? If not so, is it possible to increase it's performance in any other way?
EDIT
I understand that the graphicscard itself cannot be changed, what I mean is if the software can be modified.

Sorry, my english is not perfect, so i didn't quite understand everything, ccbr01


Fredrik, Sweden

 

Well, after getting no satisfaction on getting a real world status on my order which was to arrive yesterday I managed to escalate the issue from customer service->sales rep->sales supervisor->sales manager->district sales manager. Eventually I got some news on the delay and I am none too pleased. I was disapointed to have to go to such lengths just to get the status. At this point I am not optimistic about future service levels from Dell.

Anyway, I was eventually told that there has been issues in sourcing some parts which I assume is the cpu. My delivery has been delayed for a month. All orders have been cancelled and re-input with new dates. I probably should have cancelled and gotten something from another vendor but for some reason I didn't... or at least haven't yet.

They were, apparently, aware of this issue on the day they were initially offered for sale and the sales reps were to inform the buyers of the the pre-order status and delayed production. I guess they dropped that ball. Sales was obvioisly not made aware of the situation.

While I am sure that it will be a solid product when finally built Dell has dropped somewhat on my vendor priority list and will likely recieve a few less orders from my company as a result.

 

A month delay!! I just checked my status at dell.ca and it still says Feb. 1st for mine. (fingers crossed) Seems others posting have even earlier delivery dates.

I was worried until this morning because i didn't have a shipping date at all displayed but seeing one today has encouraged me until reading your post.

Who knows when anyone will actually get one at this point.

 

ah..now that has the ring of truth to it.



edit: I think this delay only effects those who upgraded cpu to the 2 ghz 1. That's my read on what people have said on this thread. Makes double sense since my friend ordered the upgrade and his order status is in limbo currently.

 

RedStar that's what I've been thinking too but someone did post they ordered the 2ghz processor and DID have a delivery estimate. Even still they might have a short supply of 2ghz processors and only the lucky few will get them initially. Using that rational this could be a good theory!

For now I guess I'm happy to have ordered the slower processor. ha ha ha. (i just didn't see the value for such a small increase in speed - compounded or what ever it is in speed)

 

Fredrik,
( http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=37318&highlight=nvidia+7800)
This link explains the 7800go and 7800gtx go. Yes you can "overclock" the 7800go to have boost in performance but not the same performance as the 7800gtx. In order to do this, you must use non-Dell video drivers like the Mobileforce drivers at tweaksrus.com. Does that clear up anything?

 

As I said earlier, I talked to my contact at Dell here in Sweden, and here there are no delays according to him. My money got hung up in the bank so now my shipping date is set to in about two weeks(early february). Otherwise it would have been shipped jan 26th. I ordered the 2GHz one. But I guess that Europe and America has separate stocks(don't know if it's the right word to use) of CPUs(aswell as other components), maybe there are more over here.

Yes, thank you very much ccbr01. One last question to you; is it worth the effort of overclocking the 7800Go?


Fredrik, Sweden

 

Performance yes, but I don't overclock my 6800 because that voids warranty that I paid 200 dollars for. I just do not want to void my warranty.

 

I wouldn't worry about it too much. We know from Nvidia's site that the 7800Go is faster than the 6800 Ultra and has all the newer features as the 7 series like HD DVD and Blue Ray decoding ability, as well as more efficient power usage and pixel pipeline performance. Theoretically it should be upgradable because it isn't integrated and should have the same pin configuration as the 7800GTX.. I"m sure there will be some sort of hack to do it in the future.

 

Okay, thank you. I'm not going to do it either, just curious

 

I also think the same for this. When people start messing with the dell bios, it will be cracked. I'm hoping that when the i9300 phases out, the 7800go will be released for the old i9300 or I will be voiding my warranty in about a year...haha (probably not)

 

Are you saying that just using non dell drivers would void my warrenty? That seems unfair if true.

 

No, I am not saying that. Just that flashing the bios with XPS and installing 7800gtx will. Changing drivers doesn't. I run mobileforce drivers from www.tweaksrus.com. I just don't overclock though. That voids warranty.

 

Okay that makes sense. How much beter are the drivers from tweaksrus? Much of a performance increase?

 

With stock dell drivers, I got a 160million pixels per second at www.pcpitstop.com. Now I get close to 300million pixels per second with non dell drivers

 

I checked my status today and my order was closed and a new one opened. The delivery date has changed to the 1 of February. Reason for delay "System error".......

Anyone else have this happen to them today? My original delivery date was yesterday, so I'm kinda pissed about the whole situation, especially since there hasn't been any communication from Dell at all.

 

Yeah, I got some kind of message saying there was either a billing missmatch or some kind of a system error. Hmmm. No estimated delivery date now.

 

Man thats a huge difference! Looks like it's well worth changing the drivers.

 

Choked As well by Dell:

Delivery date of your product might have been changed.
This could have been prompted by the following circumstances:
Mismatch between billing and credit card information.
A system issue that interrupted the order entry flow
If the above occurred as a result of mismatched billing information, you will be contacted directly by one of our representatives within the next 2-3 business days.
If this does not happen, feel free to contact us

what a bunch of crap. I'm pissed off big time.

