Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

The M3800 has an HDMI 1.4a output, which means it can push 2560x1600 @ 60 Hz (and 4K at 30 Hz) -- in fact the very first post of this thread shows a 2560x1600 display being driven at 60 Hz over HDMI. However, not all 2560x1600 displays have HDMI 1.4a inputs. Many of the earlier ones only accept that resolution over their DP input, with their HDMI inputs limited to 1080p. If yours is such a display, there's nothing you can do about it -- but that's a display limitation, not a system one.

 

On my E7440 the BIOS option disables the BIOS-level warming but the BIOS doesn't ignore the lower power rating and will still downclock the system. I expect the M3800 behaves similarly.

And, if you have the Dell Power Management software installed then it will flash up a warning.

John

 

So here's another one:



John

 

Thanks for the info.

 

I found it

Bypassing the DELL unrecognized adapter issue

Bypassing the DELL unrecognized adapter issue
Dell is notoriously infamous for selling adapters that tend to go bad after few years of heavy usage. In the last 3 years of my laptop use, I’ve already had to change my adapter thrice due to an unrecognized adapter bios warning. You can read about why this issue occurs here .

I don’t really mind this message but dell has gone further to annoy their consumers by forcing a cpu throttle to the lowest scaling frequencies. Also, they will not allow you to charge your battery if this message pops up, for no reason but to force you into buying a new adapter. Since this is expensive business and all three of my dead and dying adapters work perfectly fine as far as the voltages required for operation are concerned, I was desperately searching for a software bypass to somehow allow frequency scaling on my CPU and work on reasonable speeds. However googling didn’t help much at which point I started reading up on BIOS and ACPI, the ones responsible for power management. Finally, I stumbled upon this beautiful solution to bypass this limit dell forces upon me.

On probing ACPI on the linux kernel I came across /proc/acpi/processor/CPUx/bios_limit which is the limit the bios is asking the kernel to respect. Hence, all one needs to bypass it is to ask the kernel to ignore bios_limit using a kernel parameter via grub namely processor.ignore_ppc=1. So just add this line to grub.conf [ or to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX in /etc/grub.d/grub if you're using grub2] and you’re set.

Alternately, you can use rmclock[gui] on windows to achieve the same. However don’t forget to set the processor type to mobile if you’re using a laptop to get the right voltage values for various p-states. I hope this helps folks who’ve been annoyed by the way dell handles its adapters like me.


and another guy replied for windows :

I have an XPS15 with the i7-2630QM and was not able to get anything to work using RMclock. However, I was able to override throttling by unchecking “BD PROCHOT” in ThrottleStop. This allowed me to get full performance on AC power.

 

and here is the ThrottleStop thread :

http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...arket-upgrades/531329-throttlestop-guide.html

Any volunteers with a non dell charger

 

BD PROCHOT stands for bi-directional prochot. PROCHOT stands for processor hot which is the signal that is activated within the CPU when it reaches approximately 100C to 105C depending on the model number. This signal is what initiates thermal throttling so the CPU can slow down and keep from over heating. Intel included a bi-directional feature so if something else like a GPU is running too hot, it would be able to send a PROCHOT signal directly to the CPU and force it to cool down so the entire laptop cools down. Very few laptops seem to use this type of throttling. This feature was added for the Asus G51. Disabling this will allow your CPU to continue to run at full speed. Disabling this will not prevent your CPU from thermal throttling at its normal Intel set thermal throttle temperature. By default this is locked and you will need to go into the Options window to unlock it so you can toggle it on and off.


The option is not locked on my m3800 !!

 

Overriding your system's thermal management and configuring it to ignore an underpowered AC adapter and continue to run at full speed could both easily cause major issues. The latter could fry the AC adapter, and either one of them could damage the system itself from trying to run hotter than designed or trying to run in a way that requires more current than is available. Of course everything might be fine, but I personally wouldn't risk testing these changes on a brand new, expensive system, especially since either of these measures would almost certainly void warranty coverage for any issues that result.

 

I was watching a review on YouTube of the XPS 15 (which I understand has the same palmrest material as the M3800) and I noticed considerable discoloration of the palmrest areas (see attached image).

For long-term M3800 owners, is this discoloration typical? If so, is there any way to clean the palmrest (and trackpad), and how successful is such cleaning?

I intend this M3800 purchase to last me a number of years so would want to keep the laptop looking decent.

Source of image: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANDsZZI716U (if the image I uploaded cannot be viewed, the discoloration is shown 2:50 minutes into the video).

 

for the touchpad I did my own protection film without soap of course. you can get one here I guess : TectY, PC Laptop Touchpad Protector Skin