Dell XPS 420 Owners Review
Dell Finally Delivered my Dell XPS 420.
Now its very rare for me to get a PC for myself. The last time was May 2004.
At the time (2004) a Pentium4 3.0 Ghz was considered speedy, but it doesn’t cut it in today’s world of multi core and HD content.
What I wanted was speed and a large form factor machine to accommodate multiple hard disks and full length video cards. It also needed to be relatively quiet.
Basically I needed a “Big Box” of a computer, out my available choices the XPS 420 is aesthetically one of the nicest. It has the “Piano Black shiny look” to it, like you find on Samsung LCD’s these days.
Some thought has been given to the design but lets be real its more evolution than revolution.
In the Speed department I could have got away with any Intel Dual Core CPU. The machine’s primary purpose is HD playback and any Dual Core CPU above 1.8Ghz can do it.
So when I saw an offer for a Quad Core CPU at a very enticing price point I jumped at the chance.
The Machine Shipped with Windows Vista Home Premium I am new convert to Windows Vista Media Centre so my initial intention was to stick with Vista.
However my first out of the box experience was marred by how Vista was performing on what I knew to be a powerful machine.
The first issue was all the Dell installed software: Adobe, Roxio, McAfee etc. I don’t want any of it. So I slowly remove these one by one hoping the performance I was expecting would appear.
I took all of 45 minuets to decide Vista had to go.
I know what I need this machine to do and all of it can be done in Windows XP. At this point I look at Windows XP as Lean and Mean. It does the job without any flashy stuff you don’t need.
Now here is the problem. Dell don’t offer Windows XP Drivers for the XPS 420. But its not rocket science all the parts are pretty standard: CPU Chipset, Network Card, Sound, etc.
I would lose access to the MiniView the display on the front of the machine, but I saw through the usefulness of that in my first half an hour.
This link here points you in the right direction for locating the Windows XP Drivers.
So reinstalling an operating system is no biggie for me. So about an hour later I have completed the Windows XP machine and I managed to get for the first time a glimpse at how fast the machine could perform.
What I am looking for is a machine that can cold boot and then be ready for use in a very short time.
The XPS 420 seems to linger in the bios screen for 5 to 7 seconds and my Windows XP build is totally usable 30 seconds later. This is something I would find very difficult to match in Windows Vista land.
Problems
This machine shipped with a ATI 2600XT and for some reason during HD playback it would blue screen with a watchdog.sys error. This is video card/driver related.
I am tight on time at the moment so I elected to replace the 2600XT for a 2600Pro that I know was rock solid on the driver front.
Observations
Operating System: Most people could live with Vista, I couldn’t for an easier but slower life stick with Vista.
Build Quality: Pretty high standard, very similar to Precision I use, nice and neat inside. The cables are managed properly.
Performance: In my scenario this performs amazingly well. I looked at the CPU usage while playing back HD. It idled at around 8%. This computer handles HD like older computer manage DVD, with ease in other words.
Other: Something I am not best pleased about is on the motherboard. The following capacitor being so close to the blue plastic release of the video card.
Replacing a video card is something an end user might do and Dell are asking for trouble placing a Capacitor in that location.
Summary: I am very pleased with my choice, Quad Core was a bonus. This machine now purrs relatively silently and handles all my HD requirements with ease.
Link: http://www.intel.com/products/processor/core2quad/specifications.htm
Link: Dell 420 Page
Office2007 User Interface
March 15th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
I have had so many problems with my new dell xps 420 . I believe your observation re: Vista are correct it is the worst piece of O/S i have ever used.
I may do the same and install XP , hoping that all my problems or the majority go away as of right now I am so frustrated with what I thought was going to be a dream a new OS a new powerfull PC …not… at least not yet.
Jim G
March 15th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Hi Jim
I am happy to report not having a single problem with XPS 420 running Windows XP Pro.
In my config the only thing i cant locate a Windows XP driver for is the Miniview thingy.
Mine is a very basic configuration, no raid, blue tooth and just onboard sound.
If you have ever re-installed an operating system on a Dell you will be able to figure it out.
