Precision M4400 Owner's Lounge

erk, shouldnt have posted so early in the morning...

 

Basically I have had problems since day one and Dell has a log of it. I paid full retail for a working machine and it has only been a around a month and a half.. Unless Dell is going to give me a discount I feel I should have a new machine. Now I'm not saying there is anything wrong with refurbished systems I just want what I paid for. Know what I mean?


Agreed Pen and Paper are bliss... printers are the devel!!! Anyway,


BTW - Is there a way to tell if it is refurbished?

 

Yes, to finally answer your question: All refurbished machines come with a green rectangular REFURBISHED sticker on the bottom of the unit below the service tag. Hope that helps

 

WestDev....., Thank you... Looks new to me nice!

 

This thread is already 214 pages long...anyone can answer to any question put in this thread earlier. If you would've read a couple of posts back you would've seen where this comment came from...if it was helpfull is a different subject

 

Ok I have something to report. I don't have time to start up my new laptop as I'm in the middle of a huge deadline for a project but while I was moving 500GB of files I decided to open up my new M4400 to take a look for a refurbished sticker... Looks like the 1.5 pages of finally finding out that there could be a sticker lead me to something else. The first thing I noticed is there is a black plate extending from the fan over to the left part of the heat sync. It also has a slightly larger fan. It is definitely different then my current one. Both laptops according to the specs are configured the same. When I get some time I'll check the temps and post some pics to see if Dell has changed something to address better or worse cooling.

It looks like the the 1700m cooling system. White papers say 770m..
This is not mine but mine looks like it:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v313/M477_void/bottom_sm.png
From this post:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=315874

 

Thanks for the directions on changing to ATA in the BIOS, I now have XP installed on my M4400. Can you explain how to manually load the intel AHCI drivers through device manager? I cannot figure this out. I am trying to use this driver. I am missing something...

 

If you follow the instructions here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=349173
it should allow you to switch from ATA in the same way it tells you to go from IRRT to AHCI.

Basically, you need to download the registry package that's there and run that against XP. Then shut down, change your SATA operation mode, and reboot. Just install the Intel Matrix software when you're done with that before rebooting again. I've done it multiple times on the E6500 and M4400 without any issue (I have always done IRRT -> AHCI, but that shouldn't matter, if you really want to XP didn't have any problems booting IRRT for me without any special drivers).

 

Those instructions say they are for Vista, can I use them for XP? My box does not have registry entry [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci] referenced in step 4.

Edit---
I have now followed the directions here and based on the directions you linked, I chose Intel (R)ICH9M-E/M SATA AHCI Controller when I had to make a choice.

Do you have reason for using IRRT vs AHCI? I ask b/c I do not... While it will now boot with AHCI, XP will still not boot with IRRT.

 

I use AHCI as well; I was installing and needed access to my eSata port so I had to use either AHCI or IRRT for the intial setup. XP SP2 wouldn't install under AHCI w/o manually loading drivers, so I just installed IRRT then switched to AHCI using that guide. My system loads a few seconds quicker under AHCI and I don't have to deal with the Intel RAID ROM popping up every time the system boots.

I only with the 4400 would have had support for RAID0 :-(