 

Well I just got off the phone with Dell, just so I can check up on the status of my laptop. They just confirmed that they did indeed cancel TWO of my orders, and that my third (and final) order doesnt appear to be having any problems. Its gonna be going into production tomorow, and I should recieve it late next week/early next next week. Im just a little paranoid tho...I just KNOW something annoying is going to happen with my order :s

And another thing, I just looked at the dell website, and it looks as if they are offering free delivery, which is very annoying because that means I just wasted 60 pounds!

 

Im sorry, but can you please give me the exact link to he driver that I should use for the 7800Go? Thanks alot

 

Just got off the phone with Dell as well and they told me the same thing, my order was cancelled twice by the sales rep and re-entered yet again today and the order will be in production within the next hour she said. She is having the sales rep call to verify that my laptops have the correct configuration.

What a mess. What is going on. Why are orders being cancelled and re-created like this. I kid you not, I started the purchase process on Jan. 5th. After at least 8 hours time calls/email/website I finally got an order number on Jan. 9th. Then no delivery date posted for my order # until yesterday. Now today this mess with cancelled orders/new orders.

When and if I ever get the laptops then I'll believe it. I ordered from the small business division in December and didn't have any problems (comparatively) but ordering from the Home division is not something I would recommend to anyone ever and I doubt I will ever order from Dell again period. The most unorganized company in the world - DELL.

 

well i was told it would ship in 25 days from the 9th (true it took a bit of prompting).

All this rigamaroll means nothing to me...as long as the laptop shows up. As i noted before..it only matters if the order is outright cancelled and i lose the pricing.

I went into this wary of DELL..and having been looking for the other shoe to drop.

I'd rather have minor confusions about selling the thing...than to have it be an admission months later that some part was defective... like the a8N-sli deluxe with the cursed chipset fan problem/nvidia ethernet port death syndrome.

Perhaps Dell only recently outsourced its tech/sales support to India..so there are still teething problems and catchup at work...

 

Here's an Australian preview of the i9400 posted yesterday:

http://cnet.com.au/mobilecomputing/notebooks/0,39029096,40059645,00.htm

not too much info here but thought I would post the link.

 

Thanks for the URL Flames. Yeah, they re-did my order as well and now the delivery date will be February 4th instead of Jan. 27th. I don't mind waiting an extra week, so long as they don't pull this over me again. The guy gave some lame excuse about software expiring ... yeah right!

 

Lol you got burned on that Asus board too hey? I was lucky enough to have it replaced free of charge though. Never encountered the port death though.

 

( http://www.tweaksrus.com/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=163&Itemid=41/)
This is the link to the Moblieforce drivers by Tru. I am running version 81.95. I hope this helps.

 

Thanks for the link!

Here is some interesting news for those laptops with MXM standard graphics modules (which by the way is used with the 7800Go series) from Hard OCP

"Consumer Benefits


This is of course the most important aspect to you and me. Buying a laptop that uses a MXM video card module by design is upgradeable. This means at some point, you should be able to go out and purchase a better module to install in it giving you whatever features and performance the upgrade would afford you. Many of us that would like to buy laptops for LAN Gaming have not due to the fact that we felt locked in with what could be a very expensive investment. And certainly an investment with a limited time of return before the next best thing was out on the market and all of a sudden your $2500 laptop gives questionable performance with newer games.



Talking to NVIDIA, they have explained to us that they have been very forward looking in their specifications, hopefully allowing for MXM to have a long life. We were told that NVIDIA is counting on this current MXM module specification to be around for 3 to 5 years. That would of course cover a few generations of video technology. They have taken thermals and power needs into consideration of course and feel confident that the MXM spec will hold true to allow for a robust line of upgradeable modules to be for sale in the future.
"

Another site says that MXM graphic card replacement will only be possible on middle to large sized laptops. Since the 9400 is friggin huge, I don't think that will be a problem..

 

So, the e1705 and i9400 have a mxm slot? That is interesting. The 6800go, 6800ultrago, and 7800gtx are not mxm. It is a Dell slot that is used with the Nvidia/Ati external cards. I thought the regular 7800go would be the Dell slot too.

Edit: The notebook video card industry isn't like its desktop counterpart. Notebook companies can regulate which card can go into the machine by way of the bios. That is why you can't put a 7800gtx go into a i9300 unless you change the i9300 bios to a XPS bios. I am glad to see a standard coming, but I don't see upgrading to any graphic card being a thing. Marketing scheme you could say.

 

9400 does not have an MXM-based graphicscard.

 

So it is the same pin connection configuration. Thanks Fredrik.

 

The only laptop i've seen with MXM-gpu is the SHG 8600. And as far as i can tell from nVidia's site the only GPU series available in MXMformat is the 6-series.

EDIT

A search for 'MXM' on ATI's site gives no result.

 

Ati uses a standard called AXIOM. That is why Dell made a slot that would accept both Ati and Nvidia cards.

 

OK, so AXIOM is to ATI, what MXM is to nVidia?


Fredrik, Sweden

 

Two standards. Desktops have one standard (PCI Express). Well, new notebooks are different. AXIOM is Ati's new interface, and MXM is Nvidia's interface. The companies have not fused the standard yet.

 

Aah, i see. So if you buy a nb with MXM-interface you will only be able to use nVidia gpu's then?

EDIT

In other words; 'it's not as good as it sounds'. It practically makes you believe that you can change gpu "freely"?