Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

+1 blu-ray player + dvd burner any advice?

 

Slimline Blu-ray drives seem to be quietly disappearing from the market. I found a few on Amazon just searching "slimline Blu-ray", and then you could buy a USB 3.0 enclosure for it. But I doubt you'd have any lag issues with movie playback since that's only 1x, which is 36 Mbps, FAR below even USB 2.0. Ripping would obviously be faster than that if the drive supports it, but if you go USB 3.0 I can't see you having any problems at all.

 

Latest on the coil whine 'fix'
Third visit from engineer and a new motherboard (for new read 'reconditioned') fitted. If anything the noise is now worse!
Thus far Dell have tried:
1. Replacing the ac adapter and cord. Result = SAME
2. Replacing internal power cable linking to motherboard. Result = SAME
3. Updating firmware and adjusting/updating BIOS settings for power and keyboard. Result = SAME
4. Replacing motherboard. Result = SAME

So the issue persists and in my opinion all options have been exhausted. I now also have a £2K machine with several reconditioned parts installed, an irritating noise and a touch screen that does not work. I will be videoing the noise etc and adding to my YouTube channel.

And here it is...

 

try exchange for new cto machine.

 

My XPS 15 also has the same problem. What is different is that Dell would not even give a replacement. My only option is a refund. I wonder whether I might be able to argue with them for a model with similar or higher specs.

 

They have just approved a refund for me. They did offer a replacement...but as this seems a common issue I will be looking elsewhere for a replacement. It is a shame as it is otherwise a good bit of kit.

 

That's because they know about this issue and know that it hasn't been fixed yet, so they don't want to send you a swap until they're confident that the replacement won't have the same issue that prompted you to return the one you originally received.

From what I'm reading here, it sounds like people are hearing that Dell has officially acknowledged this issue and is investigating, so a fix will presumably be forthcoming. The Latitude E6430u cat urine smell issue took a few months to get resolved, because you have to go from initial report, to confirmation of broad impact, to engineering analysis, to testing a fix, to implementing that fix into production. We're probably at step 2 or the beginning of step 3 of that process with these systems now. So people who have coil whine may have a path to a resolution shortly (if you're ok with risking a Dell repair tech, who have been hit or miss in my recent experience....), but everyone else who returned a system over this issue and expects a replacement should expect to wait a while until a fix is actually available.

 

I would get refund and check out HP or Lenovo.

 

I've reported this issue on here several times. It's happened with both of the M3800's I've had (Dell swapped the first machine due to all the problems it had -- unfortunately the new one has just as many!) and is as you describe. I did a fresh install of W7 and installed all of the drivers on the Dell product page. I think it's a driver problem.

 

It seems that Samsung has a slim blu-ray writer (price around 80&#8364:
http://www.tsstodd.com/eng/Products/Spec/?functionvalue=view&parent_idx=4489&level_idx=4509

Samsung has even interesting DVD writer:

With Lightscribe support (price around 50&#8364
http://www.tsstodd.com/eng/Products/Spec/?functionvalue=view&parent_idx=4414&level_idx=4520

(price around 35&#8364
http://www.tsstodd.com/eng/Products/Spec/?functionvalue=view&parent_idx=4414&level_idx=4503

Dell also sells optical drives:
CD/DVD External : CD, DVD & Blu-Ray Drives : Storage: Hard Drives & Storage Media | Dell