Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

I'm one of the early buyers, using the M3800 daily for about 2 years now. My version has a FHD display, originally came with the 500GB SSHD and 61Whr battery. Swapped out the SSHD for a Samsung 840 Pro 128GB first. Last year, I've replaced it with a Intel SSD 535 120GB (draws less power). I've installed Arch Linux from day one and only experienced minor issues. There were problems with Intel WiFi in the early days, but they're fixed now. Also, with Linux Kernels above 3.19 there is another bug (https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=112021). Blacklisting the "dell-smm-hwmon" module fixes it.

Please note, that I've never reinstalled the M3800 until about 2 months ago. I needed a second Windows machine for a software project I'm working on.

However, Windows 8.1 turns out to be a nightmare with the M3800. The touchpad drivers are simply trash. I could not fix the "jumping cursor" issue, no matter what. On a touchpad-click, the mouse pointer was jumping by about 10 - 20px, constantly missing buttons. I've installed the modified Dell Synaptic drivers, the original ones and the Windows 10 drivers. No matter what, it's simply trash. Using Windows 10 didn't fix this issue, so I went back to Arch Linux, running Windows in a virtual machine. This is just a no-go for me.

My experience with Arch Linux and Linux in general is extremely pleasing using the M3800. Everything simply works. With a bit of tuning, this machine draws about 8 - 10W in idle, giving me around 6 - 7 hours of battery-life. I can decide, which programs I want to run with Nvidia graphics enabled and which not - this flexibility is really nice to have in a mobile environment. Also, the touchpad works out-of-the-box and has NOTHING in common with the Windows driver. Really, this is how a touchpad should be! I'm very satisfied with it.

Unfortunately, my M3800 suffers from coil-whine. I contacted Dell some months ago and they sent me over a refurbished replacement mainboard after around 2 months of waiting. But it was the exactly the same revision - therefore I just sent it back without trying out. I'm living with it now - it's annoying sometimes, but it's not a no-go for me, as it's only happening with the AC adapter plugged in and 100% charged battery. Swapping out the SSDs (Samsung SSD 840 Pro <> Intel SSD 535) kinda changed the acoustics of the coil-whine a bit. It's not high-pitched anymore and therefore less noticeable. It's still there, but I don't care anymore.

Would I buy it again? For Linux, yes. Usually, I'm doing the power-lifting on my desktop machine. But the M3800 is still a machine, I want to have around. It's unique, it's sexy, it's powerful, it has a wonderful, pleasing illuminated keyboard and a first-class touchpad (Linux only!). Of course, it also has its downsides, but that's true for all other machines aswell. All-in-all a good buy, that I never regretted.

 

I've got two of the same-except-GPU XPS 15 9530 and I have a clean Windows 10 install on one of them and Fedora 23 on the other. I put 1TB Samsung mSATA SSDs in them. I have the large battery and 3200x1800 screens. The Windows machine has no coil whine and the Fedora machine has a sort of quiet squeal but not a piercing whine and I can live with it.

I have zero problems with the Windows 10 machine. I installed the Dell touchpad, PCIE, and chipset drivers but otherwise it is stock Windows 10. I don't install nVidia updates from GeForce Experience since I don't game on it and I've heard they cause problems. The touchpad is great -- no jumping cursor. Battery life is good for my needs: 6+ hours without radical power savings settings. I do big compiles and simulations and the heat and fan noise seem very reasonable to me. Excellent Windows 10 machine.

The Fedora system works well also. My gripes may vary across distros. Poor (nonexistent) touchpad palm rejection. GNOME doesn't turn off the backlight when "blanking" the screen. I haven't needed the nVidia GPU yet so I haven't fought with the Optimus setup but my current preference for a new laptop would be a mobile Xeon with IrisPro for easier 3D performance. I may try other distros on it this Spring to see if they work better. Performance is great on Fedora and battery life is fine for me.

The UHD, large battery, large SSD upgrade setup is what I use/recommend for these systems. These are by far the best laptops I have owned.

 

I'm still struggling with the M3800 turning off instead of going to sleep mode.

