Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

My QHD screen (matte on the M4800) came without defects.


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My QHD screen has dust under the screen in two places. From reading the forum, it seems to be quite a common issue, and a number of people have requested replacements.

 

So Dell is sending me another machine....fingers crossed for a defect free device. I have also ordered the new Razer Blade 14 (just in case) Am I thrilled with having to do that? No. But I am less thrilled with all the time and effort I have spent on this issue to begin with. Will I lose alot in terms of performance...maybe some especially when it comes to the video cards between the 2 devices and using a smaller screen But time is money and I have lost alot more time and money trying to purchase a computer from Dell than is warranted. This will be M3800 number 5!! When speaking of quality control..what can one say when 4 out of 4 have had defects. Unimpressive to say the least. This is however the end. Its make or break for Dell as far as I am concerned. If there is even 1 tiny issue - Im finished and will never return. I have shown more patience than is deserved and certainly more patience than Dell has earned thus far. The one bright spot ...I think Dell's service has been A+ with me. I cannot say one negative thing about the tech guys that have helped me..even if there have been some bumps along the road ..its just unfortunate the hardware that Dell is peddling isn't even close to the service I have received.

 

Hi! I tried to install Samsung Evo mSata SSD (250 GB) and Kingston ram (same as the one on noteboolk, 8 gb) on my Precision M3800, but failed. I disabled the secure boot and booted first from HDD. How did you install SSD? Did you had any problems?

 

Lots of people posting here are having those issues with their QHD+ panels, even on replacements. There are definitely some who have perfect displays, but issues such as these definitely seem far more common than you'd expect.

The sleep button behavior is normal. I was surprised that it didn't pulse too. Maybe it's part some minimalist aesthetic initiative, or maybe they're trying to convey that these systems are so power-efficient that even in sleep mode rather than hibernation they consume practically no power at all!

 

Booting first from HDD sounds like you still have Legacy mode enabled. You should make sure you're in UEFI mode if you'll be running Windows 8.x. I'm not sure what you mean when you just say that "it failed", though. What were you expecting to happen? Did you clone an existing environment over to the mSATA SSD? If you did, what tool did you use? Did you confirm that your SATA operation in the BIOS is set to AHCI? Have you tried booting from Windows installation media to perform a clean install to the SSD? Do you even see the mSATA SSD listed in on the main page of the BIOS to confirm that the system detected it? Do you also see the correct amount of RAM shown there?

The more information you can provide, the better people can help you.

 

Thanks for the confirmation on the sleep button behavior. I was really starting to wonder if something was wrong. Even though I was fairly convinced that Intel Rapid Start was not installed or enabled, I started looking for it and found that I can't toggle it in the BIOS configuration. Went though all the menus and didn't see anything. I have the latest A03 BIOS. Is this normal as well? I thought it would be supported on the M3800. Not that it really matters since I'm not planning to use it, but just wondering...

 

I'm on my second unit of M3800, and am already thinking of moving to something else as this coil whine issue seems to never go away no matter what I try... However, I do have to agree with you that the tech support has been stellar and I know that moving away, I probably won't receive half of what the support guys at Dell do.

 

The latest BIOS is actually A04, but the Rapid Start behavior you're seeing is normal. It only becomes selectable after the system sees a partition on SSD storage that's been properly sized and ID'ed for use as a Rapid Start hibernation partition.

 

I guess I won't ever see that option then. Where did you find A04? I'm not seeing that on the M3800 drivers page.