Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

Quickset works the way it does because all of the inputs it responds to come from the keyboard. In order to do what you're suggesting, the keyboard and touchpad would have to be handled by the same controller so that it could check the state of the Fn key every time a mouse button was pressed. Macs work the way they do because they use a key that's actually visible to the OS rather than the special Fn key and they've built that option into their OS. Maybe if you Googled around for a while you could find a freeware Windows app that would allow Ctrl+Click to work as right-click? (EDIT: Found this spending 30 seconds looking around: http://www.autohotkey.com/)

I personally find it easier to just feel for the lower-right edge, which gives me tactile feedback, the most reliable placement for activating the click, and can be accomplished using only one finger.

 

I've seen that, but I've been holding out hoping this could be accomplished using existing set up (either via Synaptics or via Dell QuickSet). I think I'll just give up and try it. This thread explains how to do it using it autohotkey ctrl+click = right click - Stack Overflow

 

If there's another key that you don't mind losing the function of, then you can use a program such as autohotkey to set that combination as a right click. For example, you could set the right ctrl-key and left click to do a right-click, leaving the left ctrl key unchanged. However, as Jphughan says, you can't do that with the fn key.

 

Crackly speaker noise - anyone had this on their m3800? I hear a crackle noise every 10 seconds or so when listening go something on the laptop speakers. Sounds defective.

 

I would first check the system latency using a program such as this. If you see a big latency spike every 10 seconds or so then that could be the cause of the crackle. Tracking down the cause of latency spikes can be fun.

John

 

I'll do that! Thank you v much!

 

Update: I think it's 3 things;
ndis.sys - disabling the wi-fi changes the behavior; doesn't eliminate it
HDAudBus.sys - Changing the audio settings changes the behavior of the spikes; doesn't eliminate it
ACPI.sys - changing the wi-fi powersaving mode doesn't make any difference (already had it turned up to high)

Bit annoying really, for such a high end laptop, would think these issues would be simple to deal with at the hardware level. Surprised not many people have complained about this one on this forum, although the seems to be plenty on the net about these 3 drivers. Not sure how to fix it yet though.

 

I presume you have confirmed that there's a correlation between your crackles and the latency spikes caused by these three drivers.

What happens if you uninstall the audio driver and let the default Windows audio driver do the work?

Also, which version of Windows. It might make a difference.

John

 

Its hard to track the spikes as there's no graph to refer to for historic spikes. The bar in the app moves fast too, so its tricky to track the crackles. When the apps suggested problems though, it's been as a result of these .sys processes/drivers. I ran it about 15 times to get a good reading of the processes potentially causing issues.

Will look into it a bit more tonight. I tried disabling the MaxxSense setting in the Dell audio tool, which improved the clarify of the sound, of course this was at the cost of enhanced sound.

 

Also try running dpclat where it may be easier to see if the spikes coincide with the crackles. However, note the remark about Windows 8 compatibility.

John