well, i did put a lot of hard work, effort and time tuning, tweaking and enchancing my laptop's performance (raw power and thermal). so it's only fair that i get a little performance boost in return, esp from the graphics card. doing something as simple (although lots of work,time and risk involved) as replacing the "useless" factory thermal pad with high performance thermal compound (Artic Cooling MX2) gets me a solid 50MHz boost when going beyond 600MHz GPU core while keeping the temperature in check.

now the reason i use "useless" is because when i opened up my laptop, i was totally shocked that the thermal paste dell used had totally solidified, cracked and is as hard as rock. this doesnt help with thermal transfer at all. i can easily hit over 72C under full load at just 600MHz. now it's about 65C under full load at 650MHz!

absolutely no. dreamscene is one of the unique features available exclusively for ultimates only.

im running win vista ultimate sp1 now.

my rig comes with vista home premium. i upgraded it to ultimate later on.

i paid about RM5K for my laptop which includes 3 years complete cover, a targus bag, dell media remote control and everything else in my SIG, which is quite a heavy investment. ouch. this is the price back in september 07 by the way, so it might have been depreciated a little (or a lot) by now.

a very quick, cheap and useful way of cooling my rig (based on my experience) is to raise the back of the laptop to increase air intake from the bottom. from the experiments i carried out, raising the back just about 1cm can have a lowered 3-5C impact on temperature.

i got mine when there's RM650 instant rebate too back in sept. if i minus the 3 years complete cover which i paid a hefty RM650(+-50), it's about 4.3K.

so how's ur system running so far? happy with the gaming performance?

your system is just fine. the reason it's showing ~800MHz is because of intel speed step technology kicking in.

it's something implemented in intel (and amd) mobile processors since the very early laptops. nothing to write home about.

is it a good thing or a bad thing??
it's definately a welcoming news for laptops as downclocking the processor (when you dont need it) saves power (saves battery), helps yours system to run cooler, etc. when you run cpu intensive programs, it will kick right back to 2GHz again (plugged in of course)

no. it definately does not. you might want to use an updated driver for your GPU to solve the lock up issues with games.

both cpuZ,GPU ID, and rivatuner can do the job well and it's free. i would suggest using rivatuner together with the c2d plugin for cpu monitoring.

a more sophisticated monitoring software would be (not free) everest ultimate edition which is also pretty good.

the BEST way to have a dramatic impact on CPU temp is to reduce the voltage applied to the CPU. to be honest, 40-45C is pretty good for a C2D cpu in 1520. the real test lies in full load temp. i believe your cooler will show its colour when you fully load your laptop for prolonged hours.

no inspirion 1520 or 1720 with 8600MGT use DDR3. they all use DDR2. same goes for vostro 1500 and 1700. 8600MGT with DDR3 ONLY exist in XPS M1530. im not sure about 8400M GS, personally i dont bother because if you dont game, you might as well stick with X3100 built in graphics and save that money.

This post has been edited by alexnvidia: May 8 2008, 01:05 AM

during the launch of the new inspiron line, dell falsely advertised the 8600MGT having GDDR3. owner all over the world soon found out that GDDR3 never existed in inspiron line for 8600MGT and dell quickly reverted back their ad to DDR2. i personally had an arguement with dell's top manager regarding this issue back then. so i can confirm, and unfortunately for everyone, including me, it's definately DDR2 only.

if anyone can find a GDDR3 8600MGT for inspiron, by all means, let the whole world know, because i'll be on my way to screw dell rep and get my graphics card replaced. the GPU performance is adversely hampered by the use of inferior DDR2 VRAM.

another possiblity you saw DDR3 is because, if im not mistaken, 8400M uses DDR3 for inspiron. i cannot confirm this, so correct me if im wrong.

This post has been edited by alexnvidia: May 8 2008, 01:27 AM

i knew this day is coming, didnt think it will be this fast. crap.. 1520 sure has a short product life cycle.

kev, you've got the midnight blue wallpaper you looking for?

as for the rest, the first page of this thread has been updated which includes a link to all the other inspiron wallpaper colours. grab yours today!

welcome aboard Maxi_mus29, you're in the club now. feel free to share your views, findings, and give advice to everyone.

This post has been edited by alexnvidia: May 11 2008, 11:07 PM

all new inspirons are wide screen. the only difference is the resolution.

there's 1280x800(WXGA), 1440x900(WXGA+) and etc..

the heat vent in on the left side of the laptop, so the air intake is somewhere in the upper left/middle left underneath. any laptop cooler that has a fan strategically placed at that location will do the job. the rest area of the laptop is pretty cool. GPU and CPU heat are all channeled to the left heat sink.

i personally dont use one because i feel that it's not required as long as the back is raised half an inch higher.

with a little bit of help, even the inspiron 8600MGT DDR2 can beat XPS DDR3.

speaking of quality, i've used XPS M1530 before (unfortunately not mine), and the build quality is definately top notch. no noticable flex, it's thin and lighter than inspiron. has capacitive buttons, aluminum palm rest, etc etc. so definately no question about the build quality.

what i think weiwen is trying to say is inspiron 1520 is tougher than M1530, and that is definately true. 1520 has magnesium alloy body and it's built like a tank. has among the largest laptop heatsinks i've ever seen so no problem with the cooling system (as long as heat is properly transfered to the copper heatsink). the drawback is, you've guessed it, it's much thicker and heavier than M1530. and speaking of which, the GPU on 1520 is not soldered onto the motherboard of the laptop, so any upgrades/replacement can be done easily. not so with M1530, everything is stuck to the motherboard for life.

maybe just a little bit (esp in the past) but the drivers for new hardwares are well tweaked and optimised for vista, so the real life performance difference is (IMHO), negligable.