Dell XPS 420 six month report

re: Dell XPS 420 six month report

Keith Combs — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 05:41:45 GMT

I don't believe so, but I really don't know. I was under the impression the OEM was responsible for doing this.

re: Dell XPS 420 six month report

Joann — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 02:04:09 GMT

I saw that if you ordered an XPS 1330 you could have the 64 bit version of Vista shipped to you by Microsoft. Can you do this with the XPS 420 since the 64 bit version of Vista isn't available? Thanks!

re: Dell XPS 420 six month report

Daniel Gombert — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 22:08:03 GMT

Um....Just to be really clear. No matter how many times I've called Dell, or who I've talked to, or how many forums I've searched, or how many times Dell tech support put me on hold or repeatedly ased me the same questions, whether begging or berating, shouting or sobbing, I've been unable to get them to send me a 64 bit replacement, or intelligently answer any of my qestions. I have the XPS 420, 4 gb ram, E8500 3.16 ghz, intel x38 chipset. I received service from Dell that I would've been embarrassed to receive from McDonalds. Incidentally, once I deactivated the User Account Control, it runs magically, but I still want 64 bit. If anyone knows some secret that I don't, hollar it from the hill tops.

re: Dell XPS 420 six month report

Brian Phillips — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:36:11 GMT

Keith, great write up, best i have seen in my XPS 420 research. Quick question about RAID AHCI mode & eSATA. I am going down the same path you did by purchasing the 420 w/ one drive and Vista Home Premium (will hang large disk array from system later). I will reinstal with Vista Ultimate after it's recieved. From your post below it seems that you reinstalled Ultimate again and did something to flip the AO2 bios to enable RAID and the eSATA port. Can you fill in the blank for me, or let me know if Dell posted or is shipping with a revised BIOS? Thank- Brian

Keith Combs wrote:

[UPDATE for 1/11/2008] I have rebuilt my machine from the ground up. I am still on BIOS A02 and have the SATA controller in RAID AHCI mode. My eSATA port is working properly. In order for me to do this, I had to reinstall the operating system again, which is unfortunate. I could not figure out how to get it to work any other way even though I received feedback inside and outside Microsoft. I do not recommend doing this. If you reinstall the OS more than one time, you'll likely break the OCUR HD recording capability if you have the ATI digital cable tuners. I recommend you wait for Dell to come up with a supported solution from their engineering team. They may end up fixing this will a BIOS update or something. I certainly hope so.

re: Dell XPS 420 six month report

Keith Combs — Thu, 29 May 2008 17:50:35 GMT

Unfortunately there have been numerous reports of issues with your video card and it's my understanding they are replacing it at no cost to you with the newer cards now on the website. I would open a Dell support ticket immediately for resolution. Good luck.

re: Dell XPS 420 six month report

Andrew Hill — Thu, 29 May 2008 17:41:06 GMT

I have the Radeon ATI HD 2600 XT video card. I had previously purchased the CinePlayer DVD Decoder for Windows Vista. So, I tried that and it didn't help DVD playback in Media Player.

I see that you got yours with the NVIDIA 8600 GTS video card. That card was not an option when I ordered mine, but I thought I was doing good to go with ATI with all the driver problems that I had with NVidia on my old Vista machine.

I'll post a question on the Dell forum and see if I get any hits.

Thanks!

re: Dell XPS 420 six month report

Keith Combs — Thu, 29 May 2008 16:52:18 GMT

I am running the codecs that came with Windows Vista. I didn't even install the NVIDIA DVD Decoder I have a license for. DVD playback is very good with media player.

Which video card are you using? Might be time to post something to the Dell forum at http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board?board.id=Tech_Talk_XPS and see what happens.

re: Dell XPS 420 six month report

Andrew Hill — Thu, 29 May 2008 15:30:12 GMT

It seems that the DVD playback only gets choppy if I try to move around in Media Center while the DVD is playing. But, if I maximize and/or unmaximize the window it resets the DVD playback and resyncs the audio/video. Playback is smooth then.

DVD playback on Media Player is a different story which really doesn't work at all.

re: Dell XPS 420 six month report

Andrew Hill — Thu, 29 May 2008 06:40:14 GMT

I got my XPS 420, took an image of HDD (32 bit OEM OS) and installed Vista Ultimate x64, downloaded and installed all the drivers from support.dell.com and then also updated newer drivers for the video and network cards and updated the firmware on the ATI Digital Cable Tuner. Everything that I've tested so far seems to be working OK, except for DVD playback in Media Center and Media Player. Playback is choppy with video getting hung and buzzing audio. Cypber Link's PowerDVD plays just fine. I've not tested a Blu-ray disk playback or digital cable yet. I've got to get Charter out this week to install the cable card. Analog cable seems to work fine.

Just wondered if you've seen any problems with DVD playback. Any ideas on how to fix it?

re: Dell XPS 420 six month report

Markus — Tue, 20 May 2008 22:36:06 GMT

Unfortunately it was part of the package deal in order to get a nice discount. But it doesn't ship until Friday, so we'll see what issues are addressed by then. Maybe the'll have the Rev A01 ready by then (yeah right).