Precision M4400 Owner's Lounge

New Notebook System Software Update available as of last night.
Link for x64 Vista version posted below.
http://support.dell.com/support/dow...eid=R214475&formatcnt=1&libid=0&fileid=303637
Tagets sleep, hibernation, USB ports, audio, black screen (resume) & blue screen issues.
": Add support for the following Microsoft hot fixes: add 954434 add 955252 add 953186 add 958018 add 958685 add 955249 replace 955840 with 961249 replace 950186 with 956871"

 

hi
ive not posted anything for a while now as my m4400 has been great and running really nicely ...that is until i started getting random shutdowns(think it was something to do with kill time out service in registry) anyway to cut a long story short i looked on dell support and noticed quite a few updates for the 64bit vista system so i downloaded them and installed them..namely the Nvidia 770 driver, latest audio driver, touchpad driver and bios A12. after i installed all of these i started to get a blue screen on startup and had to go into safe mode to boot...after no luck in sorting problem out i used system restore and went back to old config. has anyone had this problem with the latest downloads for vista 64 bit??? btw i went back to bios A6 as well...any feedback most welcome,thanks in advance.cheers ful

 

Not exactly related to your issue but I get a blue screen after every windows update I do. Safemode and restart deals with this but its really frustrating.

 

update on the gfx crashes:

just had a photoshop crash with gfx acceleration disbaled. open gl error 14 again.

 

Does anyone have an additional 1.8" hd for the precision?

 

this is insane! Is there anyone else out there that has downloaded the latest (URGENT-according to DELL) Intel Matrix Storage application (A04) and driver (A03)update?? and had the their go to pot??!! Upon installing the stuttering audio sound can be heard..these are not stable updates...is there anyone that has had the same problem? What is bios A12 like as well..? Im on A09 at the moment and things are stable, no more momentary blue screens and screwed up start ups now! any feedback appreciated greatly...cheers in advance ful

 

It's possible to install a 2,5" HDD in a caddy which is actually for Lenovo....read the how-to here http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=347870
So there's no need to install the slower 1,8" HDD

@Full66

In which BIOS did you get the problems? And was it just audio stuttering? There's a number of threads about that issue for both latitudes and precisions. Im running ALL latest drivers and BIOS and updated the firmware for my HDD and everything and having no issues whatsoever

could you give more details?

 

No,but I have a cheap [ebay] lenovo T400/500 2.5" secondary hard drive module that works fine apart from not having the locking mechanism.
The friction of being plugged in to the sata port is good enough to hold it firmly.....if you dropped the notebook it would undoubtably come out,but then,the secondary hard drive would probably be the least of your worries

Dell hasn't supported Raid0 or proper Raid1 with this notebook,unlike the HP 15.4" workstation,so I will probably go that direction next time,or whoever happens to not be trying to pimp ghastly 16:9 aspect screens like seems to be becoming all the rage

 

After applying many recommends from this forum on my initial setup (thanks all!), everything is running stably with low latency since my initial setup (x64/BIOS A11/A03/A04)...

but I will ask, what OS are you running? Check your dell download logs and make sure that you chose the correct versions / drivers for everything, I noticed several times that OS can change back to a default value (i.e. Vista 32) when backtracking through the downloads page.. I got the wrong drivers / versions in my cart a couple of times and had to correct.

 

I made booting up in safe mode after a major update (like Bios for instance) standard procedure. I have found that it helped tremendously.
I think the safe reboot may flush out the system cache file and this in turn removes outdated system configuration data.

Vista uses a lot of file caching to speed up the system. While this may make the system more responsive in normal use, it may introduce this little problem during a system upgrade.

BTW to boot in safe mode just hit F8 repeatedly at system startup before the windows logo appears. If you do this right, you will get a menu screen from which you can choose different boot options. Choose "safe mode" and hit "enter".

Cheers!