Precision M4400 Owner's Lounge *Part 2*

You just asked the same thing. I don't know because i never used it but i think when someone who does sees your question he'll answer.

 

I had an X9100, but sold it and went back to the P8600 because it's much cooler running, spent that money on an SSD instead.

 

Very nice. *cough* signature *cough*

 

Yesterday I received my new M4400. P8700, 4GB RAM, WUXGA-RGBLED, Dell AGN wifi, Quadro FX 770M, backlit keyboard. I ordered it with the cheapest possible HDD option because I already had a 256GB Samsung SSD. That 250GB drive they shipped is slow as hell, but I only booted it up once before swapping it out.

Running Ubuntu Lucid (alpha) on it now. I had a bit of confusion finding the Broadcom wireless driver, but that's all sorted now and it looks like everything is working. I haven't tested the webcam yet either, come to think of it. It also has bluetooth (which I never use, but I ordered it just in case I ever need it.)

The screen is really nice, even though it's glossy. I like the ambient-light-sensing auto brightness feature. 9 cell battery, looks like it will last about 4-5 hours for just websurfing. Nice.

The included AC adapter is 120W. However, I plugged in my Kensington universal AC/Air/Auto adapter (which is only 90W) and it still works, so it looks like I'll be leaving the stock adapter at home all the time.

Hm, still need to test out how well virtualization works on this thing, I occasionally compile Windows code inside a VM. But so far it seems pretty snappy.

Sometimes the touchpad is unresponsive. The trackpoint always works though, so I guess I'll just have to get used to using that instead.

 

The wired ethernet is a pretty common Intel Pro 1000, I had no trouble with that at all. It worked immediately on my Linux install. There are a variety of possible wifi cards for this laptop, and you might have to install some non-default packages to get the right driver. Since you didn't mention which wifi card you got, it's hard to say.

 

Yes I see your nice intel , I couldn't bring myself to spend the extra so could only get a Kingston V+ 64GB [samsung], it's nowhere the best with random writes, but is still an amazing general system speed upgrade over a HDD with everything but large compressed file copying, which I don't do on the primary drive anyway.

 

I just got my new M4400. I carefully explained to the guy that I wanted the matte CCFL screen, but it arrived with the glossy RGBLED instead! Arg.

Also, almost every time I plug in the power cord, it zaps the machine into a hard hang (no mouse movement, no ctrl-alt-del, etc). Anyone ever seen this with their M4400?

So, how are y'all ording your with matte WUXGA CCFL screens? Dell seems to have no idea that WUXGA CCFL exists for this latop. Wht part number do you have to use?

Any pointers are appreciated!

 

It's WUXGA 2CCFL. Just order the WUXGA screen which isn't RGB LED, should be pretty hard for them to get that wrong.

 

Wow, can't believe my keyboard just zonked on me. I've had this one for 2 months and the G,H and L-Alt keys are becoming intermittently unresponsive to touch typing. Any ideas on the cause / fix? Dell Support is over-nighting a new one, but this unit's a virgin and I don't relish cracking open those speaker grills :|

 

Keyboard is super simple to remove, doesn't involve speaker grills. Take off the the little cover with the volume buttons (stick a flat blade in in between the little plastic strip and the insert key, and pry up gently. 2 screws are revealed. Remove them)

Further, note that it attaches not with a ribbon cable, but with a circuit board which is literally attached to the trackpoint mouse buttons (they're part of the circuitboard). It pulls towards the screen.

Michael