Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

m3800 has not yet gone back to Dells so here is a pic of the 256GB SSD benchmark:

 

I thought the drive was a Samsung but it is a LiteOnIt LMT-256 M6M

 

The 512 is a Samsung SM841, the 256 is a Lite-On. At least for now; Dell might add/change suppliers in the future.

 

Does this LiteOnIt LMT-256 M6M has anything to do with Plextor M5M? Is the LiteOn a retail one?

 

^ They are the same SSD.

 

I think Plextor and Lite-On are now the same company, at least as far as SSDs are concerned. There may still be some differences in the OEM unit vs retail though, like the ability to install firmware updates. For example, the Samsung SM841 is just a rebadged 840 Pro in an mSATA form factor, but you can't install firmware updates available on the Samsung website; they'd have to come from Dell.

 

I was wondering just what problems are plaguing the m3800?

If the quality of parts are better than the XPS 15, the only difference in performance is the graphic card. So which card has better performance in terms of playing games, loading multiple 20 minute clips on youtube to watch, watching 10-bit encoded 1080p videos?

What about the power consumption of the cards?

 

OK, To me that indicates some sort of filter cap on the power inlet/battery charging circuit. These are rather large (a lot of current goes through the charging circuit, that requires bigger caps) and the larger the caps the more expansion/contraction (more sound). Also this is happening when the battery is not charging (no load or at least very short duty cycle). As the PSU (powerbrick) is being driven hard by the load of the computer the PWM ripple becomes more pronounced. When the battery is under charge, it is connected and effectively works as a large stable load/powersupply, providing a constant load but also a backup supply of pure clean DC voltage. As Li-Ion chemistry is not fond of trickle charge (shortens life of battery), it is probably disconnected from the charging circuit once full, and then charge will kick back in once the capacity drop below a set threshold (say 90% or so). The capacitor on the charge circuit will be left "floating" (with no load) and therfore voltage ripple from the PSU could be causing the cap to resonate..

Just a theory at this point, though...

If this cap should fail sometime in the future (not that it is likely that it will), I don't believe it will be critical for the operation of the laptop (killing mainboard, CPU, GPU etc). However, it might warrant a change of the charging circuit and it could (over time) kill the battery performance (if it results in a loss of stability of the charging circuit).. I guess it's just something we'll have to watch...

 

Your former half of the sentence is contradictory to the latter half.

 

Parts quality is the same, problems aren't "plaguing" these systems. Some early systems are having some QC issues, that's all. XPS will be better for games because the GeForce card is clocked higher and the drivers may also be optimized more for games than the Quadro drivers. Either one will handle the video load you mentioned though.

I think power consumption is about 45W, but you can look on NVIDIA's site to confirm.