Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

Interesting comments about throttling, I wonder if the reboot workaround works for others who have been complaining. Sounds like they tested the display performance before disabling splendid mode again though... Dell is really shooting themselves in the foot by having that enabled by default because it's causing reviewers to have mediocre to poor impressions of a display that's absolutely outstanding once that option is turned off. And the fact that said option is in a completely unintuitive location doesn't help either.

UPDATE: I heard back from the AnandTech review author after I mentioned splendid mode. He was completely unaware of it and immediately noticed the impact it had on color reproduction, so he's rerunning the LCD numbers and will update the article.

 

I haven't noticed any throttling with this computer. Is that just an XPS15 thing?

 

It's been mostly (though not exclusively) reported on the XPS 15 thread, but that could be because there are far more XPS 15s in the field than M3800s at this time, XPS owners are more likely to be gamers, and the XPS 15's GPU appears to be clocked higher than the M3800's. Some owners here who reported throttling also turned out to be using the laptop propped at an angle and/or on their laps or a bed, and found that when using it on a hard, level surface, throttling no longer occurred. And some XPS 15 owners such as myself haven't noticed any throttling at all even after multi-hour gaming sessions. And as the AnandTech article points out, even when throttling does occur, it's sort of a come-and-go affair at the moment that can apparently be solved by a simple reboot.

 

OK. I also noticed the claim that when playing games at less than full resolution they were letter boxed. I'm not a big gamer but the few I have tried were all full screen even at less than full resolution. Some of this might be the difference between the two GPUs. Yes, I know the hardware is identical but the code isn't.

 

I'm not sure what hardware and code you're talking about. The hardware, specifically the GPU, is definitely NOT identical. The code if you're referring to GPU firmware and/or drivers is very probably somewhat different as well. In any case, the Anandtech article mentioned that updating both the Intel and NVIDIA drivers seems to have resolved the letterbox issue. Some people are still talking about it on the XPS thread, but frankly I'm not keeping track of who's running what driver versions and when those posts were made versus when drivers were released -- and I doubt it's every single game anyway.

 

My understanding was the GPU is the same hardware but the firmware and drivers are different. This was the case with the old M20. That said, perhaps I'm mistaken and the two GPUs are simply closely related.

I was just curious about the whole thing as I got this computer in early January and saw none of the issues they talked about but the M3800 isn't exactly the same as the XPS15.

 

I realize i am late to the party but down here in the Dominican Republic this is a common occurrence. It is due to the building and everything not being grounded properly. We had a server room down here that we had to build a grounding field for (3x 6' copper rods sunk into the ground outside the building and connected to the electrical box for grounding). It will surprise you one day if you make contact with a very small part of your wet finger, at least to me it is a surprise, like being stabbed with a needle.

 

I regularly find this with metal laptops of all sorts. A light touch almost feels like a burning sensation. First noticed this back in 1999 or so with a (gorgeous) HP Omnibook 500.

 

For all the kind replies to help me and offer up some possible resolutions and causes, I sincerely appreciate it. In the end, I am returning the machine as Dell has recognized the absurdity of the machines condition and have offered to replace it and have "promissed" a problem-free machine...also sounds like famous last words

Hope the next one is just that..(hoping hoping hoping)

PS - can someone kindly tell me how to disable this "splendid" option with respect to the colour calibration?

Thanks again for all the help.

 

stewart...I had Norton Internet Security on the machine but as I posted..the machine is being replaced, so hopefully your system has no issues. Good luck!