Well I’ll be. Dell’s latest Studio XPS 435MT BIOS update – 1.1.2 – has dramatically decreased the machine’s heretofore unbearable fan noise. It’s not completely silent, but then again, who would expect such a powerful machine in such a small box to be totally quiet. Let’s not get too carried away.
Besides the BIOS being a headache to download (read: repeated failed attempts to download via Firefox > multiple Dell support sessions > finally a successful download via IE8), I am extremely pleased and happy to report that 1.1.2 has really improved the 435MT’s decibel levels.
The Core i7-powered beast still revs like a V8 @ startup, but once it boots to the desktop, it sounds like it should – barely noticeable. I’ve shut the computer down twice post-update (one total, one restart) just to make sure, and so far, so good. It only took five BIOS updates, but the noise has finally been mitigated…thanks Dell.
Please do me a favor and try to boot from the optical drive with the new BIOS 1.1.2. I was unable to boot from a CD or DVD with 1.1.1 and Dell, after being unable to solve the problem, sent me a new motherboard with 1.0.13. I now am able to boot normally from the optical drive and I want to be sure I can do so with 1.1.2 before upgrading. Can someone check and post the result?
Bob N.
@robnich: I was able to successfully boot (Kubuntu) from my DVD drive with 1.1.2. Hope that helps.
Cheers!
Thanks for checking out booting from the optical drive with BIOS 1.1.2.
As we discussed by e-mail, if you have the disk space available ( I installed it on a second internal HD in my 435MT) Windows 7 RC works well and can be downloaded free: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/download.aspx
It seems leaner and quicker than Vista and has several cool features. It can be downloaded through July 2009 and will operate on your PC until June 1, 2010 (although it will start shutting down every two hours after March 1, 2010.)
Bob N.