Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

I've gotten replacements that were at least as good as the original panel. But I don't think you'll get a replacement for a single stuck pixel. Here is Dell's policy: Dell LCD Display Pixel Guidelines | Dell US. The relevant line to you is, "During LCD manufacturing process, it is not uncommon for one or more sub-pixels to become fixed in an unchanging state. A display with 1 to 5 fixed sub-pixel is considered normal and within industry standards."

 

I see, thanks for your response.

I was offered to recieve a panel replacement, but I declined as the issue fixed itself... temporarily it seems. The M3800 is qualified for a single stuck pixel replacement due to its premium panel garauntee:

Bright Sub-Pixel defects: A sub-pixel remains permanently lit, resulting in a white or colored dot on a Black background. (Mine is blue)

Laptop LCD screens with Premium Panel Guarantee on :
Dell Inspiron laptops
Dell Latitude laptops
Dell Precision Mobile Workstations
Dell Studio laptops
Dell Vostro laptops
Dell XPS laptops
Alienware laptops

Bright Sub-Pixel: 1 or more

 

Interesting, for some reason I thought that only applied to the Ultrasharps and missed that because I knew the line I was looking for on that page. Good to know! And the M3800 product page mentions the Premium Panel Guarantee, so I guess you'd be covered if you wanted to get it addressed.

 

Well it seems now I have a new problem...

When the technician replaced the keyboard earlier, he didn't apply the light-blocking tape very well. This led to light bleed from the top of the keyboard onto the hinge. I had just watched him disassemble everything and had a T5 screwdriver handy and decided to fix it myself.

I ran into a problem when one of the battery screws was screwed in so tightly/improperly, that it would NOT turn at all. Long story short, the screw is now stripped. Luckily, it's towards the front of the laptop so I was still able to lift up the motherboard and correct the light bleed error, but now knowing I have a stripped screw in there is bugging me.

Has anyone had any success removing a stuck, stripped screw like that?

 

One of my laptops (XPS 15) had some dust under the screen, so I asked for a screen replacement. The new screen ALSO had some dust under the screen. YMMV.

Edit: Colour and angle-wise, they are exactly the same as the original one.

 

Thanks for the confirmation. My current screen has a LITTLE bit of dust, but no dead pixels and no light bleed. The dust that is present are tiny specks, so my fear is if I replace it, it'll be deja-vu with the Asus all over again and end up with an inferior screen... but accounts like yours are definitely helpful.

 

With the coupons that Dell Outlet is running this week I went on ahead and picked up a decent spec refurbished M3800. However, I cannot tell from the order information if it comes with a USB Ethernet adapter or the AC Adapter converter plug. Has anyone else who has ordered a refurbished M3800 (from Dell Outlet US) received these items with the laptop? If it doesn't come with the USB Ethernet adapter, has anyone tried this adapter with it? It appears that the USB 2.0 version isn't available to purchase separately anymore, but this one for the Venue is.

I have to say, this machine looks like the perfect Linux laptop for me, low voltage quad core, 16GB ram, large battery, 1080p lcd (so I don't have to deal with scaling), and best of all after booting Ubuntu on a test machine I confirmed that both the mDP and HDMI are connected directly to the IGP, so I can drive dual high resolution displays under Linux without relying on the Nvidia blob or Nouveau driver.

 

Not sure whether those accessories come with systems from the Outlet, but I imagine they would. I'm not aware of Outlet systems ever skimping on items that are standard on a given model when ordered new. Still, as you point out, the version that comes with the system will be USB 2.0, which will become the bottleneck on a Gigabit network. I'm not familiar with the particular adapter you linked, but I can't imagine why it wouldn't work. All of the USB 3.0 dongles I looked at used the same chipset internally anyway, and the only differences were things like construction, inclusion of a passthrough USB 3.0 port, etc. That said, even though the adapter you linked mentions PXE, that requires BIOS support for the particular adapter. The M3800 will PXE boot off of the USB Ethernet adapter it comes with, but I don't know if it will PXE boot off of that one.

As for Linux, several people here and in the XPS 15 thread have said that this is a great Linux system. The XPS 15 Wiki even has some tips for how to get everything running -- and yes, it's been known for a while that the IGP is directly wired to all display outputs; the NVIDIA GPU is a render-only device. Good luck!

 

Thank you for the information. I am not particularly concerned with PXE support, more so built in compatibility with recent Linux kernels. If they all use the same chipset then it is very likely supported. Maybe in a few months we will even get a bios update for PXE support if this is the intended replacement for the USB 2.0 model.

It is kind of sad that I ignored this model last year when it was released because it didn't have a docking station. I have since learned that with all machines that have a docking station you are stuck with either an optimus / enduro setup that may or may not work well under Linux, or with dedicated graphics only which means more heat generation and less battery life.

 

Well to be clear, all of the adapters that I found at the time used the same chipset, specifically the ASIX AX88179; I can't tell what chipset the Dell adapter uses. But I ended up buying the StarTech USB31000SPTB because I wanted that passthrough USB 3.0 port, and according to its product page, it supports Linux Kernel 2.6.25 - 3.17.0. It's also available on Amazon for $33.

Hadn't noticed that issue with all systems equipped with docking stations necessarily having either Optimus or discrete-only setups. I'm betting that it's because there aren't enough pins on the CPU for its integrated GPU to connect to the built-in panel, all of the outputs on the laptop chassis, and all of the outputs that would be on a docking station. But if that's the reason, I'm not even confident it will change at this point because in addition to requiring either a significant increase in die size to accommodate the extra pins or a significant shrinking of the pins themselves, I think we're going to see a shift away from traditional docking stations toward USB docking stations anyway. Dell's already kept the E Series docks alive for longer than the D Series lasted, even though doing so has forced them to adopt rather kludgy docking station fitments as found on the E7x40, and I'm betting it's because they don't want to invest in creating a whole new line of F Series products with USB 3.1 right around the corner and the potential for the full scope of the USB Power Delivery Spec to come to market. At that point they'll be able to produce laptops that have USB ports that can not only push the bandwidth required to drive multiple 4K displays, but can also charge the laptop itself -- and all through a much smaller and reversible Type C connector. Then they'll be able to deliver a truly universal docking station (albeit with drivers required, unless of course a future version of Windows adds native support for USB-attached displays), and they won't have to dedicate laptop chassis real estate to a large docking station connector or have to standardize design across multiple generations of multiple product lines to maintain accessory compatibility. That is all 100% speculation on my part, but the timing would make sense.