Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

thanks i am running Windows 8.1 and Bios A02 -
it's weird running without battery for awhile now and has not disconnected

 

Thanks. I didn't even think to look there, because normally when I do the Dell moderators usually give people the "standard": Contact customer service, reboot your machine, re-install the driver etc... response. It's good to know that Dell is at least taking the issue seriously and attempting to see what's wrong. Whether or not a fix happens remains to be seen I guess.

 

Hmm, well USB Attached SCSI (abbreviated UASP) is an enhancement to USB introduced in Win8 specifically to optimize USB for bulk data transfers like you'd have with external storage, so any devices that also support it will appear that way. No idea what's up with your issue, but any USB drivers on Win8 would have to come from Microsoft.

 

Hello all,

I wanted to thank you all for your assistance, I have been using my M3800 for about a week now and I love it.
No coil whine that my industrially deaf 30 something year old ears can hear.
No dead pixels either.

Soon as I got the machine I did a clean install of Windows 8.1 and have been running well since.
The Dell Driver detect feature of mydell is a bit hit and miss, it doesn't tend to tell you which drivers are installed and which aren;t.
I couldn't find one, but I would have much preferred a single download with all the 8.1 drivers included.

I had one issue that drove me crazy with not being able to select text properly with the mouse.
The problem came and went but on occasion every time I clicked it selected 15mm lower and to the right.
After reinstalling drivers and hitting my head against the wall, I found one reference to a similar problem and it said to go to the mouse properties and select "None" for the pointer scheme.. Voila, no more problems!

On to other things...

Do we have a consensus on the best soft case or pouch?
I am also going to purchase a dual monitor setup with a pair of Dell UltraSharp U2412M 24" Monitor with LED
Anyone hooked up dual external monitors? My question is whether there is any resolution limitations or other reasons to select the DisplayLink over a Docking Station?

Also, in regards to docking stations: Dell D3000 SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Docking Station?
Or have you experience with something better?
Given we don't have a dedicated port, is it USB 3? How are the speeds?
I am unsure how you could run two high resolution monitors and a gigabit ethernet port through the same connection. (But I am by no means an expert)

 

The monitors you mention are standard resolution, not high-DPI, so they should work. However, that "docking station" is just USB 3, so you may see bottle-necking if you, say, stream high-resolution movies over the network to both monitors while transferring files from an external HD. Too bad really that Dell had to rebrand a gaming machine as a "mobile workstation", which the M3800 is not. It's a XPS 15 with different firmware on the graphics card, that's all.

 

I'm very interested, too! Currently, I'm using the case of my Wacom Intuos 4 M, which is okay for now, but in the long run, I want a protective and well fitting sleeve. Would give an arm and a leg for one of these though, If they would fit perfectly well: Laptop 15-16" Sleeve | Best Seller | caseable.

 

The sleeve I bought for my 15.4" (16x10 screen) fits reasonably well. It's a low cost neoprene sleeve. Nothing fancy, works great given I'm just putting the sleeve in another bag.

 

How do you all have the time to play driver and setting detective when you do a fresh OS install? Nobody ever just seems to find all the right drivers in one place. It seems like you have scour the ends of the earth for missing pieces to the puzzle so 'everything' actually works again as it should. What do you do if you aren't 'in the know' with where to turn over every rock in cyberspace to find the right drivers? "Go here for this Intel driver, go to that website for that driver, etc." It sounds like a giant game of scavenger hunt. It doesn't sound like it's recommended for the faint of heart.

 

So anyway, I think the 3800 is actually off the table for me due to the glossy screen not playing well with my work environment. The lenovo w530/540 and the Dell ,m4700/4800 are too big. Is there anything else out there with quad core, matte FHD IPS screen, and a graphics card that isn't a 6+lb. behemoth but will run Revit models as well as the 3800? I was thinking now maybe the Lenovo t440p. The only downside is the card is a GeForce GT 730M 1GB. I know AutoCAD and Revit doesn't use the card as much as cpu, but for once in my life I wanted an actual ISV certified workstation and not just a consumer grade business laptop.

 

The forthcoming M2800 might work for you, though full specs and options haven't been announced yet.