Dell Studio 1557

[OneCool]

The only thing noticeable is the iphone fix

nice smack in the face imo

[techifan1]

1.No,cant upgrade the 1557s graphics card.Its embedded into the motherboard.
2.Sim Card was used on other machines apparently.This laptop chassis has been used for a few years now.I think it was used for wireless broadband.


Yep the 10.3 beta drivers are the best ive used to date.I cant wait to see what the official release this month.

Are the official 10.3 drivers going to be released later this month.

Also this A04 bios update failure that some are experiencing is a bit worrying, trying to think of a possible reason for the failures.
In my case, I used the psu to power the laptop from the mains supply. I then just made sure no programmes were running in the background and turned off my wifi card to disconnect from the internet whilst carrying out the upgrade.

Thankfully my A04 update went without a hitch.

[OneCool]

Yes,the official 10.3 (March 2010)driver will be released some time this month.

I just found out that you can downgrade the BIOS back to A03 by accident.

I was double checking the A03 from Dells FTP site just to make sure I was giving jaime360 the right BIOS file and insteadof saying "Your BIOS are newer Flash will not continue" it flashed back to the A03

So I had to reflash back to the A04.It went without any problems though

I used to only flash my BIOS in Windows while in SAFE mode because I was so worried something stupid would happen.Havnt done that in while now

[maxilick]

Greets All.
Thanks for the heaps of helpful information. To date, have only had the Dell 1557 for a month, I have had no issues apart from the occasional freeze when watching video, this problem disappeared when Catalyst 10.3 drivers were installed. No thermal issues GPU is around 48-51 degrees with general use. CPU stress tested topped at 82 degrees. Updated Bios to A04 today without incident.

[jaime360]

5) Plug in the power cord to the laptop & in the same time release the "End" button. Laptop should automatically turned ON with battery indicator (LED) lit with amber light. During this time all button will not responding, including power button.
6) Wait for a while. Laptop will reboot automatically when the recovery process successful. In my case, after the reboot process, I need to unplug & re-plug the power cord to be able to turn ON my laptop.

This is very thrilling experience but with happy ending.

I'm now a happy owner of Dell Studio 1557 with BIOS ver A03.

kizwan

How long do I have to wait? I´m nervous....

[jaime360]

Today I decided to update my BIOS from A03 to A04. Prior to updating the BIOS, I had the antivirus turned off, even restarting the windows (it always on) to "refresh" it & closing any other unwanted application. Once I'm satisfy, I execute the BIOS A04 updater utility & let the utility do the job. As usual, I see countdown from 80 (I guess number of block remaining to be flash). For unknown reason, the flashing process stop when the utility try to flash block 67. No error popup, it just hang. I can move the mouse though so I leave my laptop. I'm very very worried.

While leaving my dell laptop hoping the update process success (I doubt), I google how to recover from failed BIOS update. Fortunately there is a couple of people which owned Dell Studio (including Studio XPS) with Pheonix BIOS that faced the same problem as I am. The important thing is there is a way to recover from failed BIOS update & the required tools also provided. I need to:-
1) Preparing bootable usb drive (flash drive) with a utility provided
2) Extracting BIOS1.wph file from BIOS ver A03, to be put in flash drive. Probably need to rename to BIOS.wph but I put both file BIOS1.wph & BIOS.wph. Both is identical file, just different name.
3) Pheonix BIOS flash utility is required (I guess for DOS) - pheonix16.exe. Also need to be put in the flash drive

After preparing the flash drive, there is still no progress & this time windows freeze (mouse no longer can be moved). Since windows has freezed, I have to forced shutdown my laptop (by unplugging both power cord & the battery). After that my laptop can turn on but with blank display. I decided to try recover my laptop by using the flash drive I prepared earlier. By following step-by-step guide I found on another forum, I do like this:-
1) Unplug the battery
2) Unplug the power cord from the laptop
3) Plug in the flash drive to USB port
4) Press "End" button on the keyboard (at least 3 seconds)
5) Plug in the power cord to the laptop & in the same time release the "End" button. Laptop should automatically turned ON with battery indicator (LED) lit with amber light. During this time all button will not responding, including power button.
6) Wait for a while. Laptop will reboot automatically when the recovery process successful. In my case, after the reboot process, I need to unplug & re-plug the power cord to be able to turn ON my laptop.

This is very thrilling experience but with happy ending.

I'm now a happy owner of Dell Studio 1557 with BIOS ver A03.

kizwan

Ok, I think It´s taking too long. Probably I did something wrong. You have got a PM.

[jaime360]

Finally!!!! I did it...If someone has problems I can help now. I´m sooooo happy....

[kizwan]

Finally!!!! I did it...If someone has problems I can help now. I´m sooooo happy....

It does feels good, doesn't it? How long did it take to recover the bad BIOS (starting from plugin the power cord)? Which version of BIOS did you use to recover your laptop, A03 or A04?

I'm too nervous when recovering my laptop the other day, so I forgot to observe carefully what actually happen during the process. Can you confirm this what happen during the process?
(start after releasing the "End" button)
1) Laptop automatically turned ON with red light at battery indicator. Power button indicator doesn't light up.
2) After a while, battery indicator keep flashing with red & white light.
3) After a while, laptop seems restarting itself. Battery indicator stop flashing (can't remember is it a red or white light) but still with a blank screen & the power button indicator also doesn't light up. Unplug the power cord (maybe I'm a bit impatient) & re-plug the power cord again.
4) Turn ON the laptop by pressing the power button. This time it boot normally.

I just want to write it down, just in case if I need to do it again (not that I'm planning to brick another laptop ).

kizwan

[altoster]

thts a good temperature. mine always in the mid 50 degrees. (cpu and gpu on idling). on load . cpu goes nearly upto 80 degrees and gpu higher than that(close to 90). i had contacted dell support and they said its normal temperature. they also stated the temperature depends on the working environment , climate , season etc.
i use my laptop in a non air conditioned room and the room temperature here is 25 to 35 degrees.

share ur working conditions and thoughts.

note : i use notebook cooling pad of average quality too.
without it also the min temperatures remain same but when throttling its dificult without the cooling pad (in games the fps gets reducing, but while using no such issues are observed, game tested includes gta 4 ,dirt 2 in medium settings )
and these games doesn't stress i7 much but gfx card.

[momsteria]

thts a good temperature. mine always in the mid 50 degrees. (cpu and gpu on idling). on load . cpu goes nearly upto 80 degrees and gpu higher than that(close to 90). i had contacted dell support and they said its normal temperature. they also stated the temperature depends on the working environment , climate , season etc.
i use my laptop in a non air conditioned room and the room temperature here is 25 to 35 degrees.

share ur working conditions and thoughts.

note : i use notebook cooling pad of average quality too.
without it also the min temperatures remain same but when throttling its dificult without the cooling pad (in games the fps gets reducing, but while using no such issues are observed, game tested includes gta 4 ,dirt 2 in medium settings )
and these games doesn't stress i7 much but gfx card.

Mine idles just below 50c, in the office. Mine comes with 9 cell battery .