Precision M4400 Owner's Lounge

i looked at lenovo as well. my decision between lenovo and dell was fairly easy though. i dont much care for the lenovo line.

i started with the 14.1" notebooks for ease of travel, but i didnt much care for the configurations available. i wanted more. looked at the M6400 but didnt want the 17" screen. only options left were the M4400 and E6500. The M4400 just offered a little bit more of what i wanted (especially the RGBLED display)...not to mention i really like the LCD lid/cover.

i am hoping for a trouble free system but have no problem putting in some work to get it the way i want it.

 

...me again.

The first tech finally came in and replaced the motherboard for my BIOS issue - only to find that the bios didn't respond to the keyboard. Rather than suspecting the keyboard (I would have been more than willing to lend him my USB one), he immediately called for a second replacement motherboard. Today, a second tech came in and did the second replacement - only to hit the same issue. At this point, I just let him get me a replacement laptop than send this one to be fixed. Right after he left, I plugged in my keyboard and mouse, got out of manufacturing mode, and found that everything else works perfectly. I'm using it right now, with an external monitor and everything. Ah well. I still want a fresh machine though - time is of little consequence (luckily) and I don't have much installed on this one yet.

So, in summary, this long prolonged process has brought me into contact with a wide mix of Dell's support system, and it's a mixed bag. Some people are competent and understanding whereas others just ... aren't. Also, onsite tech support is not very efficient for complicated hardware issues. Troubleshooting is naturally a process involving trial and error, and it takes a hell of a long time if one has to try to schedule a tech to come in between each time an error is hit.

I really do love this machine though.

 

Hi,
does anyone perhaps know the part number of the 2mp webcam for the M4400? Or can perhaps someone who owns a M4400 with 2 mp webcam look the part number up on the Dell support website?
You would make me soo happy.

Thank you,
Gnoffin

P.S.: I've got the WUXGA 2CCFL Display - so if someone knows if a 2MP webcam for this Display exists - I really need the part number.

 

Any resolution for the missing Bluetooth icon under Windows 7?
Granted, my Mikersoft Presenter 8000 mouse is recognized & functions well, but IntelliPoint doesn't respond to custom button assignments.

 

has the M4400 another design for the lid/cover? i dont like the design, and i rather prefer the design of the M6400...can the M4400 look like a smaller version of the M6400? is there any link?

 

All,

Anyone else having latency (slowness) issues with their M4400? I have a QX9300 Quad, 4 GB RAM, and a 128 GB Samsung SSD HD. This machine should be screaming along; however, I am having really long lag times for basic things like scrolling web pages, editing word docs, jumping back and forth between open programs, etc...

I have 5 year old laptops that run smoother than this. Please let me know if you have had similar experiences with similar configurations.

Thanks,
Todd

 

Hey tee_off, just got mine M4400 yesterday. Noticed frequent disc access at idle and DPC latency all red (around 8000 micros afair). There was IMSM Application 8.7 installed. Just installed version 8.8 and it's much better. Latency is all green at idle oscillating around 500 micros (still far away from what I get on my crappy Tecra). Installed IMSM Driver is latest 8.8. Still, having high latency on 8.7 was not really affecting the performance as far as I managed to check just over a couple of hours using it, but at least there is less of this annoying disk access sound at idle (not completely gone though).

 

1, 2, 3... sig check

 

I don't think tee off was talking about the DPC latency but just general delays when opening windows, switching apps etc.

@ tee off...did you do a fresh install? If so, did you install all the updated drivers from the Dell site in the order given by Dell?

 

@tee_off

I ran into some issues with the IMSM drivers (8.8 seemed to fix most of them) where if I would insert a DVD it would lock the computer for periods of time. Also, something disagreed between the x64 audio / IMSM drivers, and playback was very inconsistent - volume and speed of playback would vary. Updating IMSM should be your first move.

Also, if you did a clean install w/ a SSD, SSDs perform much differently from rotational drives. Write speeds are slower, which can cause lags, especially when using internet browsers or having a page file on the disk. OCZ has a guide for setting up SSDs for best performance. (Sorry, I don't have a link anymore) By moving the page file, eliminating web caches (or moving them to another disk) you can greatly increase your performance.