Precision M4400 Owner's Lounge

Just a general FYI here for everyone.

I'm a .Net consultant and do most of my work using Virtual Machines. I had been running them off a fast USB2 drive, but was getting annoyed at always needing to dangle that thing off the lappy.

So I purchased the HD caddy and swapped in a 5400RPM 300Gig drive and man what a difference in speed. I knew the SATA interface was faster than USB2, but the real world performance difference is staggering.

If I need to suspend a VM on the USB2 drive, it would take about 30 seconds to do so, at least. That same operation on the SATA is less than 2 seconds.

 

Yeah, I can get drive transfers to an eSata drive of about 50-60 MB/s (5400 RPM laptop drive) versus tops of about 25 when using the same drive on USB. I run my VM's off a secondary 7200 drive and they perform near native (using VMWare w/ VT enabled in the BIOS) with HDD access speeds.

 

Lol...it's great isn't it I used too play audio files live from an external USB drive, like 14 high quality tracks at the same time, which would quickly fill up the USB bandwith but now i've got an external hooked up through the eSATA port....HUUUUUGE difference

 

I just got my m4400 (the outlet is very fast) I really like the computer, but I was surprised the charger is so big.
The only problem I am having is the few times I have heard sound from the speakers, the sound has been crackly. These have just been the vista sounds, but is there an update or something to stop the crackling?
sorry if this has already been mentioned, but this is a very long thread!

 

In my humble opinion, it is a stupid idea to create one single thread for most of the conversation, so...

See: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=341918

 

Sorry, one more question
When I purchased my computer on the outlet it said it had vista business 64 bit, but when I looked in control panel under system it said it had 32 bit and it is not using the full 4 gigs of memory. The computer did come with some discs for 64 bit, but would it be a royal pain to install or could I just install it over vista 32 bit? Would there be any noticeable difference between 32 and 64 bit? Is the installation worth the trouble?

 

You're welcome!

Well, you would have to install some drivers after installing Vista 32 bit, and all settings and files would be gone.

If you exceed the 3.5 GB RAM limit and need the last 0.5 GB of RAM, you should reinstall. Other than that, you can as well use 32 bit Vista. The 64 bit Vista will bring some additional security features, but in think that's not worth it at the moment if you're using common sense (like not running arbitrary applications). If you are uncertain, you should not attempt to reinstall the operating system without reading a bit about what the procedure will be like. But if I was you, I would wonder why there's a 32 bit Vista installed on an item that is meant to be delivered with a 64 bit installation.

I, personally, am using Vista 32 bit with 4 GB of RAM.



And one more thing:

How did you determine that? Did the Windows System Information dialog tell you that? If so, you don't have any Vista Service Packs installed, because Vista would otherwise show the amount of RAM installed instead of the amount of RAM that is usable. You should enable automatic updates in the control panel then to get both Service Packs and future updates for Windows. This will not make your computer slower or install any "spyware" or nasty things like that. The Service Packs will improve Vista's performance and eliminate security holes.

 

Has Dell some application which can check my drivers and update them to latest ones? Or at least something what can tell me there is newer driver then the one I am currently using?

 

Cristoph.krn,
Thank you for the replies. I just got the computer yesterday afternoon so I plan on doing the updates today. This is my first time using vista and I didn't realize that it would state the full amount of ram installed after the updates.
If my understanding is correct most dell precision computers ship with the 32 bit operating system unless they have more than the 4 gigs of ram, it is just odd that mine said it had the 64 bit as an add on, but Dell did not install it.

 

I do a lot of .net development as well and make use of VM's all the time. It's a fabulously powerful notebook isn't it especially considering its size? I've bought an OCZ Vertex 120gb as my OS drive and a caddy. I've put a WD 320gb 7200rpm as my data drive. Along with the QX9300 and 8gb RAM this thing is so quick I've gotten rid of my quad core desktop with raptor drives.