Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

Thanks for running this test. For the problem I see having the BT radio on/off doesn't affect things, you need to a BT device connected. Then WLAN performance degrades hugely. Do you have a phone you could perhaps run a BT test with? And like I said earlier the problem is more pronounced when you are, say, 10m away from the WIFI router.

I have actually tried rolling back through all the previous drivers too. For me they all have the same problem when a BT device is connected. Rolling back through the BT drivers I found that when I hit the old Microsoft one I did get improved WIFI performance with the BT device connected. So in my experience i see the following:

New Intel BT drivers + Any wifi drivers + BT device connected - < 3 Mbps
Old MS BT drivers + Any wifi drivers + BT device connected - ~ 8 Mbps
Old or New BT drivers + Any wifi drivers + BT device not connected - ~ 18-20 Mbps
My old Dell E6500 laptop with or without bluetooth device connected - 18-20 Mbps

The fact that I see slight improvement with the old BT drivers makes me hope that new intel drivers can actually fix this problem.

 

Interesting, the 16.6 version where your performance drops off so significantly is the first version that fixed severe performance and random disconnect issues for others. Maybe some function that improved speeds in certain environments created stability problems in others and thus was disabled in 16.6 and above in order to maximize compatibility? Still, those speeds are absurdly low. Hopefully a future release delivers the best of both worlds.

 

Hope so.

These are all N connections and I've tried both 2.4ghz and 5ghz -- both work equivalently, although getting the higher speeds at 2.4ghz requires enabling wide channels in the properties.

Haven't tried with an AC router yet.

 

I'm dual booting two Windows 8.1 partitions right now, one from the Dell restore, one from my own key, if that says anything. (Both on the same 128GB SSD, one for general use, one heavily stripped down version on its own 30GB partition for live audio applications. These are two separate license keys).

Also on the note of installing a mechanical HDD in this thing....I need to go check my WD 1TB drive model...I don't believe it's 9mm tall, but I could be wrong. Hasn't given me trouble yet and seemed to fit just fine though...

 

Today and yesterday I'm having some unusual performance issues with the wifi. In my office ~15-20 feet from router, few walls in between I'm getting 5-6mb/down and a paltry 0.3 up on a 30/3 connection. But if I move the notebook to within a few feet of the router, it'll get about 20down and 3 up. Then if I move back to my office, these speeds remain. Meanwhile other machines get the full 30/3 no matter where they are.

Driver is Intel, 16.8.0.6 12/5/13

 

Ouch! I just tested my own system running the same driver version, and at the same 15-20 feet and 1 wall away from my Asus RT-N66U router (running the latest non-beta firmware), I get the full 30/5 speeds of my Internet connection while connected to the 5 GHz band. I don't have any wired clients permanently set up to test maximum Wifi throughput on the LAN. I have both the Bluetooth and NFC radios disabled if that matters.

 

I did a fresh install of Win7 with the disk Dell sent me, installed all of the drivers from the Dell website, and unfortunately the computer is still freezing every once in a while after waking up from sleep. I can move the mouse, but clicking doesn't do anything and I have to press ctrl+alt+delete and restart the computer.

I've also noticed that when this happens, it takes a really long time for it to wake up from sleep (much longer than restarting takes..).

 

I earlier asked for the M3800 preformance. And I'm happy so many of you are satisfied with the Solidworks preformance of this workstation..

I have another question. I read earlier in the thread that buying the 1080p version would be pointless and QHD+ is the way to go.
But if i plan to hook the M3800 up to a Dell2713m display that wouldnt matter right?

 

No, it wouldn't matter. Plus, there's a few of us, Yours Truly included, that disagree that QHD+ is the way to go. I'm still on the fence on whether or not I will get one of these, but I am almost certain I will not get it with the QHD+ screen. Once Windows 9 comes out, I may look into this question again, but currently, with Windows 7 and the applications available for it, QHD+ causes too many headaches to be worth it, for me. And of course, Windows 8 is not an option, and does next to nothing to help with these issues in any case.

 

I've been using my M3800 for a little over a week now. I got the base model back when the quick ship option was available (FHD, 8gb). I imaged the 500gb sshd to a 840evo 1 tb. Runs Solidworks well and very quick renders in photoview 360. Touch screen good enough for some quick markups on CAD screenshot/renderings in Sketchbook pro with a capacitive stylus. Haven't tried any games in it yet. Very happy with it so far. There is a slight humming sound from the 130w power adapter. Also there is a slight hum (coming from the computer) when I rotate my CAD model in Solidworks. Odd.


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