Colin
March 20th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
I just brought mine home last night and set it up. Vista Crashed on everything and was just a pain in what i thouhgt was going to be a very enjoyable experience. I too am in the process of putting XP Pro on the Machine. Luckily i found the drivers they had for Vista worked for the NIC. I am trying to locate drivers on the web as I type.
March 25th, 2008 at 10:27 am
Hi Wayne
The XPS 420 is a great machine hampered by Windows Vista is the sad truth of the matter.
Colin
April 14th, 2008 at 2:25 am
I too find Vista to be very annoying when trying to run programs I rely upon under XP, but when trying to instal XP Pro I get the BSOD at the point where it states, “Starting Windows.” Do you have any suggestions on how to get by this stopping point? I read somewhere that Dell has made it very near impossible to install a different OS on this machine (XPS 420). I hope this is not the case.
April 14th, 2008 at 9:46 am
Hi Anj
Installing XP on the Dell XPS 420 is quite common.
I would need to know more about how you installed XP and if in your case you have a raid configuration.
Colin
April 15th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Hi Colin,
I like the most out there dont like vista so decided to reinstall my os with xp-pro, but boy did i run into trouble. My pc is the dell xps-420. I started the normal way F12 and select from boot from cd/dvd. All is well and it installed with no problems until the end. After the pc reboots when the os is installed it gets to the screen before login and keeps rebooting. I have tried 3 different os all of which are xp-pro (2 of which i no work and one is currently running on my laptop) but none worked, so i had to put vista back on and it did with no problems. Here is a summery of my machine…
xps420 viiv q660 quad core 2.40ghz, 1066mhz fsb, 8mb cache
memory 4gb dual channel ddr2 800mhz (4×1024mb)
hard drive 640gb serial ata2 raid 0 stripe (2×320gb) 7200rpm dual hdd config
single 512mb nvidia geforce 8800gt card
I would be very grateful if you could shine some light on this because to be honest im buggerd if i can figure it out….
Many thanks in advance,
Kev
April 15th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Hi Kev
Lots of people have had problems using raid on the XPS 420.
Example.
http://www.nevillehobson.com/next/2008/03/18/no-confidence-in-raid-on-xps-420/
Also
http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/search?submitted=true&type=message&sort_by=score&q=xps+420+raid+problems&page_size=10
I have spoken to 3 or 4 people who have downgraded to XP and all been successful, none of them had raid enabled.
Colin
April 15th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Hi Colin,
Many thanks for the speedy reply. Is the raid something i can disable and is it safe to do so. Can you advise me on what to do please???
Regards,
Kev
April 15th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Is it Safe? No
If you disable your existing Raid configuration you will lose all your existing data and have to re-install Windows (whatever version you want).
If you do decide to disable Raid you will end up with 2 separate 320gb drives.
How to disable raid is discussed here.
Link:http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=Tech_Talk_XPS&message.id=41713&query.id=85561#M41713
If you are in anyway unsure about disabling your raid configuration then don’t do it.
If I were you I would first run the dell memory diagnostics. Press F12 when you boot up and run any memory tests, to make sure its not faulty ram. Just a thought.
April 15th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Hi Colin,
Many thanks for the speedy reply again. I have had to reinstall today anyway so everything is gone. I did a memory test in the diagnostic and it told me the (spindle rundown???) was faulty. But the machine runs no problem. There were also other issues but it worked with no problems. The machine wont install anything other than vista. I dont mind the two seperate disks if i was able to install xp. I have already saved all the drivers on an external drive. I now have vista ultimate with service pack one, however in saying that in the windows experience my 4 gig of memory only shows as 5.5 instead of 5.9 which everthing else has. The pc has never shown any problems or nothing has ever shown on the screen Im really confused and would really any other input and advice you could offer..
