Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

Thanks for the comments.

I reinstalled and it seems to be behaving. i am running W10. I have to encrypt and I think it may be the encryption that is slowing it down. The Event log is pretty clean right now.

I discovered the Dism command to check for file corruption....

http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-m3510-workstation/pd?oc=xctop351015us

Looks to be the replacement for my M3800, maybe Skylake or Xeon. I guess this is the Tock of the Tick....

 

They skipped the tock (broadwell) and jumped two processor generations.

That said, the M3510 is the replacement for the M2800 (both are based on the 15" Latitudes; for the M3510, they don't even bother having a separate BIOS download -- it's one BIOS for the E5470/E5570/M3510) and the replacement for the M3800 is now the M5510.

http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-m5510-workstation/pd

The M3510 isn't a bad choice, but it is definitely a bit less of a premium model (plus it has a numeric keypad, if that's either a plus or a minus for you.)

 

Hi. I try to use Ubuntu on it. But the Dell driver inslator always has error. I try add drivers but myself any possitive experience. Please give me a link with correct drivers/Ubuntu version

 

Boy do I have a saga for you all. I bought an 3515 loaded and just RMA'd it.... stay away. Long and short is they have an AMD graphics card that would not run most of my high resolution monitors. I wasted 2 weeks with Dell trying to troubleshoot. I eventually did a clean reinstall of W10 on my M3800 and so far so good. It is also thick and heavier. No W10 drivers for the AMD.

At the local MS store they recommend the new XPS machines... I looked and at least they have NVIDIA. Think I will try to stick tight until next generation of chips....

 

Hello, I have Dell M3800 first generation (4702hq CPU) with QHD display.
I tried windwows 8.1 and windows 10.
Tried latest dell drivers, tried all windows update drivers, but still have randomly this issue.
The problem is that when I use the machine, it may randomly open windows (I would say clone windows). Also, when I type something, it may start switching windows, but all fine again after reboot. It's like a keyboard sticking, but I'm not sure it is.

After installing windows 10 and before drivers installation, I don't have this issue. After about 7 times reinstalling I think it happens after I install intel or nvidia graphics card drivers.
Once I rolled back bluetooth drivers (7260), and it started to be all fine for about 2-3 hours.

Anybody knows what can it be?

No way to exchange or refund for this laptop (but it was just bought some time ago as refurbished).

I also noticed very strange additional thing:
I use HDMI monitor & usb keyboard connected to laptop.
the glitching starts sometimes when I type something on USB keyboard. However when I start type in the laptop, all fine. In same time USB keyboard is fully working, because there are no such issues with other PC/laptops.
More than that, please have in mind that the problem persist also without HDMI and without usb keyboard connected, but I can't exactly tell when it happens.

What is it? USB? touchscreen (it works fine, but when it's glitching, I can't understand it works or not, I think it is responsive, but can't move windows because the effect reminds keyboard sticking), nvidia, intel drivers? bluetooth conflict? what is it?
I should add that I have here another M3800 (4712hq model), with same monitor and usb keyboard there are no problem

 

Hi everyone,

after using the original M3800 (i7-4702HQ) for almost 3 years now, I'm at a point, where working with this device is no fun anymore. My Arch Linux install starts acting up, where the LTS Kernel sucks up 20W/hr (2,5 hour battery life) and the latest Kernel has bugs with Bumblebee, which results in an infinite shutdown process, where I need to force shutdown the device. Nouveau is still not an option, even after 3 years...

I wanted to jump on Windows again, due to these issues. So I installed Windows 10, only to find out, that the Touchpad bugs are STILL present, even after a new OS, multiple driver versions and 3 years of time (happened to me on Windows 8.1 years ago). The bug happens, if you do little micromovements: when you do little pointer adjustments (like trying to close a Window, but slightly failed aiming) and do fast clicks, the pointer position will reset. There is some sort of movement threshold / detection time, which totally destroys the touchpad experience for me. I've found another report here, which perfectly explains the issue: http://superuser.com/questions/8045...pad-snapping-backwards-after-clicking-quickly

Luckily, I've found alot of hidden settings in the registry, which can be adjusted. So far, I had no luck playing around. I will create a seperate thread for this though.

I've tried to do several adjustments, like disabling palm detecting in Dell / Synaptics drivers settings, disabling gestures, disabling Tap to Click, increasing / decreasing sensitivities etc. and also disabled Windows 10's Touchpad Delay Threshold, but I couldn't get rid of this. Personally, I think the culprit is some sort of error detection, to prevent the pointer from moving, if someone wants to click. Problem for me is, the time frame is just too long (it's like 0.5s). So, if you touch your pad, do a slight movement and click, it will reset the movement and then click. Tap to click ("no click sound") is not affected. To opt out a hardware issue, I've tracked touch sensivity with Synaptics tools, which showed me, that my pad is correctly identifying clicks and movements. It's the software. Once I uninstall Dell Touchpad / Synaptics driver, I'm not facing this issue anymore. However, that means no gestures and no 2-finger scroll.

Touchpad also works absolutely excellent under Linux. Gestures, clicks, movement, everything.

Another problem is, the coil-whine issue got worse over time. I'm now getting coil-whine issues, without even plugged-in AC, which is horrible for me. It means, I need to constantly wear earphones, to prevent headaches due to the high pitch noise.

Overall, I'm stuck with a very unsatisfying product. For a 1450€ notebook, this is just frustrating.

At this point, I have a general tip for future laptop buyers: only buy notebooks with integrated Intel graphics. I have to say, eventhough a gap between the K1100M and HD4600 is there, it's not worth all the drawbacks. Now, with latest Kaby Lake processors and iGPUs, this gap got closer. The latest Intel iGPUs are very performant already and an additional Nvidia / AMD GPU will only cost you more money, more headache, drain more battery and needs more cooling (means louder notebook). One component less means one component less, which can die and shorten the lifespan of your notebook. Depends on your workload of course, but in my case, I could've gone with an Intel only solution. In this special case, the K1100M is too weak, to make a difference. Everything, which doesn't properly run on the HD4600, doesn't run on the Nvidia aswell and you need access to a Desktop Workstation anyway. Stronger dGPUs will draw so much power, that you can hardly call it "mobile".

 

is anyone using the latop with a 4k external monitor??
I'm planning to get a 32" monitor with 4k resolution, but I wanna be sure the Quadro PGU can handle it smoothly.

I plan on using it for photography - Lightroom and Photoshop. But are running perfectly on the laptop 3k screen.

 

4K should work fine with the mini displayport; the HDMI is limited to 30hz as it's not the newer rev that supports full frame rate.

 

Thanks.
Anyone tried those displayport to hdmi 2.0 adapters? Some of them claim to be able to convert to 4k with 60hz for connecting to TVs without a displayport.

 

Lately I've been noticing some random freezes of Windows 10, especially using Chrome browser.
I tried reinstalling chrome and disable all extensions, but this still happens. I can't find a specific event which triggers this freeze.

Any idea what could be the reason from this?