Precision M4400 Owner's Lounge

Well this is my first post after now completely reading the entire thread, over 2700 posts, and it took a casual 2-3 weeks or so. Phew.
It has been most informative, and the regular contributors do a great job in my humble opinion.
So I have come to the decision to grab an M4400 in the next few weeks, mainly with the intention to run Inventor and AutoCad, and possibly Solidworks. I don't run games, although may give it a go one day.

My quote is for a:
T9550 processor,
4gb ram,
250 free fall 7200 disk,
FX1700M,
wifi 5300,
WUXGA Ultrasharp RGBLED Truelife,
and the groovy lit keyboard.

I will be getting an x64 machine, probably with Vista Ultimate, as Dell in Oz are giving free upgrades to Win 7 when it is released. So with that in mind I will ask Dell to preconfigure the machine to allow for a dual boot setup.

My question to the learned community, is what size/proportion partitions should I ask for from Dell, based on a 250Gb drive?

regards from Sydney, and still running a bullet proof D600 Latitude from 2003!

 

Hi!

You got my respect for supporting the completely dumb idea of throwing everything into a single, giant thread.

Looks good... very good!

Windows Vista, as well as Windows 7, are capable of partition shrinking (with some limitations, see http://www.lytebyte.com/2007/02/19/how-to-partition-in-windows-vista-extend-and-shrink/ and http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc731894.aspx). Of course, growing, deleting and creating are as well supported.

First or all, I want to note that I have never dual-booted Windows on any of my own computers (just Windows/Linux). I'm not quite sure now if there may not be any DACL problems occuring some day by the setup I'm going to write about, but I doubt so - someone who already did this will be able to tell you this. Here are my thoughts anyways:
If I was in your situation, I would likely tell Dell to split the HDD to 180 GB / 70 GB. I'd put the operating that I use more frequently onto the 180 GB partition, and also store all my files there. This way, you will for instance not be facing the trouble you may get into if you install applications to partitions other than C: (Vista as well as 7 will always show the partition they are running off as "C:", no matter what drive partition they are actually installed on), and you do not want to scatter your files all over both partitions as that will create endless clutter some day, hence the asymmetrical split.

 

Thank you Christoph for your quick reply! I readily admit that I need to do a little research on the benefits or not, of running different partitions, as I am not completely up with that yet. I may well take the easy option of just installing Vista 64, and when 7 arrives, just upgrade, thus showing complete faith in Microsoft
Further, as I am not a gamer as such, I trust that I will not suffer any heat issues that other users have.
(And when you rule out that topic, as well as the various display discussions, then about 50% of this thread won't apply to me, he says confidently!)

 

Hi Offshore tiger

I was in the same position regarding partitioning, and in the end I went for: 40GB OS partition, 80GB programs partition, 345GB media partition (based on a 500GB drive).

The first partition is located on the edge of your drive, which is the fastest part, hence why it's best to install the OS there. The size should be small to prevent too much file fragmentation (literally there's less room for files to get spread about).

Since the OS partition is fairly small, you'll only install your primary applications there (browser, email, Office etc.). If you have large applications, like games, then these would go on the second partition which is still quite fast. I know you said you didn't really play, so maybe you don't need this partition.

The last partition is for documents and other things that don't require fast access times. Photos, music, videos etc. usually fit the bill (plus they tend to be very large, so having a big last partition helps).

Of course everyone's needs are different (e.g. dual-booting, gaming, media fan etc.), so just read around.

As for upgrading, I tried Vista 32-bit > Windows 7 32-bit and it worked perfectly, so I think Microsoft have got it worked out well these days. I used to think a clean install was always best, but apparently there's no appreciable speed gains comparing a clean install vs. an upgrade (depending on how tidy you keep your computer, I guess ).

Anyway, good luck!

 

I just ordered an M4400 here in Japan (Sony wasn't offering what I was looking for this time around, and the Dell with the WUXGA+ screen offers just what I need). I have a question: does the machine come with a drive bay filler in the box? I'm wondering if I should order one of these, since I hardly ever use optical drives.

 

Hi dimension6

I didn't get a drive bay cover with my M4400 in Taiwan, so you might need to order one (or ask nicely ).

 

Thanks...I figured that would be the case. I'll wait until it arrives and then see if it's worth ordering an insert.

 

From what I can tell, you are planning to dualboot vista and win7.
While, as you can see from the above posts, it is possible, I fail to see why you would want to do this. Win7 is a better OS (I have been running the Beta for over 4 months). It is essentially what vista should have been in the first place. It is lighter on resources and, in comparative tests, seems to run at about the same speed as XP (which is a good thing).

So, my advice to you is to simply upgrade to win7 altogether and never mind the dual boot with vista. Save yourself some hard drive space.

I am not anti-Vista, believe me. I have had it as my main OS for years. It's just that I find creating a multi-boot system is only practical if the different OS's each have a specific function.

Some people dual boot the same exact OS and use one boot just for gaming and the other for applications. Others choose to use virtualization to boot secondary OS's. These scenarios are justifiable.

When I upgraded to Win7, I chose to install it as an upgrade to the Vista system I was running on my m4400. It installed successfully over vista without breaking any drivers or applications. In about an hour I was running my new OS with all of the apps I had installed within Vista and the system was completely functional. I haven't looked back since.

Hope this info helps... Just my 2 cents.

Good luck!

 

thanks minibob, i have decided to do just as you say, and get 64 vista and then upgrade when 7 is released. still haven't bit the bullet and bought the 4400 yet, as they are much more expensive here in Oz than say the US. you could fly to LA and pick it up there and it would be about the same as the price here! (they are about $A4500 here and in $US3600).
thanks again for your advice.

 

I recieved my m4400 the other day, and am very happy with it, but i have ahd some problems with the powersupply suddenly shutting down during intense usage, after unplugging it for 10 minutes it's good to go again. Dell's already sent me a new power supply that i haven't received yet, i just wanted to know if anyone else has experienced this problem, and solutions have worked for you?