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Dell XPS 'Gaming' PC Review
cojsl writes "[H]ard|OCP has an entertaining review of a Dell XPS 400 'Gaming PC'." From the article: "If the Dimension XPS400 is any indication, Dell considers computer gamers a joke. Harsh, yes. But we think it's accurate. The system itself is a decent gaming platform and the hardware was well built. It was put together decently with parts that can pull the weight required to play today's graphically intensive games. But we couldn't even install one of the most popular games on the market, Sims 2, and trying to play other popular games would lock up the system and gaming sessions, when they would run, would get interrupted. The pre-installed programs that Dell chose to include on its computer were almost certainly the cause of all these problems, and unloading these programs from the boot-up routine fixed the problems."
Although I agree with your post, it should be noted that Dell still provides OEM Windows XP install discs with their Small Business lines of machines (Latitudes, Optiplexes, Precisions). I'm not sure about consumer models bought from the Small Business section, but I know for sure on the lines mentioned above. These CD's are free of charge (or rather you don't pay less by asking them not send them), and they only include Windows (none of the preinstalled junk) -- I've used them myself. Also, up until this past summer, the consumer lines in the Home section were offered with OEM Windows install CD's as well. Unfortunately around June, Dell switched to restore partitions.
Sadly, PS/2 was yet another victim of USB, which doesn't care what you plug into it, the electrical slut.
Step 1) Make your backup installation CD
Step 2) Format your hard drive and install from scratch
The backup CD, at least for me, is a full XP Pro installation CD without all the bundled software that comes on the pre-installed hard drive or the system recovery CD.
And by the way, if you email support, they will send you an XP disc and a drivers disc (for your model) in the mail for free. It took about 3 days.
Personally, I just wiped out the hard drive and installed Suse 10.
You said: "Whell you are right. But I'm talking about software. So, completing the comparison with cars, I would accept a car with the printed manual filled with ads and put beneath the seat.
I would then tear those ads away and put the manual in the drawer. The car would actually be the very same!"
Your comparison isn't quite fair. The article notes that the default installation would not allow the Sims 2, Quake 4, or Splinter Cell to run. The author had to remove the annoying software to get those games to operate normally. This would be like your car operating normally up to 30 miles per hour where it would cut out due to the excessive load from adware. You can operate your car normally if you remove the offending adware, but not until you do so.
I don't think I'm the only one who thinks it is unreasonable for a user to have to 'fix' his new computer at receipt of it.
The Dell software doesnt necessarily have to actually be taking up a noticeable amount of CPU time to screw things up - it could be intercepting system calls or something - a server here was having major problems until someone tried uninstalling the Dell OpenManagement stuff on it, and since then it's been running a lot better (not perfect, but definitely better.. heh)
which is totally what she said
I have an XPS Generation 2. Its 2 years old roughly. I'd place it Jan-Feb 04. Its a fairly good machine. The only problem I have had was my vid card fan, a 9800XT died on me, and was running idle at 77 degrees C, and the one time I caught it before it finally crapped out it was running 111 degrees C. I call Dell Support and got a woman with a very foreign accent, which made it difficult to understand and I had to repeat things, the other problem was I could not communicate my e-mail reliably, spelling it out to a computer would have been easier then the way the woman on the phone was interupting my letters. I tell the woman on the phone the problem with the card, how I tried to reseat it and check the power plug on the card. She reqs a new one(actually refurbished by my guess in the packaging but whatever it works). I get a few days ago, insert it works fine. All this time I got probably 2-3 calls above this to my cell phone which was definitely good communication, again the only problem was the lack of speaking English that wasn't in an American accent that I am used to. The only problem I had was they sent me an invoice, basically the price of the card in case I didn't send it back. The scary part is they aren't even charging the current market price, nor the price from 2 years ago, but some other weird price that comes to $600. So thats my Dell horror story with an XPS. The funny thing with 9800XT, is Dell put their oem bios on it, and it disabled the overdrive feature, pretty much the only reason to get an XT. Then you had to go to the support forums to find the flashrom for it.
