[Akula2ssn]

Just got a Dell XPS M1730 the other day. When it works properly it's fun but most of the time my old Inspiron 600M can run circles around it.

I'm finding that if I turn the laptop on for the first time in about a day, and try running something like warcraft 3, or some other game, after about 2 minutes the fans kick on and my frame rates drop like a rock. They kick on when the GPU is running at around 70 degrees C. Dell tech support can't seem to figure out what's up so I'm looking at returning the darn thing.

Getting tired of spending 2-3 hours messing with it just to get it to run resonably smoothly. I'm also noticing that whenever it does start to run smoothly, it's when the fans do not kick in and the GPU is allowed to keep heating up till it tops out at about 90 degrees C (this is after two hours of playing with settings and constantly restarting the computer).

[sir num nums]

Exchange it, sounds like a lemon.

Dell, Sony, and Toshiba normally make good notebooks. It is Windows that gives
issues later on.

[Akula2ssn]

Yeah I'm thinking the same thing. I've heard pretty good things about the XPS 1730, and most of the bad things are mostly pretty marginal. And my Inspiron 600, while not spectacular, was my workhorse for quite some time.

Still been playing with it and right now it's idle at 88 degrees C on both GPUs and a core temp of 81. Not a peep from the fans. Of course as I mentioned when they do turn on, that's when everything goes to hell.

[sir num nums]

If you bought it retail, it should be an easy return.

Mailing it back may take a couple of weeks.

I like to build PCs, and this Gateway Notebook I am using right now sucks.

[Jed Starkiller]

It seems odd to me that the fan turning on would cause any change the speed of the machine. I assume your running on a power cord not battery? It could see a small change if on battery maybe but I would think once the fan was on it would smooth back out.

[Akula2ssn]

Yes, I'm running it with the cord. I've ran it without the cord, and I've ran it with the cord with the battery out. I don't understand either, why or how the fans would be causes it, I don't know if they even are causing it. I've simply just noticed a 1 to 1 correlation between the fans spinning up and the onset of the drop in framerate during game play so I don't think that's a coincidence. On top of that, I noticing that my CPU usage shoots up to 100% when it happens. When I shut off the program, the fans continue to run and don't shut off till after I shut off or restart the computer.

At first I thought it was an overheating issue, because I once had a laptop that would kind of behave the same way when it overheated and wouldn't return to normal till it cooled. But I'm finding that this new machine performs just well at high temps around 90 degrees C if the fans don't turn on. But at 50 degrees if the fans turn on, it performs like an overheating machine. Plus I don't even understand why in the cases where it heats up to 90 degrees the fans never engaged in the first place.

So yeah, I'm finding that this machine's behavior is rather unpredictable.

[Jed Starkiller]

Very Odd. I would see if you return it sounds like maybe a bad GPU or maybe even heat sinking issues. The fan shouldn't cause CPU Usage to change.

[Akula2ssn]

On the other hand if I turn it on and let it sit there idle for like an hour or so to "warm up", for lack of a better term, then i don't seem to have this problem. But that's an hour down the drain, which I don't have.

[Jed Starkiller]

That seems really odd. I wonder if there some programs running in the background that you dont need...

[sir num nums]

If you do not return it, your Notebook will make a great paper weight.