Dell xps 1710...couple of questions about it.

LegacyUser

Hey guys,

Got my new xps 1710 from the dell outlet there the other week and it's amazing. I love it...Just have a question or two about it...

I ordered a 160gb hard disk but in my computer, it has two hard drives listed. One is called "OS" and is 136GB total and the other is called "Recovery" and is 9.99GB total...

My question is how come it doesn't add up to 160GB and is the recovery partition really necessary!?

Also, I heard that you can overclock the xps 1710 through the bios but in my bios it says I can't change the values...does anyone know anything about this such as a patch or anything that will allow me to?

Oh and finally, when I first got my laptop, when I used to increase the volume, or adjust the contrast, a little bar would come up on the screen saying how far up it is etc....but now it just does it without this little display bar...anyone know how to get the display bar back???

Thanks a lot...

AlmightyCushion

cheesedude wrote: »

Hey guys,

Got my new xps 1710 from the dell outlet there the other week and it's amazing. I love it...Just have a question or two about it...

I ordered a 160gb hard disk but in my computer, it has two hard drives listed. One is called "OS" and is 136GB total and the other is called "Recovery" and is 9.99GB total...

My question is how come it doesn't add up to 160GB and is the recovery partition really necessary!?

Your hard drive is split into two partitions. The reason they don't add up to 160GBs is because hard drive manufacturers say a GB is a billion bytes. Windows says a GB is 1,073,741,824 bytes or 1024^3.

cheesedude wrote: »

Also, I heard that you can overclock the xps 1710 through the bios but in my bios it says I can't change the values...does anyone know anything about this such as a patch or anything that will allow me to?

On dell laptops the only cpu you can overclock is a T7600g. This is because it has an unlocked multiplier. Dell stop the ability to change the frequency. I think you have the T7400 which means you can't overclock the cpu. You can still overclock the graphics card.

cheesedude wrote: »

Oh and finally, when I first got my laptop, when I used to increase the volume, or adjust the contrast, a little bar would come up on the screen saying how far up it is etc....but now it just does it without this little display bar...anyone know how to get the display bar back???

Thanks a lot...

You might have uninstalled quickset. If you re-install this that should solve the problem.

LegacyUser

Awesome thanks a lot man. Should I delete the recovery partition and just mould it into one or keep it as it is?

AlmightyCushion

cheesedude wrote: »

Awesome thanks a lot man. Should I delete the recovery partition and just mould it into one or keep it as it is?

Did you get an OS disk with the laptop?

LegacyUser

Yeah I got a vista disk and a recovery disk...

AlmightyCushion

Then you can delete away.

legs11

quickset does indeed control that black bar for volume etc.

you cannot over clock the cpu as mentioned, the gpu can be over clocked quite successfuly with a iso boot up. the 7900gs is a very over clockable card, unlike the 7950gtx which is shipped on dell xps's underclocked as its already pushing alot of heat out of the system as it is.

LegacyUser

I have a 7950 GTX...is it worth over clocking it?

legs11

absolutely not

you will risk frying a 300/400e graphic card. the 7950gtx is not very well cooled on the dell, if you go hacking into the bios and over clock it, it will eventually most likely just fry as its already pushing out alot of heat.

some guys actually made a proper heatsink job for this gpu and got the temps to a steady 30degrees during gaming and got insane 3d mark 06 figures, but thats with a seriously modded 7950gtx

for a stock one on a dell its nay.!

besides, its already a bloody good laptop, why would you need it over clocked ask yourself..

AlmightyCushion

legs11 wrote: »

absolutely not

you will risk frying a 300/400e graphic card. the 7950gtx is not very well cooled on the dell, if you go hacking into the bios and over clock it, it will eventually most likely just fry as its already pushing out alot of heat.

some guys actually made a proper heatsink job for this gpu and got the temps to a steady 30degrees during gaming and got insane 3d mark 06 figures, but thats with a seriously modded 7950gtx

for a stock one on a dell its nay.!

besides, its already a bloody good laptop, why would you need it over clocked ask yourself..

Why do you need to hack the bios?

legs11

to change the clock frequencies, cant do it with s/w.

and dell have seriously under mined it, 576/600 is well below what nvidia have it from factory default. but its probably due to heat constraints and their weak cooling system.

if you do change the frequencies them 250million+ transistors will get seriously hot.....;)

TerrorFirmer

Why can't you change frequencies with software? Surely AtiTool, Ntune or RivaTuner would work? I don't see why you'd have to flash the bios for that...

But yeah, besides that, the 7950GTX is the most powerful laptop card available, even at stock. You don't need to overclock, and if you do, then you really should have considered a desktop.

Conor108

So if you have an OS disk you can just delete the Recovery partition from Diskmanager?

legs11

you cant use software because the cores are locked, the only way to alter the gpu core and memory freq is with a hacked bios. can be done but you would fry the 7950.

besides i ran a 7950 on stalker with all settings maxed out and it went like thunder, thats with the stock frequencies.

so, no need to go tampering with it, hmmm, unless crysis is sluggish....

RoyalMarine

i clocked my 7950 but it nearly fried. was using a cooling pad. still went too hot for comfort.

legs11

what i said....../*