Once again many thanks for your help Colin,
Regards,
Kev
April 16th, 2008 at 1:10 am
Hi again Colin, thanks for the response. I have two 320G SATA drives but they are not in RAID config. I have not been successful at getting XP installed. At one point, I removed the second drive, completely erased the existing boot drive and tried to install XP from scratch from a store-bought copy of XP Pro, but at the same point, “Starting Windows” it crashes to the BSOD. Just to test it, I reinstalled Vista and it worked without a hitch. This machine just does NOT want XP on it but I’m not so easily defeated
I am, however, stumped and grateful for any advice you may have.
Best wishes,
Anj
April 16th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Hi Kev
Forget about the spindle rundown error, thats nothing.
The good news if it passed all the other bios test, its unlikely to be faulty components like ram.
Also dont read too much into the Windows Experience Index numbers, not until you have your system up and running with the latest drivers etc.
Just curious what Bios is on yours
A01
A02
A03
A04
When did it ship? Do you have any other hardware like for example blue tooth.
Colin
April 16th, 2008 at 9:18 am
Hi Anj
Did the blue screen mention any files it has a problem with specifically.
Do you have a stop number or other information.
Colin
April 16th, 2008 at 9:28 am
Also it appears that it is best to install from Windows XP SP2 media.
Colin
April 16th, 2008 at 10:37 am
Hi Colin,
Many thanks for the reply agin. The Bios version is 2.5 and I have the machine about 2 months (give or take). It has the 19 in 1 card reader with blue tooth (which was another problem. It kept looking for the peripheral device so i got pxxxed off and didnt install it last time) At the moment as I said yesterday i did a clean install of windows xp pro which it installed with no problems. At the end of the install when the machine reboots for the last time it gets to the windows xp screen (I think its the screen before the login screen) and just keeps rebooting from there. So Vista is back on it but no drivers are installed yet (Except the minview). Im like Anj above. This machine just doesnt want anything on it bar vista. Vista installs in about 15-20 mins without any problems. I tried looking at the raid thing by pressing (ctrl-i but that didnt work. My files and folders are backed up by an external HD so i have nothing to loose. Its just really annoying that a simple procedure as installing a OS is so tricky. I even managed to reinstall miniview gadgets after a clean install.
Regards,
Kev
April 16th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
I am wondering if some machines have a different motherboards or other components that are causing this.
The latest bios is A04, worth a shot.
There must be a common reason however.
From your description it sounds driver related. Windows is getting ready to load, finds a problem with one of its own OS supplied drivers and loops. Can you boot into Windows XP Safe mode? Does that work?
Colin
April 16th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
Hi Colin,
Thanks again for the reply. It wont boot up in any mode, they all star and reboot from same place. Never mind!!! I give up. Im sure its probably dell messing with the settings. Its unusual that some people have no problems and others cant get it to work whatsoever. I now have vista ultimate with service pack one installed. Ill cut my losses. All drivers are on and all is well. However refering back to an earlier post I mentioned about the windows experience only giving me 5.5 for memory. Its still doing it even though all drivers are present and up to date. I also did a system health check to make sure all was well and the funny thing was it told me that my UAC was switched of. I checked and it was clearly on???? That memory thing is really bugging me! I have searched every where for this but cant seem to find a soloution. Any advice would be much appreciated.
Once again many thanks for your time and support,
Regards,
Kev
April 17th, 2008 at 1:10 am
Hi again Colin,
I boot up with XP pro installation disc. Everything purrs along fine; loads USB, SCSI drivers, etc. all the normal stuff at first. Then is says “Setup is starting windows….” then the BSOD appears with this message:
A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer. If this is the first time you’ve seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:
Check for viruses on your computer. Remove any newly installed hard drives or hard drive contollers. Check your hard drive to make sure it is properly configured and terminated. run chkdsk /F to check for hard drive corruption, and then restart your computer.
Technical information: *** Stop: 0X0000007B
(0XF78DD2524, 0XC0000034, 0X00000000, 0X00000000)
I read somewhere that it is impossible to install from an XP installation disk that is not SP2. Would that be accurate and would one have to buy a brand new copy of XP just for that purpose?
Best wishes,
Anj
April 17th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Hi Kev.
I have seen other XPS 420 users with a rating of 5.5 WEI on their memory so that sounds about right to me.
