Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

This has been an immensely informative thread. My m3800 is on its way and I have a few questions regarding the drivers available from the Dell download page. I plan on immediately replacing the regular drive with a Samsung Evo 512 and clean installing Win8.1 from the included USB stick.

1. Not sure I understand what the Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver is for. Is it necessary if I install my Samsung Evo SSD?
2. Chipset drivers: I'm sure the "Lynxpoint chipset driver" is very important, but what about the "Dynamic Platform & Thermal Framework Driver?" and "Intel Management Engine Interface Driver?" What do they do? I'm assuming the chipset drivers should be the very first things installed after Windows... starting with Lynxpoint first.
3. What are the motion sensor drivers for?

Can't wait for my machine to arrive. I'm sending back a brand new Lenovo W540 for this. I just couldn't deal with the outrageously bad touchpad on it and boxy design.

 

@jphughan
Thank you for your answer. To a certain extent I do agree with your sentiment. However, I am also reminded about the 7 days no-fuss return policy and I would like to make an informed decision about keeping the laptop sooner than later, when I am all setup, working and in need of a fully functional laptop for most of the time. I have lost enough time on downtimes, setup, re-setup, not mentioning bolts of high levels of frustration and alcohol consumption due to unpleasant discoveries in the hardware I own or used to own

 

1. Yes, install Rapid Storage Technology. It's the AHCI/RAID driver for the SATA controller in the system. Technically if you won't have an mSATA cache unit you could go to Intel's site and download the F6 Floppy version to avoid installing the Rapid Start application, but you need to install it one way or the other.

2. You need all of the drivers you mentioned. I can't find a ton of information on what DPTF and Management Engine do (though I know that on the XPS 15, Management Engine is required before the NFC driver can be installed), but if you don't install them you'll end up with missing devices in Device Manager. Neither one installs any background applications or system tray icons, fyi.

3. The accelerometer driver is to enable parking the heads of spinning hard drives if the system detects that it's in freefall. If you have SSDs you won't use that function, but again, you need to install it to keep Device Manager happy. Then just go into Control Panel > Free Fall Data Protection, and make sure it's disabled. My XPS 15 disabled it automatically when it detected that I only had SSDs.

 

Couldn't agree more on that statement. My display may be bad too, but haven't noticed anything terrible (knock on wood).

With the coil whine tho, it is definitely something you kind of can't miss unless you don't have it. Main reason why I will probably part with this machine soon....

 

Fwiw, the Dell liaison in the Dell Communities thread about this says that remodeled boards to address this should be available in 4-6 weeks, so if you really want to keep this system rather than buying something else and can wait that long, you might want to hold out.

 

I read on this thread that the fans blow air out through the apertures under the screen. This is not true when the m3800 is under load. the fans blow air out of the apertures at the bottom of the laptop which is not great when you have it on you lap !!

 

I put a Samsung msata 840 evo into my machine and took out the hdd. Should I uninstall Intel Rapid Storage?

 

I answered this question a few posts up, but no. Rapid Storage is an AHCI/RAID driver for your SATA controller and therefore should be there regardless of what hard drive you have. If you have a model with a spinning drive and an mSATA cache unit (not available in the non-customizable M3800 SKUs), you should remove THAT when installing an SSD, though.

The confusion is that one of the Rapid Storage application's uses is to manage Intel Smart Response, which allows you to use an SSD cache in front of a spinning disk. That functionality is obviously unnecessary if you're not using a spinning disk, but the Rapid Storage driver is still important.

 

does anyone have any idea how often a M3800 is put on the US outlet? I've been checking every few hours for the past couple days and haven't seen one yet, and only two XPS 15 (they are basically the same, no?)

 

As an owner I have just been following it too because wanted to see how popular it actually is and definitely haven't seen it much compared to some of the other models. Just stay alert and a keep a look out. :/