Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

Hi, Bokeh,
When you connect M3800 to the external monitors,
can you use the external monitor as the main monitor?

 

That is a standard Windows function to choose any monitor as primary.

I see no reason why this would fail on any machine.

 

How has the touchscreen performed?

 

Wondering where you got that from? I'm pretty sure the motherboards are rather different. They don't even use the same type of BIOS...

 

Well, my old notebook in the office with XP and Nvidia GPU doesn't have that function.
And my even older notebook IBM T42 with XP and ATI GPU do have this configuration.
So I am thinking this depends on the GPU driver.

 

Umm under the windows screen resolution setting.. there is not an option on your 2nd display (usually a checkbox) that says Make this my main display?

Every PC I have ever used has this option.. no matter what GPU. Don't use the NVIDIA or ATI settings, its just in the normal windows one. Right Click desktop--resolution or display settings depending on version of windows.

 

Starting to test with a Dell ADP90-LD 90 watt power adapter.

Full CPU load performance is the same with the 90. In fact the battery will charge at ~14Whr while running at full load. Power pulled at the wall is 89 watts.

Full GPU load performance with a light CPU load is also the same with the 90. The battery continued to charge at ~14Whr. Power pulled at the wall was 76 watts.

Fully loading the CPU and GPU with the 90 watt adapter results in slower CPU performance. The GPU will continue to run at full speed, but the CPU is limited to 2.2Ghz. Battery charge rate with both the CPU and GPU under full load is 2.435Whr. Power pulled at the wall was 91 watts.

To get the most out of the M3800 you will need to use the 130 watt adapter. A 90 will work with some trade-offs in performance.

SPECviewperf 11 Results Added to main page. Keep in mind that the current Quadro drivers may hold some of the results back.

Viewset Composite
catia-03 36.68
ensight-04 21.18
lightwave-01 48.20
maya-03 49.53
proe-05 13.88
sw-02 40.93
tcvis-02 33.34
snx-01 28.44

 

Can you check to see if an SD card will fit into the slot and be flush with the outside of the case?

 

If its like the XPS 15, it wont, it sticks out by about 1/2 inch. Theres a picture on one of the XPS 15 threads.

 

I think XP is the problem there. Windows 7 has the ability to set which monitor is your "main" monitor. Windows 8 has even more detailed control for multi-monitor setups (like where your taskbar is, what''s on it, etc).

There was a picture on either this thread or one of the XPS 15 threads that showed the SD card sticks out by about a centimeter or so. Not even close to flush, really.