Dell XPS 17 (L702x) Thread

[petekarn]

Hi All,

Am wondering if anyone has used the SPID/F jack on the XPS17 yet. Is it a phone plug or some kind of TOSLINK within the phone jack? TIA.

Peter

[mpalandr]

You're referring to the one that's piggy backed on the center phone jack? The end that goes in the XPS resembles a phone plug, with a tiny optical conductor in the middle. The cable you probably need if you're connecting to a receiver has a mini SPIDF at one end and a normal SPIDF at the other. Here's what's at amazon right now:

Amazon.com: mini spdif

If that doesn't work, go to amazon and search for mini SPDIF.

I got a couple of those cables from Amazon cause they were only $3-4. I connect to the home theater receiver, and it works well. I did have to go into the Realtek driver and have it show hidden devices before I could enable SPDIF.

[Retired-Fire-Captain]

You're referring to the one that's piggy backed on the center phone jack? The end that goes in the XPS resembles a phone plug, with a tiny optical conductor in the middle. The cable you probably need if you're connecting to a receiver has a mini SPIDF at one end and a normal SPIDF at the other. Here's what's at amazon right now:

Amazon.com: mini spdif

If that doesn't work, go to amazon and search for mini SPDIF.

I got a couple of those cables from Amazon cause they were only $3-4. I connect to the home theater receiver, and it works well. I did have to go into the Realtek driver and have it show hidden devices before I could enable SPDIF.

You can also check HDMI Cable, Home Theater Accessories, HDMI Products, Cables, Adapters, Video/Audio Switch, Networking, USB, Firewire, Printer Toner, and more! THey have great prices and a very good selection of items.

[suicidehobbit]

Hi Phyxius / Scott

Thanks for the posts, in particular the definitions of the refurbished pc's. To be fair the system fitted into the refurbished category until i noticed the screen bezel was split at the lid and wouldn't snap back together, that was pretty much the final straw. you know that way where you look forward to getting something and it just feels like a let down? so much so i didn't even power it up beyond the EULA (kind've wish i had to see the SSD and its 12 second boot times)

there was a lot of scuffing on the corners though, so whilst it was not affecting performance i thought it looked like a 4 month old machine that had been around the block. I lost confidence in the machine straight away - i'm a bit of a geek like that. I dont mind if its scratched because of my stupidity, but not someone elses

No matter anyway, i have a returns authorisation and they are accepting the system back next Monday. Apart from a slightly frustrating call to dell reception "i'm sorry sir, i dont understand you, can you call back tomorrow?" it was all good i'm happy to report.

I also took the opportunity to check the uk site for deals and they had the usual £350 off but there was also a quidco 10% off voucher with a further 8% cashback offer, so i picked up this spec new machine for what will eventually be about £860. the 5400 rpm drives aren't wonderful but following advice on here i'll probably jam in an SSD and use that as my boot drive.

i7-2670QM processor
8192MB DDR3 -free upgrade to 8 gig
Backlit UK/Irish Qwerty Keyboard
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 555M
1TB (5,400rpm) Serial ATA Dual HDD - 2x500GB "special offer"
8x DVD+/-RW, & Blu-ray Disc™ combo drive - free upgrade
Intel® Centrino® Wireless-N 1030 (1x2 b/g/n+ Bluetooth Combo Card)
Adobe® Photoshop® Elements + Premiere® Elements Bundle - free
XPS L702x Resource DVD
44 cm(17.3") FHD WLED AG -free upgrade
McAfee® SecurityCenter 15 Month - free upgrade

not too bad for the price i think? gotta wait till the 23rd for it though

[mglopez85]

I am thinking about to buy an SSD but first I want to know if I will notice some improvement or not much?. There's a manual for how to make the change and move data from HDD to SSD without losing anything?

Any particular model?

[tomg126]

Hi guys,

I have been looking at a laptop for gaming purposes and the xps 17 looks great.

I have a budget of around £1k (uk here) without the need for an operating system. Can someone do me the best config for that budget or show me the best site to use? Where do people find these discounts etc lol

Cheers!!

[Ronbo696]

I am thinking about to buy an SSD but first I want to know if I will notice some improvement or not much?. There's a manual for how to make the change and move data from HDD to SSD without losing anything?

Any particular model?

You will see a big improvment in speed and startup, the two everyone seem to like are the samsung 830 and the crucialM4. someone else will have to school you on moving your data

[hugphot]

First: sorry if this has been covered but I can't make thread search work & 697 pages is a lot to read through....

I ordered myself a Dell refurb XPS 17 with 3D yesterday but hadn't yet seen that Optimus is disabled on this model. As I don't want to be guzzling power when I'm just browsing the web etc, is there anything I can do to reduce the power draw of the GT 555M card? I'm thinking of the same kind of clock/undervolt settings employed by Throttlestop on my current Core2Duo setup. This thread looks interesting:

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1794404

I need to find out quickly as I may want to cancel the order & stick with the standard 1080P monitor.

[Phyxius]

First: sorry if this has been covered but I can't make thread search work & 697 pages is a lot to read through....

I ordered myself a Dell refurb XPS 17 with 3D yesterday but hadn't yet seen that Optimus is disabled on this model. As I don't want to be guzzling power when I'm just browsing the web etc, is there anything I can do to reduce the power draw of the GT 555M card? I'm thinking of the same kind of clock/undervolt settings employed by Throttlestop on my current Core2Duo setup. This thread looks interesting:

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1794404

I need to find out quickly as I may want to cancel the order & stick with the standard 1080P monitor.

From what I was told on mine The 3D compatible systems DO NOT have the Optimus GPU switching feature enabled so the GT-555M will be active all the time.

[Blök]

New BIOS (A17) available