Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

Intel Rapid Start is not factory-installed on any M3800 I have seen.


We have an M3800 that has shown this issue, in this case it seemed that nothing would awaken it short of turning it off completely with the 4-second power button press. This started to happen after an unknown USB device had been inserted and driver installation failed because no driver was found. Not sure if that had anything to do with it. We then
- restored the system to a date preceding the incident with the USB device
- updated the WiFi drivers
- installed an update to the chipset driver that Dell's scan asked for, even though the system should have had that version installed already

It seems the problem is gone now. Not sure if that helps anyone with this issue, but let us know if it does.

 

Hi jeringe,

I have exactly the same issue and it drives me crazy, I have scoured the internet without luck.
I believe it is a scaling issue.
Like you I have found that restarting the system makes it go away, but like you said it isn't always convenient.
As ridiculous as it sounds, the work around I have found is changing the pointer scheme under "mouse" in the control panel, I alternate between none and system black until I can be bothered restarting.

I would love to know what is causing this and how to fix it.
This and the freezing on waking are my only issues.

 

Is there a way to see the status of Intel Rapid Start without going through the BIOS settings? I may have enabled/disabled when trying to resolve this.

When I run analyze from the Dell website, it lists ony the following drivers to be updated, which I've just done, I'm hoping the Chipset drivers will resolve my USB problems...

Intel Lynx Point Chipset Family Driver View details
M3800_Chipset_Driver_TW6XT_WN_9.4.0.1026_A00.EXE (11MB)
Chipset | Release date 11/12/2013 | Last Updated 11/12/2013 | Recommended
DownloadAdd to My Download List-d6e8771e911f406fa291dc5ec2664600

Intel Management Engine Interface Driver View details
M3800_Chipset_Driver_YP5PJ_WN_9.5.14.1724_A00.EXE (62MB)
Chipset | Release date 11/12/2013 | Last Updated 11/12/2013 | Recommended
DownloadAdd to My Download List-d6e8771e911f406fa291dc5ec2664600

 

That "yellow sticker" is a flat cable connecting the IO board to the rest of the motherboard! If you didn't put it back, no wonder the WiFi doesn't work... I'm amazed other things aren't broken too!

Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Manual

Removing the mSATA Card
Remove the:
1. base cover
2. battery

3. Disconnect the I/O-board cable from the system board and I/O board.
4. Remove the screw that secures the mSATA card to the computer. Remove the mSATA card from the system board.

Happens on mine pretty frequently in Windows 8.1 especially if it's been asleep for a while -- it's slightly annoying, but I'm used to it. I don't have enough times it's slept in Windows 7 (the dual boot is just for gaming, and I don't tend to let it sleep rather than booting it back into 8.1 for work/general use) to have noticed it.

Seems the same to me since I upgraded (and no difference in the behavior mentioned above.)

 

Alas, how painful. If you just could come up with that post before I send it to Dell....
Anyway, its my fault, I should have read the manual carefully before even opening the base cover. Yes, I'm an idiot.

 

Anyone else notice that fans come on more often with the latest BIOS A06 update. Or is it just me?

Seems the same to me since I upgraded (and no difference in the behavior mentioned above.)[/QUOTE]


What is new in bios A06?

 

It supposedly fixes some bug in the Video bios or something. Anyway, my laptop seems to run a little warmer and the fans stay on the very low setting rather than being mostly off before the BIOS update. It could be due to something else or maybe I'm just now noticing it. It's not a big deal.

 

Intel Rapid Start has nothing to do with any BIOS settings, and is not installed by default on the M3800. If you have it, you would have had downloaded/installed it yourself. Just check in your list of installed programs, and if it's there, uninstall it.

The Lynx Point Chipset Family Driver is the one that I had installed on the machine I talked about in my post above. It may have helped solve the issue in our case.

 

Not owning an M3800 myself, I can't speak to whether Rapid Start is enabled, but I'll take Pirx's word for it because it's easy enough to check for. However, there is a BIOS element to that function. The system will not even expose the Rapid Start "device" unless it detects an appropriately sized and ID'd partition on the disk. At that point, unless you have the Rapid Start application installed, you'll see an unknown device in Device Manager. You can also disable Rapid Start in the BIOS, but again, if you don't have the partition set up, then you won't see it anyway -- and at least on the XPS 15, the Rapid Start option in the BIOS is even grayed out until that partition is detected. In any case, if you have neither an unknown device in Device Manager nor the Intel Rapid Start application installed on your system, then it's definitely not running.

 

Sorry that I didn't check back sooner!