M4700 Owners Thread

My M4700 is on order now.

I'm curious about thermal paste & thermal pads. From what I understand, Dell uses thermal pads in most laptops, and they're generally pretty poor. I've quite a lot of Noctua NT-H1 around and I've been building computers since the 486 days, but I've never done anything to a laptop or dealt with thermal pads. Does anything need to be done to use thermal paste (e.g. copper shimming)? Is it worth it? How involved a process is it? (I've already looked at the Dell dissassembly instruction manual).

 

Just pulled the trigger on a high end M4700! I'm super excited and Gould prove to be a quality machine. My question for you experts is can I upgrade the GPU later with the same size MXM card? If so do I need to keep it within the same TDP of the K2000m?

And I I can upgrade, do I have to use a quadro or could I upgrade to a mobile GeForce?

 

you do have to stay within the same type of MXM card, as for which cards, really depends on the BIOS, of course any card the dell sells for the laptop would work, the GeForce may or may not, until someone tries it you don't really know.

 

I have found the replacing the stock thermal paste netted a 4-8 C cooler laptop, and better cooling under load than the stock paste.

I myself have never bothered to use copper shims, it takes a bit more work than I care to do, but the thermal pads are typicaly used where less heat dissapation is required, and do a half decent job.

 

I have put all sorts in my m6600 with no problem (currently running an nvidia 670m).
The biggest problem you will find is a decent mxm3a card (its shorter than the usual mxm3b cards that the larger laptops use.

I just wish the k2000 had used ddr5 as ddr3 will be a big bottleneck to performance if trying to game at 1080p (although I realise these are supposed to be professional cards, I have always used precisions for gaming as they run so cool and quiet)

 

about the color tint

a dell service guy changed the display and the tint appeared on the exact same place so it seems its not the panel itself.

he ordered some parts and will maybe change the grapic card ect. in the next days.

i will post here if the problem couldbe fixed.

 

you have the ips screen right?? oh, oh, this doesn't sound good if there are that many problems with this screen, it seems that the 17" don't have these problems like the 15" have. you are now the third one as far as I can see... only in this forum, including myself

 

yes ips-rgb backliht panel.
well its the same problem the m4600users had ,which is no wonder since its the same display, so it seems they did not fixed it.so feel free to count the guys on the tint thread too

dell support guy changed today the mainboard, monitorwires and graphic card (before that he changed the screen the first time he got in) but the problem is still there.
dell will contact me soon to see what can be done now.
to upgrade just because of a bug would be no option for me since they are more expensive and i for myself spend enough money into the machine.

the problem appears in the bios and systemcheck settings too so its not a software problem.

 

this is really a pity, at the moment I am getting a new machine but from what you tell me I can expect the same problems there. hopefully not! but if yes I won't give up, I bought it because of advertising a screen which is for graphics work and is color accurate.
in my model this was not the case.
upgrading would definitely be an option for me if this can't be fixed at all... but for now I wait until my new machine arrives

edit : yes it was the same in mine with bios and systemcheck, it is definitely a hardware issue

 

I'm working on my review, hope to have something decent for you guys sometime next week. I did run the WEI:

Windows Experience Index:
Processor -- 7.6
Ram -- 7.8
Graphics -- 7.3
Gaming -- 7.3
Primary HDD -- 7.7
Total -- 7.3
(i7 3720 QM FirePro M4000 16GB Corsair Vengeance 1600MHZ DDR3 256GB PM830 mSATA)

I also tested the standard 1080p screen (non IPS) with my Spyder4.

80% of sRGB
63% of aRGB
60% of NTSC

0% brightness -- 35.1 nits --- 430:1 contrast ratio
100% brightness -- 278.5 nits --- 460:1 contrast ratio

Viewing angles are top notch for a TN panel. The only angle the screen really seems to wash out is if you look at it from the bottom. The top and sides and dead on are awesome.

Now if only I could find a bezel that fits my UJ-232 that is flat, i'm in business.