Precision M4400 Owner's Lounge

Also, why would the Intel Matrix Storage Manager be responsible for the audio issues? I came across it when updating drivers for the 4300, although I thought it's application was oriented towards RAID configurations?

 

I guess you will have to ask Intel if you want to know the EXACT reason, but it is/has been at least involved. (look at "Fixes and Enhacements")

 

IMSM is the driver that controls the SATA connections, i.e., your hard drive and DVD-drive. Apparently previous versions of the IMSM caused frequent accesses to the hard drive which caused sound stuttering problems.

 

The M4400, if you add a secondary hard drive in place of the DVD drive, will interface with the drive with SATA speeds. Using IMSM, I am getting the same transfer speeds across both my drives (identical drives w/ same firmware in both internal and modular bays). If you need the ability to swap it out with the DVD drive, buy an E-modular bay (listed on Dell's site under the parts option for Drives on 4400). This will allow you to connect an E-series (same as M4400) modular drive to the esata port.

 

but the modular bay only allows a 1.8 inch drive right?

if you want to use the higher speed drives you need to go for the thinkpad modular bay hack thingy thats in the sticky

 

Hi all, I'm using M4400 for some time and I found some issues...

1. Touchpad reactions are pretty bad and slow - Mouse cursor is still behindhand my finger position at the touchpad. I try everything and it is still bad. I swear I never saw so slow touchpad used in the laptop. On my 4 years old Asus it works perfectly and mouse cursor always exactly copy my finger motion.
2. There is a 1-2mm space between the bottom display plastic cover and display. The gap is the biggest right behind the DELL logo under the display.
3. On some backgrounds pattern, especially black and gray mixes, there is visible jitter which is really unpleasant to watch. Example could be the forum www.warforum.cz. There is lot of advertisment on the page so just ignore it (or filter it like I did) and focus at the background (black with grey dots - pattern).
4. Wavy keyboard, but it was already solved here.

 

hope this helps!

 

1. Touchpad reactions are pretty bad and slow - Mouse cursor is still behindhand my finger position at the touchpad. I try everything and it is still bad. I swear I never saw so slow touchpad used in the laptop. On my 4 years old Asus it works perfectly and mouse cursor always exactly copy my finger motion.

Try disabling or reducing the "touch check" sensitivity in the mouse properties in control panel. if this dosent work, you have a hardware issue probably.

I try that and no change :-( I don't use touchpad much, but time to time it is really annoying. I guess the delay in motion is about 200ms. It doesn't seem to be much at first, but using it for longer time I found I have very poor acuracy with such delay.

2. There is a 1-2mm space between the bottom display plastic cover and display. The gap is the biggest right behind the DELL logo under the display.

This is normal, no big deal, its a thin, light snap on bezel. it feels cheap, which is not very nice, but it dosent affect the structural integrity of the unit, since the base and lcd back panel, plus the internal frame is the critical components for its structure.

Yeap, that really fells cheap. But you are right, no big deal.

3. On some backgrounds pattern, especially black and gray mixes, there is visible jitter which is really unpleasant to watch. Example could be the forum www.warforum.cz. There is lot of advertisment on the page so just ignore it (or filter it like I did) and focus at the background (black with grey dots - pattern).

im using the 2ccfl wuxga screen. no issues here, which screen are you using?

My config is in my singature. I have WXGA+ LED Samsung. The efect what I fell is very similar like watching old CRT displays running at only 60Hz

4. Wavy keyboard, but it was already solved here.
wavy keyboard? pls explain

Keyboard is soft and pliable and not tough like on my old asus. It buckles when I am typing.

 

2. There is a 1-2mm space between the bottom display plastic cover and display. The gap is the biggest right behind the DELL logo under the display.
This is normal, no big deal, its a thin, light snap on bezel. it feels cheap, which is not very nice, but it dosent affect the structural integrity of the unit, since the base and lcd back panel, plus the internal frame is the critical components for its structure.
Yeap, that really fells cheap. But you are right, no big deal.

Christoph.krn: I can confirm that this is normal.


3. On some backgrounds pattern, especially black and gray mixes, there is visible jitter which is really unpleasant to watch. Example could be the forum www.warforum.cz. There is lot of advertisment on the page so just ignore it (or filter it like I did) and focus at the background (black with grey dots - pattern).
im using the 2ccfl wuxga screen. no issues here, which screen are you using?
My config is in my singature. I have WXGA+ LED Samsung. The efect what I fell is very similar like watching old CRT displays running at only 60Hz

Christoph.krn: This is not caused by the type of backlight, and you likely can not do anything against it yourself. See Inversion (pixel-walk).


4. Wavy keyboard, but it was already solved here.
wavy keyboard? pls explain
Keyboard is soft and pliable and not tough like on my old asus. It buckles when I am typing.

Christoph.krn: This is very unusual for the M4400.

 

I've had my m4400 for about 2 weeks now. The keyboard it came with was very soft on the left side. Contacted Dell via email and they overnighted a new one. 2nd one was damaged at the factory, the left bracket was bent to a 90 degree angle. I carefully bent it back and installed it (super easy) but the left side had a "bubble" in it radiating outward from the "d" key. Told Dell and the same very nice rep overnighted me a 3rd keyboard and it's been perfect so far.