Hi Anj.
You can install Windows XP from most media regardless of service pack level, However in this case an SP2 install CD has worked for me and others.
Your stop error message pertains to the boot sector.
Have a look here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324103
Colin
April 18th, 2008 at 12:32 am
Anj,
I had the same issue, download and extract the files onto a floppy disk from…
http://support.euro.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=uk&l=en&s=gen&releaseid=R173412&SystemID=DIM_PNT_9200_XPS_420&servicetag=&os=WLH&osl=en&deviceid=16825&devlib=0&typecnt=0&vercnt=1&catid=-1&impid=-1&formatcnt=1&libid=41&fileid=235720
Now, plug in a USB floppy disk (or remove the cover, plug in an old floppy disk and change the setting in the BIOS). As Win XP is booting, press F6 and then select the relevant driver from the floppy. All should be fine
I hope this helps
Dan
May 26th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Hi Colin,
I have a xps420 too and I have just installed windows xp professional because I don’t like vista.
I can’t access to Miniview but it’s not a problem. I have problems with the usb device, network controller, multimedia video controller and BT Mini-receiver.
Where did you find the drivers??? The usb device driver is important to me because now, usb works as 1.0
Thanks a lot and sorry for my english
Alejandro
May 27th, 2008 at 8:00 am
Hi Alejandro
I got my drivers from this post.
http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=Tech_Talk_XPS&message.id=30626&query.id=179583#M30626
Colin
May 29th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Hi Colin,
I just purchased a Dell XPS 420 from Best Buy for $899. I don’t game so I figured I’d be happy with the basic configuration that includes the Radeon HD 2600XT video card.
Unfortunately, my patience with Vista is growing thin. I’m tired of random lock ups and the monitor and computer going to sleep and not waking with the keyboard or mouse. It also is not as fast as I expected. I was “upgrading” from a P4 2.4ghz/MSI 865 PE based computer running XP and I expected the XPS to blow it away. Perhaps it does blow my old computer away as is but the Vista environment seems so slow that I don’t feel like the machine is operating as fast as it should be.
On one hand, I feel like just returning the XPS 420 out of spite for Dell not offering an XP option for it and building my own computer. (This is the first computer I have owned that I haven’t built but the Dell is very cost competitive and there is no cost advantage to building my own.)
I swapped out the original 500gb drive for a 750gb drive that I already owned so I think I’ll try a clean XP install as you’ve outlined this weekend. I am hoping the hardware upgrade that I have made will shine with XP as the OS instead of Vista.
May 29th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Hi Victor.
If you have a nice clean hard disk you have nothing to lose trying.
Colin
July 20th, 2008 at 7:52 am
Hi
I read the posts here with interest, as I have some major issues with my machine, and I wasn’t sure whether it was the PC or the OS. I have an XPS420, Q6600 Quad Core@2.4 ghz, 4GB RAM, GeForce 8800 GTX with a SP2208WFP lcd running Vista Home Premium SP1.
First of all it is extremely disappointing that Dell don’t offer XP as an option with this machine. I’ve found nothing on Vista that I actually use that I didn’t already have with XP. Many times I’ve considered going back to XP, but then I think that eventually Vista will sort itself out and I’ll have to upgrade it back again anyway. My issues seem to be mainly around USB. I cannot get a U3 USB drive to work, despite installing the USB drivers for each manufacturer (Toshiba and Verbatim). These drives work perfectly under XP. Also every now and then when Vista drops into sleep mode it installs a new version of my printer software! I am now up to “HP 2100 Deskjet (copy 4)”.
Another more worrying issue happens at boot time. It starts to boot up and then before Vista loads I get the diagnostics screen which tells me that the OS is broken and it needs to repair it (despite a previous normal shutdown). Eventually it says it has fixed things, or it gives up and asks if I want to restore the OS to a prior point in time, at which I get fed up, reboot it, and it starts up fine!
The lcd has a built in webcam, but if I try to use MSN messenger with the webcam or the microphone, Messenger crashes.
