M4700 Owners Thread

Hi all,

I'm looking to upgrade the 1333x768 screen I have in my M4700. Looking at http://www.laptopscreen.com/English/model/Dell/PRECISION~M4700 shows two matte screens but one is for a 40 pin socket and the other is for a 50 pin socket. Does anyone know of a way to check how many pins your screen socket has aside from taking the display apart ?

Thanks !

 

Very weird issue, we have an M4700 where as soon as it kicks into Windows on bootup both the processor and video card fan come on and never go off. Passed diagnostics(except battery which is taking forever to get replacement). Updated BIOS. Dell replaced both fans, then came back 2 days later and replaced motherboard and video card, still happens. Took a different hard drive from a different model dell(so different drivers) put it in and it booted into windows with no fan issues.

So either Windows or drivers on the M4700 are causing it. Onsite technician said impossible to know, best guess is to reinstall windows. Probably going to wind up giving user new machine and then reinstalling windows and drivers on the M4700 but hoping someone else has some suggestions.

Also, machine will not boot into safe mode, hitting F8 does not work. I googled and found somewhere else to try F5 but don't have the machine now to try. Wondering if the safemode thing is connected to the fans, whatever the problem is causes both issues?

 

Got m4700 with Core i7 3740 and 8GB of ram (2x4GB). On first attempt to press power on button got to hdd and wi-fi lights solild and battery charge light blinking.
Found that this is memory issue. Took cover off, took off the modules looked at them - nothing wrong (hynix) and switched memory modules vice-versa. m4700 started to boot. After some time decided to switch memory modules back. Got laptop on, but while was in bios - got picture on screen totally broken and laptop hanged.
Turned it off, switched memory modules again and now in the diagnostic boot (no error so far).

Any ideas what was that? Plan to test memory with memtest.

Second issue (bigger). I got laptop with Windows 8.1 pro pre-installed. While connecting to TP-Link TL-WR1043ND - it works for some time, after that Windows shows Limited access (no IP address, no connection). Router doesn't show m4700 mac address in the list of connected devices.
Nothing helps until I change anything in the wireless configuration of TP-Link. m4700 connects immediately, but returns to Limited mode after an arbitrary period of time. No issues like that with other two HP latops, iphones, ipads, etc.

Is this a common issue? Does anybody know how to solve this issue?

And third one - noticed while was browsing internet that FANs are completely off, then turning on for a second or so and then turning off completely again.
Is that an issue or m4700 is just working like this when CPU and GPU load is not high?

Thank you.

p.s. Anybody tried to update to BIOS version 13 from Oct 24th? I'm still on 12.

 

Wi-fi connection issue is a well known Intel Ultimate n6300 problem. Aldo fan seems working fine most of the time (i.e. not working or quiet and only rare turning on for 1 second). Full diagnostics shown nothing wrong. Hm... Will see

 

Wi-fi issues solved by installing drivers from Intel web site. Package named: Wireless_17.1.0_De164.zip.
The driver version shown is 15.14.0.2.

The only problem is still there is hot to enable bluetooth, since its led is turned off. Driver installation also tells to enable bluetooth switch.
How to do that?

 

The Samsung Pro series is known to be the most reliable/durable by far from real-life torture test (Samsung 840 PRO and Samsung 850 PRO), it is also among the fastest out there. Having said that, stuff by Crucial is decent as well.

mSATA is usually more expensive per GB... I could be all technical, but just look at the size compared to 2.5".

Personally I have the Samsung 840 EVO 750GB SSD. It's TLC, but just like Samsung's MLC, Samsung lithography process.. it's a freak of nature and the test results gave me more than enough confidence on it's durability, plus I got it for an amazing price for it's time. It's only been about a year, but I'm happy with it.

 

A lot of people have issues with the Evo....

Have you heard about how they recently had to release a tool to fix an issue with old data reading back extremely slowly?


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Yes, I have heard about the new firmware update that was recently released to increase the read speeds. However, it hasn't bothered me, in fact, I didn't even bother to upgrade to the new firmware yet(as it has to reallocate, as much as it may be ok, I'm going to backup before attempting... and in all honesty, in real world use, it's up to par to me... I only knew I wasn't to spec because of Samsung's Magician tool when I first got it, then I googled, then I did the suggested workarounds, but at the end of the day, my EVO is fast enough for me.. no complaints).

 

It's not just a firmware update. Its a tool that finds old data (which is supposed to be subject to slow read speeds), and rewrites it so it's fresh. As far as I can tell you'll need to periodically run it to refresh old data.


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I looked it up, I meant "tool" instead of just a firmware upgrade, oddly enough, I saw reports of people with absurdly slow read times, so I know what you mean now. Thankfully, after 1 year, I have not had this issue with my 750GB EVO, it is not to spec, but it is not absurdly slow as many people have encountered.

So, sure I guess I rescind my recommendation on the 840 EVO, just in case, thanks Alexhawker for bringing it to attention.