M4700 Owners Thread

I got my M4700 a few days ago -- and the fans are driving me crazy. They idle silently, but then they spin up to 2.5k each, sometimes just for 5 or 10 seconds at a time -- then back to zero. This happens at least once a minute. (Using hwinfo to check.)

I'm seeing this even I just boot and login to Windows and leave the system alone.

At least my old L501x was consistent: its fans were loud all the time. That's almost better than this constant on/off...

Anyone else? Any suggestions?

 

I have the same problem with my M4700. Updated the BIOS to A07 yesterday, but nothing has changed. I wish the fans would just settle for a continuous low RPM instead of spinning up every minute... the M4600 that a colleague of mine has seems much better in that regard.

 

Yeah, it's maddening--and would be such an easy fix in the bios (mine's also A07).

I discovered I don't even have to boot the OS: even just idling in the BIOS user interface, the fans come on and off as I describe. That's insane.

 

Ok. Thanks tijo! However, how do I actually set-up the boot sequence?

I can add a boot option, but how do I actually choose what to start with???

I'm a bit lost here, moving from my T3400...

Thanks

 

I just pressed F12 on my M6700 and external SATA bay was there as an option with eSATA the drive plugged in. Windows moved some files around, rebooted, I reselected the eSATA after pressing F12 and I managed to boot into Windows without any issue.

 

mmm... I do get a few more options when pressing F12, but none to choose the boot order from. Should I change to legacy boot mode? Has anyone had any experience with this?

Thanks,

 

Are you trying to boot anything other than Windows 8 from that eSATA drive? You'll have to turn secure boot off to get the options to appear.

 

I don't have experience with this, my BIOS has always been in Legacy more (came that way and I never changed it). When I press F12 when the Dell logo appears, I get a list of devices to boot from, basically anything that is connected though eSATA, network, USB and the internal drives.

EDIT: Ninja'ed by Aaron, again!

 

Not necessarily. The idea was to have some kind of redundancy in case the primary drive fails. The way I imagined it, was to have Windows installed to an eSata drive. If something goes wrong with the primary drive, I could plug the eSata and keep on working after a few minutes.

I could always swap the drives but it might not be practical (screwdriver missing, bad locations, pressure deadline, others).

The eSata would have Windows 8, but it could actually be another OS for that matter (win 7, Linux).


I've googled secure boot since your reply. I found it can be disabled. I assume it can also be enabled afterwards. Any issue with this operation?

Thanks for your replies!

 

anisotropy,

Is the B156HW01 a AU Optronics panel? Do you know if that is better than the B156HW02 ?

My M4700 came with a AU Optronics B156HW02 and in my opinion it is one of the worst I've ever used.

Is the AU Optronics B156HW01 versions you mentioned (V4 or V7) supposed to be good?

Thanks.