Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

That's useful to know: Assume that if it's the smaller battery then there will be 2.5" drive unless otherwise clearly indicated.

John

 

You should verify that is a 512 SSD vs hybrid or, as some systems were equipped, 32gb SSD+ HDD.

When I bought mine the base system had a 500GB hybrid. I think a few non-Dell ads claimed those were SSDs.

 

This is a good point. The only available pre-configured options for these systems are:

32GB mSATA SSD cache + 1TB 2.5" hybrid drive (XPS 15 only)
500GB 2.5" hybrid drive
512GB mSATA SSD
256GB 2.5" SSD (M3800 only)

However, it seems the "Fully Customizable" M3800 SKU" includes a few more options, one of which is in fact a 512GB 2.5" SSD, which may be what you have.

It can be a bit confusing because hybrid drives are sometimes (a bit misleadingly) called a solid state hybrid drive. It's technically accurate, but of course if you reading stop after the first two words of that product name, you'll be disappointed with what you end up with. I preferred the original term "hybrid hard drive", but I guess too many people asked what two things it was a hybrid of.

On the plus side, since you went with the smaller battery, you maximized your storage options. You can add an mSATA SSD, replace the existing 2.5" drive with an SSD, or both.

 

Thanks for the info. I'll cross my fingers and hope I have the 512GB SSD. I've got an awesome OCZ SSD in my old laptop which I was really hoping to add to this laptop; sounds like I might have to find another home for it.
Besides putting it in a caddy as an external SSD, is anyone doing anything interesting with their old SSD's in the SSD space...

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

I had a slight scare yesterday with my order. Bank blocked the transaction and declined it! So I spoke to 9 people at Dell before one of them agreed to go find my order in the outlet rather than putting a new one through. They didn't quite understand that I simply couldn't order it again as it was no longer on the outlet store.

Felt like throwing in the towel at one stage; but my order is now In Production it seems . Woop!

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

Curious if anyone has figured out a power adapter that will work on long flights. The stock one sucks too much juice and shut downs the outlets on American Airlines planes.

 

You are probably hosed there. The problem is the computer actually can draw a lot of power. You could try an older Dell 60W supply. You would have to buy the adapter that reduces an older Dell cord to the new smaller diameter plug. You will likely get a low power warning. If the system is like the M4400 it will not charge and the CPU speed will be heavily cut.

 

A little update for those who might experience this... I have had a case open with Dell and have ran through several driver updates / reboots etc... they are now sending out an engineer with a replacement motherboard. (this was after i sent them a photo of the monitor with a MBP Retina connected via HDMI running at full res).

I'll keep you posted to see if this update fixes the issue.

 

There was a constant white noise heard in headphones/headsets when you plugged in them, even with no audio/video playback, in ubuntu 14.04 and some other linux distros. But with a fresh install of Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS, I'm happy to report that the problem is now gone.
Have not tested the SD-card reader yet, but everything else work out of the box with this one.

Regards

 

read this for more more details.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...-dell-precision-m3800-owner-s-review-313.html

All you need is an adaptor with about 19v and 3.5 to 4 amp output. When you start your dell you will have a warning and when the dell boots the CPU will be throttled to 800MHZ. Use ThrottleStop 6 or 7beta to disable BD ProcHot (disable throttling). you can set your CPU to it's max (like when on the oem dell adaptor) or less using the calculator in ThrottleStop.
OF COURSE USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.
I'm personally using an external battery with 19v and 3.5 amp max output and it works. Battery charging is disabled if the system does not detect a dell oem adaptor. you can get a less power hungry dell adaptor and use the m3800 power tip.

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=331-9319