what gc and driver are u using?

there's a chance you might be one of the victims of nvidia's recent 8M gc issue. since you've done all you could on driver and software level, there's only hardware issue left. give dell a call, they will be able to help u.

are u using vista OS? ok, first, update your driver to dell's latest 175.97. uninstall the old one, restart, then install the new one. after restart, go to your vista power management options, reset everything to factory default. restart and make sure the new factory settings stay on. see if the problem persist. i think it might be caused by corrupted vista power management. i got it once, had to format to fix it.

glad everything worked out for u. the inverter on your old LCD must be broken. what AUO LCD do you have now? mine is AUO2077

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Added on July 31, 2008, 8:20 pmi used to keep, but after that i delete it due to media direct issues. now i dont keep both media direct and recovery. you can keep it if you dont mind uninstalling all the bloatwares after you recover.

This post has been edited by alexnvidia: Jul 31 2008, 08:20 PM

i dont mean to burst your bubbles guys, but samsung notebook LCDs have a nasty reputation for being grainy, leaking light and uneven brightness. i dont know which model is affected, but if you are happy with your LCD, then it should be fine.

light leakage/ bleeding is easy to detect. just make sure u r in a completely dark room, no light source watsoever apart from your LCD at max brightness, look for bleeding/light leakage especially around the corner areas. it's very obvious even to the untrained eye. and while you're at it, you can angle around and check for uneven brightness. this one takes a little bit of eye training and coordination. you'll notice some area of the LCD is brighter or dimmer than the other area. as for grainy, well, as the name suggests, you get to see grains of "sand" forming all over your LCD, and you just cant seem to wipe them off. this too, takes a little bit of training. best way is to compare with other brand notebook with same resolution LCD.

This post has been edited by alexnvidia: Jul 31 2008, 11:33 PM

i've not really heard about samsung having issues with desktop LCDs, only notebooks. dont worry, as long as you dont see any problems with your LCD, it's perfectly alright. that reddish light you are talking about, i dont think it's leakage, if im not mistaken, it's more like issues with CCFL backlight. how long have u been using that desktop LCD?

i dont like what dell is saying. clearly all G84M, G86M, are affected, but we are not getting any BIOS update to regulate fan speed and temperature. well, guess you guys better stock up on warranty for an almost certain future disaster. im covered with 3 years complete cover, so my 8600MGT fails in 2 years time, it's their business.

1520 and 1720 are excluded definately because of the "excessive" use of magnesium allow and copper heatsink. im so glad 1520 is the tank of 15" laptops! but anyway, it's only a matter of time before our 8600M fails, better cooling system could only prolong or delay the hardware defect failure.

First page updated to include 1525 members now. mr. strawberry (seedohbehlei) is the first on the list.

anyhting special at PC Fair, guys?

oopss.. missed that little detail, sorry about that. updated to include your lappy's colour.

dont bet on laptop speakers, most of them are junk, even the so called altec lansing or harmon kardon thingys.. it's just asking too much to squeeze high quality speakers into lappies.

any pics to share?

it's about time. dell us and uk have been using the new web design for several weeks now.

yes, it depends on how many dead pixels you have. if im not mistaken, minimum dead pixel required is 4. but u can try your luck, maybe the tech support will replace it for u

This post has been edited by alexnvidia: Aug 7 2008, 06:10 AM

yeah, i posted about physX a while back. actually i've been using 177.79 + physX for a while now. havent really had the chance to test it with a compatible game. but the demo does show some improvement over cpu, something like 10+ fps increment. didnt mention it because didnt have time to post lately and the NDA for official physx is 12 August, which is tomorrow. so i thought might as well let nvidia do the honours. but thanks to alifbata_abc for the explaination on screenshot, explaination and driver download links. i'll update the main page soon with the new links u provided.

there's no way you can use the official driver from nvidia. you need a moded driver v177.83 which will enable physX on v8.08.01. everything installed fine on my laptop and physX is enabled. didnt have time to run any tests yet, so i'll look at what you guys have found so far.

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Added on August 14, 2008, 7:48 amupdate : anyone notice 3DMark06 performance is extremely poor with 177.83 driver? or is it just me? it doesnt matter if i ON/OFF physX, i can barely pass 4000 mark (compared to my record holding 4.9k).

This post has been edited by alexnvidia: Aug 14 2008, 07:48 AM

physX has the potential to improve benchmarks like 3Dmark Vantage, because that benchmark make use of physX engine whether dedicated or integrated in its CPU tests. you wont see any difference in standard CPU tests for 3DMark06. the problem with 3DMark Vantage is that our laptop cannot support this benchmark software at the moment because of resolution problem. this is a software bug and futuremark is working to fix this issue (since few months ago and yet still no news on a fix). i have uninstalled physX and re-run 3dmark06 and found that the reason i got poor 3DMark06 score earlier was because physX was enabled (regardless of disabling or enabling in nvidia physX panel). new score of 177.83 driver is 4885, which is a little lower than my previous record.

i need to dig further to see what exactly is going on, but i suspect that when physX driver is installed, physX engine is switched on no matter what, and because GPU now has to compute physics in 3dmark06 or games, the limited number of stream processors are used up. this wont present much of a problem for 8800 or 9800 series GPU because of the huge number of stream processors. for us, unfortunately, 32 stream processors are just not powerful enough.

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Added on August 15, 2008, 2:06 amwhat i meant was there's no use downloading the official 177.83 from nvidia. it wont run at all because 8600M GT is not specified in the device ID code. you'll need to download modded driver front front page and replace the downloaded inf to be able to install 177.83. physx driver, on the other hand, does not need any mod, just install directly

Front page added physX driver and modded v177.83 vista 32 bit driver. scroll to the bottom to download.

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Added on August 15, 2008, 2:11 amthere's a couple of software that can monitor temps. as a matter of fact, this topic has been discussed several times in this thread. you can try to search for it. anyway, since you are new, i'll give u some heads up. for free software, you can try HW monitor(basic), CPUID(basic), Rivatuner (novice), RMCPU clock (advanced). for paid software, you can try everest ultimate edition (advanced). the basic, novice and advanced bracket gives a rough indication on how much IT knowledge you need to use that software, so you dont get overwhelmed. HW monitor is really good for a basic software. try it first.

This post has been edited by alexnvidia: Aug 15 2008, 07:43 AM

xp version link updated on front page as u requested, the 2.5gg softwares are a bunch demos and mod packs for games like unreal etc. you dont need it unlesss u want to play with the demo.

This post has been edited by alexnvidia: Aug 16 2008, 09:25 PM

not 1520, it's M1530, 1420, vostro 1510, etc.. the complete list corresponds to the recent dell BIOS release to address nvidia G84M/G86M GPU overheating issue. 1520 has a dedicated copper sink for 8600MGT, so the overheating issue is not that serious on 1520. however, from my experience of using 1520, i strongly recommend a thorough cleaning/dusting of the fan and heatsink every 6 months. recently i was playing assasin's creed and i found that my GPU/CPU temp can go up to 77C/78C on full load! so i open up the whole thing, removed all the dust that clogged up and choked the fan and heatsink (and there's a lot!), dusted the whole machine, reapplied thermal paste and viola! the temp stays at 65C/63C on full load and 45C/50C on idle now! that's a huge difference!

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Added on August 16, 2008, 9:23 pmit doesnt work that way. once you've removed the recovery partition, there's no way you can restore it (at least not that i can think of), so think twice before u take the plundge. there's no turning back, not even Dell can help u.

This post has been edited by alexnvidia: Aug 16 2008, 09:24 PM