M4800 Owner's Thread

Happy to help. Your boiling battery issue is probably related the QHD=no Optimus issue as well. I can disable Optimus, and I noticed that since it forces the Quadro to be active at all times, my thermals became much more aggressive, and the firmware had to actively manage the Quadro clocks when on battery. With Optimus enabled, things were much simpler, it just plain does not turn on the Quadro at any point when on battery, it uses the Intel HD at all times.

I think the Optimus behavior was the original design and intent, and when Dell had to disable Optimus to get the QHD panel working, they also broke their electrical/thermal profiles, since it couldn't switch the Nvidia GPU off when on battery.

Good news, if that's correct, since I'm sure the M4900 will be wired correctly and have QHD and Optimus both. Too bad Dell won't be getting us replacements from those non-defective designs.

 

That would be the webcam indication light.. Could you perhaps point me to the documentation where it says the M4800 has an ambient light sensor?

EDIT: I read this post, which mentions the option in the BIOS. I've just rebooted my M4800 to double check, but the option isn't in there. It seems your problem is not related to an ambient light sensor.

 

just to say ... when I had stock W7 installed with my machine I've noticed that under certain light conditions it would adjust lighting especially video played on the white background of page its on would trigger it, but when i clean installed new W7 it vanished, I must say it was part annoying with Photoshop, yet it did give better contrast ratios when it worked especially when you look at photos.

EDIT: found the ON/OFF Switch for Ambient Light Sensor in M4800! hope this is it.

Additional info: Just fiddled with it and it has 5 settings aggressive level is number 5 if you enable it it really shows especially if your desktop background is pure black. if it saves battery Ill use it only for battery related Power profiles. I am actually impressed that dell thought of this. so the drill is going into Power management and changing profile options. low is 1 high is 5

 

In that case, I stand corrected. I have clean installed W7 myself so it's quite possible that I miss this option

 

I'm missing that option on my clean W7 install.

 

I am about to buy a M4800, and was wondering if it was possible to switch the graphics card easily? That's what got my current Vostro to die after 5 years, I couldn't switch it because it was soldered to the motherboard.

 

Its possible to switch gpu in it. It uses mxm 3.0a standard.

 

I've done it. It wasn't something I'd do lightly, I had to disassemble the laptop almost completely, but it was achievable. I actually swapped out my original Quadro K1100M for an HP Quadro K2100M I bought off of eBay. Works great.

 

install dell power manager and its profiles.

 

hey guys I think I'm set on ordering an M4800 but need the QHD+ screen. I'll be loading it up with 32gb of ram and testing some virtual machines and testing some software + RDP into a ton of different servers. Are there any major issues with the m4800 QHD+? Thanks