Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

The keyboard and almost everything else on the XPS 15 9530 is the same as on the M3800. (The m/b differs because M3800 has an nVidia Quadro card and the XPS 15 has a GeForce, and the XPS has NFC.)

 

Hello everyone.

I've been following this forum for quite a long time now. And I must say that I'm grateful for all the help and support everyone has given.

It was based on all your opinions and advice that I decided to order the M3800. The turning point was the machines late January update and the fact some of you mentioned that the coil whine issue was finally solved.

- Precision M3800 CTO Base:
Operating System Windows 7 Professional (64Bit) English
Memory 16GB (2x8GB) 1600MHz DDR3

Hard Drive
1TB mSATA Solid State Drive designed for installation in Mini-C Slot
Additional Hard Drive 1TB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive

1Yr Basic Warranty - Next Business Day - Minimum Warranty
Support Services 1Yr ProSupport and Next Business Day On-Site Service
Extended Battery Service 3Yr Extended Battery Service

Primary Battery Dell 61 WHr 6-Cell Lithium-Ion Battery
Processor Intel® Core™ i7-4712HQ (Quad Core 2.30GHz, 3.3GHz
Turbo, 6MB 37W, w/HD Graphics 4600) (T)

LCD 15.6" UltraSharp IGZO UHD Touch Display (3840x2160)
4K2K Wide View AG LED-backlit with Premium Panel

Last Friday without any delays on the delivery date, my machine arrived and I am really happy with it.
Haven't noticed any of the problems mentioned in this forum, except... the cursed and annoying coil whine noise...

As documented before when battery is at 100% and connected to the current there is this static noise and it is loud enough to be very disruptive. I work in a very quiet environment. I was really surprise with the problem as I was almost certain that the issue was solved with this years update. Maybe my machine was assemble with one of the oldest MOBO...

Tomorrow I'll call Dell tech department and ask for the problem to be solved.
At this point I'm asking your help regarding any advice on this process. Any problems you faced? What the best way to deal with this situation?

A big thanks in advance.

UPDATE:

So, this morning I called the tech support and explained the problem . Mentioned I was aware of the coil whine issue reported by many users and that unfortunately I had the same problem with my machine.
They acknowledged the problem had been reported before in older systems but it had been fixed. Then they offered to send a new charger to see if the problem would go away. Half an hour later I got a call from Dell saying that there were a rising number of complaints about the coil whine noise on newer systems and it would be best to send out a technician in order to replace MOBO and AC power.

I hope this will solve the issue.

 

Hi,

I'm encountering the sleep issue with my m3800 laptop i.e. the laptop does not wake up when having been put to sleep. The only way to re-start it is to hold down the power button to perform a hard reboot.

I know it's been discussed numerous times in this thread but I'm wondering if any of the solutions suggested have worked. Here's what I've tried so far, without success:

- Had the motherboard replaced
- Updated all of the drivers as suggested by the dell driver detect utility.
- It's been mentioned that Intel Rapid Start should be disabled but this isn't installed on my laptop.
- I tried testing it in safe mode but it only hibernates when in safe mode. I don't think sleep is supported from safe mode. The problem only happens when sleeping, not when hibernating.

If you've encountered this issue and found a solution then I'd be grateful if you could let me know how you resolved it. Perhaps there are a number of different causes - if we can collate a list of what has worked and what hasn't then that would be useful for others who are encountering the same issue.

Thanks

 

When you say it's not waking from sleep, do the power button and keyboard light come on but not the display? I haven't had this issue lately but when it does happen, either closing the lid and opening it again or putting the laptop to sleep again usually takes care of any issue. I've got my laptop configured to only sleep when the power button is pressed and not when the lid is closed.

 

Sorry. but guy started this discussion with "i am in music production".... and yes VST instruments are really ram hungry. if technically it possible to be done by bios update, it should be done. or we will see m3800 with 32gb ram next year...
i come to this topic to ask some q's about 3800m becouse i was planning to buy one.. but now i saw same poltics as for gpu updates on m6600.... so ^ no thanks.

 

I'd be frustrated too if someone questioned the legitimacy of my RAM requirements. cmoya had some good points but it unfortunately came accross sounding like a lecture or correction. Regardless, I don't think we'll have 32GB available in a 2 DIMM mobo for awhile. For that you will need a workstation laptop with 4 DIMMs.

I would like to see a BIOS update make a 16GB system capable of accepting 32GB when 16gb modules become available, but so far nothing official has been said from Dell. It does seem possible though... they did this when 8GB modules made their debut. Originally an M6500 (then the latest mobile precision laptop at the time) could only accept up to 16GB via 4X4GB modules. But a bios update allowed the DIMMS to accept 8GB modules allowing 32GB max. I can see something similar happening when 16GB modules are made available.

 

The power button and keyboard lights don't turn on at all. Only a hard reboot causes it to wake up.

 

Hi everyone! Anyone knows how to normalize the VLC's bar? Because with th new m3800 QHD+ is very very small! (I prefer to not change video resolution every time that I launch VLC...) Thank you!

 

You'll probably need to ask VLC to provide scaling support, unfortunately - https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/8957

 

Sorry for my delay in responding. The main reason you will not see higher memory capacity offered on the M3800 is all due to the lack of demand & cost. Two 16GB DIMMs today would cost more than four 8GB DIMMs that you could install in the M4800.
I understand wanting to have more memory in a thin & light product like the M3800 so I will take another look at that possibility.
I just want to add that the M3800 is not an ultrabook. I see that some people refer to it as such from time to time in these threads but the M3800 is too powerful to be a ultrabook. It is thinner and lighter than some ultrabooks out there but officially it is not an ultrabook.