The only thing I think they could improve on is dust covers and easier access to the screens for the fans. removing all the drives to just clean the front grill is a pain. I did receive a few disks with plenty of software, and one definitely with windows on it. They have their own recovery software, its annoying, and I wish I had a WinXP Pro disk, or a WinXP Home disk for that matter. I blame Microsoft for that problem though, simply because they should be pushing it on people. When someone wants a computer fixed or whatever, I cant do it because if I have to reformat, or reinstall, it 10x easier instead of making another visit.
I will say one thing, getting a Dell is a big waste of money, you can build one for much cheaper and it be better suited for you. The Reason I got mine though is the 4-5 year warranty
If what you are reading sounds funny, or sarcastic, lame, or stupid
it is because it is supposed to be. just laugh
I don't know what these guys are talking about. I'm in the US, and I've bought for myself and friends a number of Dells over the past two years, and they've all come with clean Windows XP SP2 CDs. The drivers are on a seperate disc, and the additional software is on yet more discs. The only difference between these systems' Windows XP CDs and retail Windows XP CDs is the label, and my XPS's XP CD has the SATA drivers slipstreamed so you don't need a floppy drive.
Sunwalker Dezco for Warchief in 2016
My wife and I just ordered a Dell E510 for her home office, and one of the options when ordering was the default "System Restore" or "Windows XP Professional Backup CD".
Now, we'll see what that CD is. Possibly just a "System Restore" disk, but if so I'll be calling Dell...(as if that will help, but still...)
Jim
And being dell it is all intel, I was amazed when i saw them advertising gaming pcs with no amd based model.
Damn, the first thing I do when I get a new dell is: :)
start->control panel->add/remove programs and remove with wold abandon. I usually wipe "trial security package", all the dell quickset crap, any dell support crap, and any other software that I just don't want in there. Doesn't EVERYBODY?
Horns are really just a broken halo.
As a Dell onsite tech, I can tell you the very reason that they stopped sending out the Windows and Drivers Cd's. MOST OF THE IDIOTS LOST THEM. You don't know how many times I've replaced hard drives to find that the customer didn't have the cd's, but KNOWS that they received them. Dell got tired of sending out multiple copies to customers who just don't know how to keep track of their own software. You can receive a copy from tech support if ask. Also, drives that they replace do not ship with the restore partition and thus are sent with the cd's if the customer doesn't have them.
At the bank I work at, all our PCs are imaged before the leave the factory with a custom image that we supplied to Dell. They also tweak the BIOS for us too.
Dell sells both business and consumer models. In the desktop line the Optiplexes are the business versions and Dimensions are the consumer. They share almost all the internal parts but have different skins.
The big difference is in the software. The consumer versions come preloaded with a bunch of crappy demos and spyware-lite. The business versions have no extra pre-loaded software--just what is ordered. In addition, the business versions usually come with Gold service--a 800 number answered in the US by an English-speaking rep. Typically, the calls are answered in less than 5 minutes.
If you're looking at Dells, check out the small business store for the bloat-ware free versions.
Typically, the business versions are $50 to $100 more (depending on the system) than the consumer.
Desktop
Dimension=consumer
Optiplex=business
Lapto
Inspiron=consumer
Latitude
I also think the review was a bit harsh. They already didn't like Dell for the lack of complete choice in parts and the "big evil brand". They started out by complaining about paying taxes...if they buy their systems from any vendor in Texas they should be paying taxes...hardly Dell's fault.
Hp did that to me many years back, of course they didn't inform me that that's what they'd done until I'd already broken Windows beyond recognition and formatted the harddrive. Imagine my surprise when tech support informed me that they wouldn't ship me a CD becasue I already had a partition with a hidden backup that was not listed in any of the literature that came with the system.
Yup. The Precisions, Optiplexs and Latitudes have always been great PCs, but the Dimensions and Inspirons suck the big one.