I tried updating all kinds of drivers, resetting power options to default, but nothing works - the laptops frequently turns off after going to sleep, and all works is lost.

Any ideas and suggestions for a fix before I do a clean Windows 10 install???

THanks

 

You can enable and fine-tune palm rejection for your own needs (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Touchpad_Synaptics#Disable_trackpad_while_typing). I don't use palm rejection myself, as I have tap-to-click disabled. Should I accidentally touch the touchpad with my palm, the worst possible outcome is some scrolling action or my mouse cursor moving. But no losing focus on the active window or accidental clicks, as clicking needs a bit more force. Try it out for yourself.

You mean the screen lock? I don't know, which version of GNOME or Linux you're using, but I've never come across such a bug. I'm currently on GNOME 3.18.2 + Linux 4.4.1. But as this is Open Source software, you always have the chance to get in contact with the developers, give feedback and file bug reports.

I agree. IrisPro would also have been enough for me. A big plus is, that it makes your laptop configuration simpler (both, software and hardware), resulting in less heat, less power consumption and one component less, which is likely to fail. Manufacturers could use the freed up space of the dedicated GPU / cooling solution for a more powerful battery, additional expansion slots etc.

Open up "Power Options" in System "Control Panel". You can configure the action on closing the lid. The window will look like this:

 

Just had my motherboard replaced because of the coil whine issue. It got a whole lot better but still somewhat annoying when streaming videos or scrolling pages with touch screen. So it looks like Dell still hasn't replaced a revision of the motherboard where the issue is completely resolved.

 

Unfortunately Fedora 23 is on !#$^@$^ libinput and doesn't use the synaptics driver. Thanks to libinput a few things that used to work are now problematic, palm rejection being one of them.

The screen "blanks" after some time away from the computer (even though I have set it not to!) but the backlight is still on. If I disable sleep on lid close then the screen doesn't even blank when I close the lid. I haven't been able to fix these yet. If systemd isn't to blame it might be cruft left over from previous Fedora version upgrades and from switching DEs from KDE to XFCE to GNOME, so I'm going to do a clean install of Fedora 24 in June.

 

Thanks, but obviously that's the first thing I did , and sadly whether I set it up as sleep or hibernate, it still shuts down an I lose all work.

Any other ideas? Has anyone encountered this issue?

 

I haven't had this but before doing a clean Win10 install (which is a good idea anyway) I'd try disabling all the "smart" stuff like Intel Rapid Start, hybrid sleep, Fast Boot, etc. IMO with an SSD they aren't worth the problems they can cause. You might also try disabling hibernation altogether to see if that helps.

Also, make sure there aren't some devices set to wake your computer that could drain the battery to zero causing a shutdown. You can check for these with this command:
powercfg -devicequery wake_armed
If it lists anything go into Device Manager and turn it off in the Properties | Power Management tab (uncheck Allow this device to wake the computer).

 

Thanks for the detailed reply.

Unfortunately I tried all that:
- disabled hibernation
- disabled fast startup (did you mean that by Fast Boot?)
- uninstalled Intel Rapid Start
- the command line you mentioned doesn't give anything.
- Disabled anything related to USB in BIOS, including Powershare, wakeup etc....

Still - the laptop shuts down whether I close the lid, press the power button or wait enough time, instead of going to sleep.

Any other idea before I do a fresh install? Should I uninstall Nvidia drivers maybe?

 

Sounds like it is probably time for a fresh install but a few more semi-random ideas...

• If you installed nVidia drivers from nVidia, not Windows Update, it might be worth trying to remove those and let WU reinstall an older, more stable (?) version. But I kind of doubt that will fix a shutdown issue.
• You could always try
  sfc /scannow
  for the heck of it.
• Check your BIOS and disable any "power saving" option (and update the BIOS). Some people with an ASUS system had luck fixing this by reflashing the BIOS even if it was already the latest version.
• The new Intel Management Engine that WU installs is buggy for some systems: you could try uninstalling it and blacklisting it from getting reinstalled.
• Removing Intel DPTF might also be worth a try.

Good luck!