M4700 Owners Thread

Hello everybody.

I'm new to this forum and my main concern and reason for doing so was the fan issue on m4700. I recently got refurbished one and I am using external monitor so the fans tend to be too eager to come up sporadicaly. Not sure sure if it is as bad as some users have reported earlier in the thread though. There was someone posting tips for hacking the bios, but I did not read through all the pages if here has bee nany news since that. I have latest BIOS A17. I was reading also in another topic that even m4800 models had similar fan issues and it was fixed by offical BIOS update. Am I to conclude similar updates havent made for m4700? Only the hacked one? In that hack post it was said the machine should remaing completely silent unltil the higher(user set) threshold was rached around 75 degrees if I remember correctly. Mine seems to be using fan at lower speed most of the time, but I would prefer it to be silent instead.

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/19532897

P.S as an edit; I just wonder if the Dell's Power Management software, which should be kind of first aid for the fan issue, is available for this model at all? Only m4800 seems to be supported, and then if going back in version history the name changes to Dell System Manager. Should I try that one?

 

You can download the "Dell Feature Enhancement Pack", which provides additional power options right in the Windows Power Options control panel "Advanced" area. I've found that setting the thermal mode to "Quiet" keeps the fan speed in check pretty well... But it also puts a cap on the maximum CPU speed, it won't go into turbo mode.

 

Thank you very much for the reply. Do you know which one over rides if I deside to use the Dell Precision Optimizer software that I also found? For instance if I have had the system on Quiet mode from the power management, but then switch on Adobe Premire optimized profile? Does it over rule he power settings or should I first maximize the power settigns and set the optimized profile afterwards?

One thing I'm yet to try is to disable the Optimus from BIOS. I noticed that I was not able to make the k2000m work only through NVIDIA control/driver panel very much even on web browsing after selecting it for Firefox and GPU-Z was shoving the Intel heating up cosntantly instead. So I am not sure which fan it was that was keeping the noise. Maybe it was not the NVIDIA fan afterall but the CPU fan.

 

Can't answer about Dell Precision Optimizer... I've never used that software.

You will probably get less fan noise with Optimus on, if you are able to leave the GPU off most of the time. When I have Optimus enabled, I set the options in the NVIDIA control panel for all applications to use the Intel GPU (instead of the "let the driver decide" default behavior) and then explicitly whitelist the applications that I want to use the NVIDIA GPU. I've found that with Optimus off, the GPU fan is almost always running a low level.

The CPU fan is on the left and the GPU fan is on the right (looking at the system from the front)... Usually the right fan only turns on when the GPU is under load for me.

This is with the M6700 but it should have similar behavior to the M4700.

 

Hi again. I must say it does not seem to make much difference whether I have Optimus enabled or not. The K2000M is used all the time even if I choose the internal one for all applications. But at least the Quiet mode that comes with Dell Feature Enhancement Pack helps to make the fans tolerable either way.

But another thing, do you know is there a way to set the battery recharging so that it stops charging when it's full and then after the charge has dropped below some (set?)threshold like 85%, it would start recharging again?

 

You can set custom charging thresholds in the BIOS. There are two options, one is how low the battery level must be before charging will start (i.e. don't charge unless the battery level is lower than 85%), and the other is the maximum battery level (i.e. stop charging when the battery level reaches 90%).

 

Hi there. I'm going to refresh thermal grease in my M4700. I also want to replace the thermal pads because some of them didn't cover elements (on CPU, there is no stamp of few coils on a thermal pad). Is replacing the thermal pads a good idea? Also, can someone tell me, which thickness of the pads are used in M4700 CPU and VGA cooling?

 

Here to share my experience with a m2000m upgrade:

The truth is, I have absolutely no idea about what I´m doing...

You need to mod the inf, as stated before, so you can install the drivers. I just replaced the strings already there with my Hardware ID, leaving the "section" the same (dunno if this is the right way to go).
Then I've ran across some compatibility issues in the driver install wizard, still. I've had success with the "have disk" method though.
You have to turn on Optimus to be able to install the drivers, I've tried the "have disk" with the Optimus disabled but with no success. Turning it off after the driver install is also unsuccessful, which leads me to my main point:

THE QUADRO GPU IS ALWAYS INACTIVE.

I've tried most methods I could think off (including setting up preferred GPU for single apps and global preferences, but no dice...

Currently at wit´s end here and was hoping someone could shed some light on the matter...

EDIT:
Just noticed that the GPU renders if a monitor is plugged in. Currently using the HDMI port, can't test Display Port. Still can't render to the screen.

EDIT 2:
I may have got it.
Managed to install the 387.95 driver, through the "have disk" method, after updating the BIOS to A17 and turning OFF the Optimus option.
The Quadro M2000M now renders properly to the laptop screen without Optimus activated!
HDMI out is working fine and outputting sound as expected.
I also forgot to mod the inf, maybe, as the name of the GPU appears as the name of a hardware id string that doesn't belong to my computer, but everything works fine.

You can definitely upgrade to the M2000M, if you're willing to but heads with it for a bit while trying to get things to work.

 

Thanks for the post. Have you benchmarked it in anyway to see if it performs at spec levels?

I just looked on ebay, these are almost $400 right now. Would be nice if they dropped in price a bit.

 

Would something like this work? https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-nVidia-N16P-Q3-A2-4GB-Quadro-M2000M-New-822509-003/332385232987

Does it matter if it's marked 'HP Zbook' etc or are they all interchageable?