Dell are great for business machines, but their consumer ranges are terrible. Every time someone here buys an Optiplex "because it's so much cheaper" I tell them it is, if they cost their own and my time at zero. Six months later they realise I was right...
Generally, we now buy Precisions, but we still have 7+ year old Optiplex boxen as mail and print servers, running RHEL 4.
And that and Smash Brothers is a perfect replacement for the Sims.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
"Any sensible business should be either re-installing the systems themselves after purchase, or paying someone else to do so - in both cases based on the company's actual requirements (software, network/profile setup, configuration, devices)."
Unfortunately, as the review made clear, the Dell doesn't come with any install discs. So have fun trying to "reinstall". This seems to be a general trend -- my sister recently bought a Gateway, and it too came without the OS installation discs. You were supposed to create them yourself with a special one-time-use-only routine that copied the OS to CD-RW discs. But the routine crapped out, and produced bad install discs. Gateway's support recommendatation was for her to send the machine back to get her drives reinitialized! Building your own box is making a lot more sense now.
I'll agree with you whole-heartedly on HP drivers and general annoyance at unwanted extra apps.
However the Wireless Connection Managers are a totally different story. XP's Wireless ZeroConf service is horrifically unstable. It'll drop connections at random, and everyone once in a while, will claim it's connected but not actually *do* anything. While I'm saavy enough to fire up services.msc and restart the service on machines that don't come with a third party connection manager, most users are not.
For people like that, having a third party connection manager that actually works and doesn't mysteriously refuse to connect is far better for the average user than just having to resort to rebooting at random intervals to maintain connectivity.
Sure building is great, but it's often hit or miss with performance. Some hardware just performs better when paired some other components. Why not leave the decisions to the experts?
I am on my third Alienware now and have no regrets. Sure it can be a bit more expensive, but they deliver a tweaked system instead of a bloated one, with a performance guarantee.
First off, I was shopping online for a laptop and got myself a Dell. Several reasons for this(for those of you who can't comprehend why anyone would buy a Dell for gaming):
1) Price: I got a $2000 laptop for $1300. Yay for readily available employee coupons.
2) Well....ok, just price.
But when shopping, I found the Dell XPS was NOT a gaming laptop as it may claim to be. To start off, there isn't even an option to get a videocard that isn't the integrated piece of crap offered by every other manufacturer. Sure, it may have more processing power, but not gaming power. For me, the Inspiron with the $750 coupon was the way to go. I'd link to it, but it has already expired.
Absolutely. My comment would be that not only does one size not fit all. In Dell's case, their one size doesn't fit anyone. I wish PC manufacturers would quit making every pointless app they can throw at a system run on startup. I find myself having to fix problems with computers because of this reason all the time. What is the point of good hardware if you are going to fill your entire ram bank with pointless, self-promoting garbageware?
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
would buy a Dell and think of it as "high-quality". They may have "bought American" but Dell buys Malaysian and Taiwanese. Once you build a PC on your own, it's really easy to do again, and I don't ever see myself going back to pre-builts. Have a knowledgable friend (i.e. has built several PCs with no problems) help you the first time, then research and do your own upgrades. Afterward, even years later, you'll know how to quickly find high-quality information resouces (and avoid luser resources) to bring you up to date on the latest technology (since you already should understand the basics you won't be mislead by market-speak and fooled by large companies wiht too-good-to-be-true deals). For me, it's as simple as "oh, I need a new hard drive... hmm, look for Western Digital on Newegg and Tom's Hardware... here's a really good one for a nice price... wow, those transfer speeds are really up there nowadays, look at that SATA II 3meg."
The 'Net is a waste of time, and that's exactly what's right about it. - William Gibson
Because they're paid to ship the shovelware.
"The money Dell gets back from the software vendor helps offset the cost of PCs, which in turn leads to lower prices for you. "
I don't believe this for a second. It just allows Dell to make more money at the expense of their users and the stability and speed of their systems. At least now for an extra $10 you can buy a XP CD with you Dell that you can use to reformat and reinstall XP without any of the crap it comes with. Thats the way around this mess.