M4700 Owners Thread

Yes, it's SATA-2. The only SATA-3 port in the M4700 is the primary 2.5" drive bay.

 

Hey i solved all Problems.

First - to Install Windows 8 with UEFI Boot you need the M4700 Win8 Preinstallation Environment Driver Pack, wich can be downloaded from the Support site. If you install Windows 8 without UEFI Boot, you don´t need this package.

Second - the Laptop had no USB 3.0 issues, the external Drive was damaged. Wich wasn´t that easy do discover because the drive worked without Problems on two different Laptops and didn´t worked with two other Laptops in USB 3.0 - with 2.0 i had no issues.

 

Monitor Name: Chi Mei [Unknown Model: CMN15B1]
Monitor Name (Manuf): N156HG [DELL P/N: VCM8X]
Date Of Manufacture: Week: 1, Year: 2012
Monitor Hardware ID: Monitor\CMN15B1

Just bought my M4700, and it also has that granularity you're talking about. This is the 1080p TN (non-IPS) screen. My old Studio XPS 1640 with a 720p TN panel looked better than this. I have the AMD FirePro M4000 graphics card, however.

Yep, same issue as I have.

I may have to look into replacing mine. Although, I'm not going to be happy about spending more to do it.

 

Just got off of a late night chat with Dell's tech support. Having a tech come out Monday to replace the panel for free. I made sure he's getting shipped an LG or Samsung panel so I don't have this grainy issue to deal with, along with an extra bezel just in case something gets destroyed. Man do I love a good tech support experience. I'll update you guys on Monday.

 

Just received my Precision M4700! What a beautifull machine!!!

Now, some Qs:

I ordered this with a mSata and a 500GB HDD. I expected the OS to be installed to the mSata and I would use the HDD for files. However, what I got was a SSD installed to the optical bay and the HDD with the OS in it!

Altough it would be convenient to have the abitlity to read discs, I'm not interested in sending it back. So, can I move/ install the OS to the optical bay SSD? What would be the best way to do it? Shall I use the Win8 recovery media created to an USB stick? I do have the Win8 disc, but no disc reader...

I understand the optical bay is SATA 2 but still it must be faster than the HDD drive.

Now that I'm thinking about it, maybe I should actually swap the SSD to the internal bay and move the HDD to the optical bay?!? Anyway, what would still be the best way to move/ install the OS?

The SSD is a Samsung PM830, 7mm high. The HDD is a Seagate Momentus 9,5mm high. Height may be an issue here but I couldn't find the specifications on the owners manual.

Also, is it possible the keyboard is not backlit? I thought backlit was default. Could this be a regional (keyboard) limitation?

I think that's it for now... I only spent a couple of hours with it and I'm sitll finding my way through Win8!

Thanks in advance.

 

I would recommend swapping the SSD and the HDD so that the SSD can have the SATA-3 port. Also, move the OS to the SSD, it doesn't make any sense not to. If you're not up to doing a clean Windows install on the SSD — I always clean install when I first get a new machine, but the Precision doesn't come with much bloat — you can use a tool like Acronis TrueImage to copy the partition over. (I recommend having the HDD disconnected or disabled when you first boot up off the SSD, I've had Windows get confused about which drive is which after a copy before. Additionally, I recommend just downloading the bootable media for TrueImage if you end up using it, no reason to install the whole suite.)

You should be able to fit a 9.5mm drive into the optical bay with a caddy. It's possible that the caddy they shipped you will only take a 7mm drive. You'll find that out if you try to do the swap and it doesn't fit. You could still get a replacement caddy that a 9.5mm drive will fit in.

There is a non-backlit keyboard available... Some configurations include it as the default, if you didn't pay close attention when ordering then you might have ended up with it. Check your order details and see if it mentions the backlit keyboard. If it does then you should have one, if it doesn't then you'll have to buy one separately.

 

Yes, that was my reasoning. SSD is faster and it will be faster on the internal bay.

Acronis is a paid program which I don't thik I'll use again. The laptop came with Dell Recovery software. Any experience using the recovory media (USB) or the rescue disk? Should I be able to install/ re-instate the OS from the recovery USB to the SSD?

Many thanks.

 

You could use clonezilla, be sure to align the drive before: How To Migrate Windows 7 to a Solid State Drive - How-To Geek. There are other ways to do it too and other guides out there on the web.

 

Aaron,

How would you clean install to the SSD if you can't use a disc? can you copy the disc content to a USB drive (using another machine)? Aren't there any issues with it being installed to a different drive since there's no label with licence key?

Thanks

 

Using a USB drive would be the best way to go. you can grab the iso for Windows 7 SP1 from here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/win...-digitalriver-windows-7-sp1-13-languages.html. If yours comes with 7 that is, I have no idea where to get a windows 8 iso if you don't already have one. you can then use the Windows USB/DVD download tool to make a bootable USB drive, it's a really easy process. then all you have to do is install.