M4800 Owner's Thread

Interesting. I was planing to do a backlit keyboard upgrade in the future when parts are cheaper but it seems as if the quality on these keyboard really vary - either that or they go through a 'break in' process (unlikely). I might even do a keyboard swap between my two machines just to get rid of this mushy keyboard.

In addition - I did a really careful comb over of the machine, and I found a dent in my casing from manufacture that has stripped off the anodised coating on my machine, just above the Kensington lock slot where the base piece 'rolls' in to the back. For £1400 I really did expect a degree of attention and care.

 

That's a bummer, sorry to hear that.

I noticed a small ding in one of the vents on the back, but I think I did that. No other real build quality concerns I've noticed. I'm looking into getting a sleeve or a bag with better laptop protection.

I was thinking - any chance your keyboard was installed with one less screw than needed? If that were the case, it could possibly explain the keyboard flex.


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why dell 1601?

 

Well I am one of the victims of the low wattage power adapter. My laptop came with 2 power adapters 180 and 130. 180 is at work connected to the docking station, 130 is at home. For the last 2 weeks I could not figure out why the computer would be nice and smooth for a while and then all the sudden it would start running slower than my old laptop. Now I do know. In reality my laptop runs faster on battery than it does with the 130 Watt adapter.

Now the question.
1) I bought this laptop through my IT department with the dual 512 SSD's (one msata) and Raid0 configuration. Raid 0 never worked properly. I mean it was set up right and my hard drive space doubled but read and write speeds were just absolutely horrendous. I could not get anything better than 200Mb read/write. So I had the IT revert the computer back to no Raid configuration and things seemed to improve back to 400Mb read write.

I am wondering if the low power issue was causing the Raid 0 to not operate properly. Since these laptops do not have dedicated Raid cards, I think the CPU is handling the Striping of the data using intel drivers. If the CPU was being throttled and parts of cache was being turned off due to low powered adapter, then the RAID operations would be slow as hell as well. I am inclined to try it again now with the 180watt power adapter, the issue is it takes me 2 full days to set up my computer with all the productivity software, IDE's, drivers and initialization files. I don't just want to wipe my hard drive. I thought about backing up the image but it is encrypted with PGP and not sure how that will work out.

2) If 180 is good for this laptop, I wonder how does 210 do? I mean I have maximum power drain configuration with 2 Hard drives, raid configruration, Bluray writer, 4930MX cpu, 32 gigs of ram, backlit keyboard, K2100M and the QHD+ screen and use it on performance mode all the time. I am wondering the computer is being throttled a bit under 180watt adapter. My friend has a 210Watt adapter for his M6700, I should test I guess.

Edit: Here are read write speeds for different configurations

Plugged in w/130Watt adapter Power saver single 512Msata Samsung SSD
173MB read/121MB write

Plugged in w/130Watt adapter High performance single 512Msata Samsung SSD
171MB read/121MB write (yeah no difference)

Battery only Power saver single 512Msata Samsung SSD
285MB read/210MB write

Battery only high performance single 512Msata Samsung SSD
448MB read/355MB write

Plugged in w/180Watt adapter Power saver/High performance single 512Msata Samsung SSD
to be tested

Plugged in w/210Watt adapter Power saver/High performance single 512Msata Samsung SSD
to be tested

 

I slapped in samsung 840 msata 500gb got about 500/500 speed.

 

Highest temp for this machine is 82c degree

 

I don't remember whether an Intel card was an option I could configure when I ordered, but I'm not really too bothered, and I was intrigued by WiGig, which I wanted to try out.

I ended up snagging one of the wireless "docks" from eBay for ~$30 instead of the $300 Dell would charge, and I am pretty happy with it. I don't use it for displays or peripherals at the moment, just the pseudo-ethernet, which I find works pretty well. I also have a regular dock at work, so I'm not on wifi unless I am roaming about the office, and it works well enough for my needs.

It is a bummer that I think my machine would need some additional antennas (meaning a display swap?) to get the full performance out of an Intel card if I were to put one in later, but I don't think our access points in the office are new enough to be running AC anyway.

 

ac 7260 uses only 2 antennas..

 

So that means it should be an easy swap later on, if I decide to buy and install an intel card? That's good news!

 

Yes, very easy. I did it last week.
You will have the thin WiGig cable left over.