A couple of M4400 issues

Hi there!

I got myself a lovely little Precision M4400 on christmas eve. It was downgraded from Vista to XP from Dell. Since I have a specific way of setting up my systems, I spent a week in januray installing the OS from scratch. Usually this isn't a problem, I have installed my own systems the past 15 years, and things have worked out pretty good so far. But there are some things about the M4400 that I simply don't understand, and I hope there are someone here that can guide me towards a solution.

The specs are: Dell Precision M4400, with 4Gb Ram, a Quadro FX 1700M graphics card, and a Intel WiFi Link 5300 AGN card. I am currently running 32bit Windows XP on it. I think those are the relevant specs for the things I'm fixing.

So, there are three main issues with the machine.

First, I haven't been able to find any official graphics driver for the machine! On the Dell site there are only drivers for Vista. If I select XP as the OS, I only see drivers for a 770M graphics card. I got a forceware driver from Nvidia installed, but I get a lot of BSOD right now (sometimes from just resizing a Quicktime window!), so I could really need some help on this. That's the most critical issue.

Second, I have some instabilities with the WiFi, and I'm not sure what it could be. I loose connection with the router at home for long periods of time, and the connection appears as "limited connectivity". Using mapped network drives can suddenly take forever, and looking up webpages also takes ages. Strange thing is, using VNC works just fine! So there network is there, only parts of it! I've never ever experienced that before, so any info would be fantastic. Using regular wired network works fine (I'm doing it as I write this).

Third, and this is the least important bit (I think it is, but it could be related to the stuff above for all I know): There is one driver I haven't been able to find or install, the Broadcom USH. Does anyone know what this is?

I'm really really hoping someone can help me fix these issues on an otherwise fantastic piece of hardware (gotta love that screen, wow!).

Thanks!!
Rune

 

im not sure about the other two issues, but for the graphics you just install the 770's drivers. they are both the same card. the only difference is the voltage and clock speed.

the drivers should be identical.

sorry i cant help on the other two cos i use vista

 

Unless you need XP for some specific software ... you should take that 4gb of RAM and go cruising with Vista.

XP is legacy and you'll be much more prepared for Windows 7 if you have your Vista drivers/software/setup/etc running.

 

yea, vista runs really well on the m4400....unless you really need xp...i suggest you switch to vista 64

 

Lol at the vista fanboy's....vista will be dead pretty soon,and XP will STILL have 75% of the market share......even more so in the area's these notebook's are marketed towards.....why?.....because it perform's better.

Personally I will keep using XP until W7 show's that they have got rid of all the memory hoggage,snailpace I/O performance,nvidia write better drivers for openGL.


You have had a problem free vista experience on the M4400 stingray??what apps do you use that make 64 bit a must have?


@superrune,you might want to try ridding yourself of some of the thing's I have listed here,depending on your need's etc.but may give you some help as XP is flawless for me.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4379137&postcount=1273

 

... deleted ...

 

Sorry, Vista is out of the question. I simply don't like it, it's an extremely wasteful OS And I'm not sure about the Vista status on OpenGL. Is there anyone else here who runs XP?

I will try the 770M drivers and see how that goes.

 

Actually, I'm like you when it comes to installing drivers I keep my systems very lean and minimal, so the horrible Intel WiFi tool was one of the first things that went out (and it didn't help on the WiFi stability either). I also tend to go through the services list in Windows and disable anything that aren't vital to the machine running.

About the Zero Config Processes, are those only for WiFi?

 

Can't really remember,but am pretty sure those processes disappeared with uninstalling the intel proset wireless software.
Didn't affect the wired Lan management in window's though,still connected instantly.

 

lol at the xp fanboy, you dont have to get all defensive about it

google for the benefits of vista 64
and
when i said it runs well, i did mean compared to xp. and also compared to vista pre sp.