Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

Win7 and Win8 definitely cannot use the same key. Even Win8 and Win8.1 don't use the same keys (though an 8 key will ACTIVATE 8.1, it won't INSTALL 8.1), which has caused huge frustrations for people wanting to do a clean 8.1 install on systems that shipped with 8 rather than just running an upgrade. Microsoft responded by releasing generic install-only keys for 8.1, telling users to switch to their own key post-install. I suppose Dell could have embedded two keys into the BIOS (not sure that's possible), but you can't use one key for both OSes. On the plus side, you no longer need Dell-specific recovery media to use BIOS-embedded keys. All Win8 and 8.1 installers support detecting that key.

Interesting about included recovery media. Must be a perk of the M3800 over the XPS, like the included power adapter dongle and USB 2.0 to gigabit PXE-capable NIC adapter.

 

This has been a really interesting thread, I've just started my own regarding the M3800 vs the E7440 as I didn't want to hijack this thread,

I was wondering what sort of throughput are you all seeing on the USB NIC. Does it run at a full 1Gb when being used through USB3?

Thanks


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The included one is USB 2.0, so using a 3.0 port won't have any effect. The sole advantage of the Dell USB NIC is that it supports PXE boot. I asked the benchmark question a few pages back and got a response though, so if you look at my posts you shouldn't have to go too far back. USB 3.0 NICs absolutely seem to deliver full gigabit though, delivering speeds as fast as any onboard gigabit NIC used for comparison.

 

Many thanks for the quick response. That's good to hear. I guess the USB3 one is something that will need to be purchased separate? Is there a standard dell part for that do you know?


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No, not sure a Dell one exists. I bought a StarTech unit that even has a USB 3.0 passthrough port built in, so I don't lose a USB port by having the NIC connected. Was about $50 on Amazon.

 

I just tested the Dell usb 2.0 one and that goes up to 43 mb/sec, my Anker usb 3.0 adapter (19,99£ on Amazon) and Dell Superspeed docking station (D3000) gives full speed 100+ mb/sec (to my nas-server)

 

Do you mean 43 megaBITS (i.e. Mb) or 43 megaBYTES (i.e. MB)? Please be precise with your abbreviations and capitalization because it matters for things like this; a megabyte is 8x larger than a megabit. 43 megaBIT would be pathetic even over USB 3.0, though 100 megaBYTES on USB 3.0 would be entirely respectable.

 

Not sure how the "purchase Windows 8 Pro, get Windows 7 downgrade rights" works at retail, then; perhaps that's only for companies with KMS or MAK keys, but that wasn't the impression I got.

Googling...
Understanding downgrade rights
looks like the a"basically, you've got to have an old copy of Windows kicking around, and a key you can reuse."

--

If anyone who ordered their system with Windows 8.1 downgraded to 7 from the factory wants to check if their system has SLC 2.1, I'd be very curious. I ordered mine Windows 8.1 only and will check when it arrives; I have a never used MSDNAA license, if I need to downgrade, and it turns out not to have SLC 2.1

When I originally ordered mine, the Premier page had the option of ordering a USB3 dongle with it. Per my rep, having included that in the original order was one of the reasons the order got "changed" a few weeks ago and my system further delayed.

I have a cheapie Anker one (probably the same model micmex mentioned) waiting for the system to arrive now; if everything works well, I'll probably get a second to leave at the office.

 

MEGABYTES per second (measured by win 8.1 during file transfer)

 

My understanding (though I don't claim to be an expert in the subtleties of the tangled web known as Microsoft Licensing) is that downgrade rights aren't granted to retail purchased copies. For OEM they're available, but that involves the OEM providing you with a key to activate the downlevel version of Windows, either included with the system, provided via customer request post-purchase, or embedded in the BIOS (assuming that embedding multiple keys is possible, which I don't know that it is). I'll be very curious to know what key(s) an M3800 order includes out of the box.

My XPS 15 has its Win8.1 key embedded in the BIOS, and I was able to see it by reading out its ACPI tables using a free app called RW Everything. Not sure if that's the same as SLC 2.1, though.

Interesting that Dell has a separate USB 3.0 dongle. In that case I assume that the USB 2.0 dongle is there either to reduce cost on the bundled accessories and/or because the USB 3.0 unit doesn't support PXE.