Buying refurbished m4400

Any issues I should be aware of before pulling the trigger on a refurbished m4400?

What's been your experience with this particular m4400 refurbished model? Do you recommend going this route?

 

ehm...try reading posts on the forum maybe? Enough issues and fixes but in general i can still recommend it.

What configuration are you looking for and what are you going to use it for?

 

Thanks for the reply. I am aware of the various gpu downclocking, dvd/sound and other issues that have been discussed on this forum. I was just wondering what type of experience or any new problems people have had in specifically purchasing this notebook as a refurbished unit from Dell?

I am pretty much looking for a similar configuration as what you have (perhaps with the exeption of preferring Windows XP and a WXGA+ [1400 x 900] screen for gaming). My main use for this notebook would be primarily for general business and game usage (such as flight and sub simulation games). This notebook seems to have a much better and newer gpu than what is offered in the XPS 1530 and that would be the main reason that I have decided to purchase it.

Best regards.

 

I bought an M4400 from the outlet at the end of last december. It arrived the first week in January with the incorrect power adapter, no media for the OS, and it had been physically damaged in shipment. Three completely different issues. Dell then said they would replace the machine with a newly manufactured one, which after about 18 days of screwing up the replacement order, they finally delivered. To their credit the replacement laptop was new, and included several upgraded parts from my original order (FX1700 & 9-cell batter) that they did not charge me for... It took about a month from the time of my original order of a refurb M4400, but I ended up with a brand new one with better specs in perfect condition.. I'm happy now, but was really pissed for about a month..

 

I bought a Certified Refurb M4400 after asking the exact same question you are asking. The one I got must have slipped through the cracks - cosmetic defects as well as functional defects ended up necessitating a replacement. Fortunately, Dell was quite willing to work with me and get me the replacement, which ended up being a new machine. I ended up with a hard drive upgrade and the 6-cell instead of the 9-cell (at my request). The new machine had a disfunctional touchpad, and so I'm getting that replaced tomorrow.

Watch out for the DVD drive... the Toshibas seem to be a bit structurally weak, the Panasonics seem to be fine.

You will almost certainly experience the DPC latency issues and the resulting effects (sound issues). For me, those issues were able to be resolved to an acceptable level (spikes are minimized, average is still a bit high, but the system is fully usable), but for others (LPTP-LVR, etc) certain components have had to be left disabled in order for the system to work acceptably.

I definitely think ordering an M4400 is worth it, but be prepared to fight Dell to get any shortcomings resolved.

 

@Dabeer

Actually i don't have to leave the DVD disabled to have acceptable performance. I'll have latency spikes when it's enabled but i never had stutter/crackles or anything in Vista64.
The reason i have it disabled is that i also use this lappy for audio production and in that case the latency does give me some problems. But that's with up too 20 audio tracks running at 192khz with loads of fx and plugins etc....if there's any issues at all i would notice when doing tasks like that. That said, with the DVD disabled this lappy handles it perfectly

 

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I guess I will go ahead and buy a refurbished m4400 with some some reluctance, and hope for the best.

Best regards.