M4700 Owners Thread

Is the K2100M the most powerful card that can be installed on the M4700 as of now?

 

I tried to find something stronger when i bought the laptop. There isn't space for anything bigger. We'll c if nvidia will give us short mxm version of Pascal based quadro - and even if it does if the price will be agreeable, new cards r usualy pretty expensive when they come out.

 

Each time I wake the machine up from sleep or, at boot, the DVD drive makes a short "check /init hardware" buzzing sound. Is there an elegant way to disable that?

I presume the easiest way is to perhaps disable one of the SATA drives in the BIOS, but then that requires you to come back and enable it each time you want to use it.

 

Is it a slot-loading drive? It is normal for a slot-loading drive to make a buzzing noise when it is powered on (to clear a partially loaded disc, I believe). I'm not sure if even disabling the SATA drive in the BIOS would fix this, because it would still be connected to power.
If it's a tray-loading drive then that is more strange, my two systems both have tray-loading drives and neither of them makes any noise if there is no disc inside.

 

Hello all!

I have an M4700 here that uses the factory 1080P "Full HD WLED" panel (looks to be a Chi Mei CMN15B1) and an AMD FirePro M4000. I was never impressed with the (awful) TN panel, but this laptop was used docked 99% of the time the first two years I have owned it. Due to a recent job change, I have to use the laptop un-docked and on the road often. At 60 Hz, we see small faint grey diagonal lines on white backgrounds that seem to move from the lower left of the panel to the upper right. They are not immediately noticeable, but are easy to see if you look for them, especially on white backgrounds (this site). At 40 Hz, the diagonal lines go away, but a new issue crops up where there seems to be graphical/grey corruption at the top of the screen that appears for a split second every so often. At 60Hz, there also is a 10-pixel grey line across the screen about 2/3 of the way down that flickers in from time to time. This may have been like this from factory, because as I have said, this machine has not been un-docked or indeed fully shutdown for nearly 2 years.

External displays driven with the M4000 see no such flickering\artifacting or display issues, so I guess the M4000 is still healthy.

With this many issues, I figured it was probably a fault with the LVDS cable, so I took apart the laptop and re-seated the cable. No changes, still problems. I then bought a replacement LVDS cable from Dell. Still have the same issues. I updated FirePro drivers, tried Crimson edition drivers, reinstalled Windows 7, tried Windows 10, updated the BIOS, etc. Nothing I tried so far has fixed these issues.

So, I ask people on this forum: What screen/panel can I get as an upgrade to this Chi Mei CMN15B1?

While I would love a bump in resolution (2560x1440 @ 15.6" is ideal), I understand the limitations of both the M4000 and the LVDS cable/pinout. What I am mostly looking for is a compatible panel that has better colors (IPS would be great) and is free from the defects the panel I have has. The factory 10-bit IPS is a no go due to the problems it is known for, and the fact that I only have the base FirePro M4000.

Otherwise, I'll have to hunt for a new laptop for the road, and the design on the new Skylake Precision line just doesn't impress me. Seeing that this will prevent me buying a new laptop, I'm willing to spend up to $300 on a better panel, so don't worry about the cost.

Thank you for your help!

 

I personally replaced the DVD with additional hard drive and for the rare occasion of needing the DVD i bought external slim DVD. It doesnt take up lot of space in my case anyway Until now i used the external DVD just once. But better be safe than sorry.

 

It is indeed the slot loading drive. I guess I can live with the sound.

I thought about it but I think I would prefer the DVD drive in there.

 

Just upgraded M4700 with Dell Nvidia M2000M It works but needs custom inf driver

 

Great news. So 4GB VGA is possible after all. I have found only HP version of the card yet and did not want to risk it. Did u manage to get Dell branded mxm card?

 

Its DELL Branded Card Yes. It Scores 5616 @ 3dMark11 o/c to +135MHz
Its an old machine my son use it for gaming and he is more than happy now
The only thing is that you have to live with the test mode watermark because of the custom inf driver
The requirement is to have Optimus On (it doesn't boot with Optimus off) everything is great overall I'm happy with the 200 spent on this upgrade