Has anyone else experienced any of this?
Despite these oddities I do love the machine - it’s stylish, very quiet and fast for everything I need - I just hate the OS.
For info. my windows experience index is 5.6.
cheers
Steve
July 21st, 2008 at 7:30 am
Hi Steve
Thanks for sharing your experience.
The XPS 420 is a great machine with an flawed OS in my view.
Did it ship with SP1 installed or have you upgraded?
It would interesting to hear from anyone with a clean Windows Vista SP1 build on the 420.
Is it more stable and less sluggish?
Mine has been working perfectly on XP since Feb.
A lot of your issues sound like drivers so I would check for the latest versions of everything.
Windows Vista is a self repairing OS which is why your boot problems go away. However in my experience of Vista these are not normal in everyday use and a sign of another problem.
Colin
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:53 am
Hi Colin
I’ve fixed the Messenger crash - the Dell webcam was using the wrong driver, so my fault.
I totally agree with you - great machine, annoying OS.
I upgraded to SP1 so can’t help you with your “clean install” question.
Had the Boot issue again the other day - the “Startup Repair Dialog” is the window that appears, sits there for ages telling me it’s repairing itself, finally says it *can’t* repair itself, and then I reboot and it’s all fine.
cheers
Steve
July 23rd, 2008 at 12:33 pm
I would contact Dell Technical Support sounds like a Hard Disk failure or perhalps a Hard Disk firmware issue.
Have a look here for more information on the topic.
http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/search?ticket=06_hScpFoasJ_-1&q=xps+420+startup+repair&submitted=true&page=1
Colin
November 10th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
XP will reboot at startup due a setting on the sata controller within the BIOS. Simply experiment with changing the SATA/ATA mode in the BIOS and XP will install, load and run fine.
We receive loads of preloaded Dell/Vista boxes and make the BIOS change before re-imaging with an XP image, if you forget the change then the new imaged pc reboots continuosly until the edit.
Hope this helps!
November 11th, 2008 at 12:39 am
Thanks Graham
November 23rd, 2008 at 4:40 pm
I just found this thread while searching for Bios information on my Dell XPS 420.
It is very heartening to read all this. We bought ours to replace a 10 year old computer that ran under 98. We were shocked that this machine was, mostly, slower than the old one.
My cure for this was to get a new HDD and install the Linux flavor Ubuntu 8.04.1. Works great.
Tom
November 23rd, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Hi Tom
I agree an XPS 420 running anything other than vista is a dream.
Colin
November 23rd, 2008 at 5:41 pm
i don’t feel qualified to be on this blog, as i’m not as computer literate as you all; but wanted to answer colin’s question about SP1. we bought an xps 420 with SP1 two months ago and we are so frustrated with it that we’re ready to send it back. am thrilled to have found this site which confirms our thoughts that vista is a poor o/s.
in short, it’s the vista o/s that gives us the most problems! that’s no surprise to those on this blog. i cannot burn cds and dvds (which also means i can’t back up files from several sofware programs i use) without going through several steps which is ludicrous. burning cds and dvds, backing up files through quicken and other software programs is simple and easy on our old computer - 5 year old dell dimension 4600 with xp! we purchased a new computer for faster speed and more memory…so far the increased speed and larger memory haven’t been worth the headaches of incompatibility issues with commonly used software programs! it also doesn’t recognize memory cards placed in our fairy new hp photosmart printer, preventing us from transferring images from printer to computer.
ANOTHER issue (and the reason i’m using our old computer right now) is that the monitor blacks out every once in a while and won’t come back ‘on’ when i wiggle the mouse or press a letter on the keyboard. i’ve tried pushing the power button on the tower and it doesn’t ‘turn off’! Can anyone help me resolve this issue? once i get it resolved, i’m going to dump everything onto an external hard drive and return this XPS 420. for what? i don’t know. if you have a suggestion, let me know. we use our computer for home use only and primarily for home video and photo editing/creating dvds and cds.
thanks,
david
November 25th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Hi David
Have you tried disabling all the power management options in the control panel > power options.
Colin