So the GPU on my M1330 has been going crazy. white screen with colorful lines, black screen while im in the middle of something. so should i send it back to dell and get a new computer or something? also, im thinking about handing this one down to my brother and getting a new one. so far im looking at the dell studio line and the only thing wrong is not a great GPU. Sager looks very nice but a bit pricy. i want to stay in the 2000 range and i want portability/battery life/good GPU for warcraft and game design. anyone want to point me in a better direction? also idk how fast the processor needs to be for that stuff?

yeah im still on warranty but im also unhappy with the performance of the computer...i got it when it just came out with a 1.5ghz processor

i did the dell chat with them and got a new bios upgrade and GPU upgrade. if this doesnt work ill have to send it in. but laptop shopping is truly difficult. i dont know if i would go with the 1530 just cause i already have the 1330. so far im considering, dell studio 15inch, sager np 8660, asus m50, and alienware m15

If you get the flexbay battery, the Alienware would probably have the longest battery life of the 3, the studio in the middle, and the sager the shortest.

As for heat, I'd guess the Sager would have the best cooling, followed by the Alienware, followed by the Studio. Of course, I'd also guess the Studio would be the quietest.

3000 is a ridiculous price for a mid-range pc like that, i bought my monster for 2500. you can get much more power for that kind of money.

More power?

For that price, you can get a T9300 and 8800M, as well as a bunch of nice other add ons in the M15x (or alternatively, a T8300 and 8800M GTX, but far more other options). It's quite reasonably priced. Heck - I'd get it if I needed a somewhat portable, gaming capable notebook.

Oh, and theworminator, I was noticing your GPU overclock in your sig - I have a 7950GTX, but it hard freezes when I get the memory up past 740 (I have the core at 650 though ). Are you using ntune?

Nope, I'm using a flashed card BIOS. I've thought of using nTune to mess around more, but haven't come around to it yet .

Thinkpads (now Lenovo, not IBM) are actually pretty good machines, quite reliable, and good customer support. though their graphics cards tend to be on the business low-mid side of things, and even then some of them use the rendering cards as opposed to the Geforce and the Radeons. Though they're very good otherwise, from what I hear.

Agreed. Updated my BIOS to the most recent one, and my XPS M1330 GPU (9400M 256MB) still gave out about a week ago, with the colorful lines described by ihateibuypower. Was lucky my laptop was still under warranty, god knows I'd have to pay a lot for a replacement if it weren't.

Or maybe the GPU failed coz I spent a week running Fallout 3 with the XPS hooked up to a 22" HP w2228h? Lol.