Precision M4400 Owner's Lounge

I decided to save a few $ over the i7 Studio 15 I was getting so I'm getting another M4400... Not quite as loaded as the last one, but also over $1k cheaper.

 

Just installed Ubuntu 9.04 and Windows 7. OMG this screen is sensational...

Put it next to my old M90. Poor old thing looks very sad now. Will post more impressions once I get this thing fully built.

Ben

 

Mine arrived today as well. Haven't turned it on yet, will wait till I get home. It is lighter than I expected, and has a great quality feel about it. Will post opinions when I have some!

 

congrats guys! Hope you'll ejoy the machine!

 

Hey Guys,

I was trying to connect my camcorder yesterday via the 1394 4 pin firewire connector and had a really tough time plugging in the cable to the port on the notebook. I had to use a lot of force to get it to go in and equal amount to pull it out. I mean pretty ridiculous, but the cable plugged in smoothly to the camera.

Anyways, long story short. Turns out this is some cheap 10$ cable and is really too thick for most 4 pin connectors. After plugging it in once, the 1394 port on the notebook feels loose. However, it seems like just the metal shielding moves not the actual pin on the inside. Is this the same on your m4400's? Or did I damage the port by trying to plug it in once!?

Edit: I should note that the port still works, just feels loose to the touch. You don't have to plug anything in, I can move it with my finger. That's why I am unsure if the port is actually damaged.

Thanks in advance,
-Alex

 

I have my M4400 with Windows7 installed. Newest drivers and BIOS. However I really do not know how to disable touchpad with its buttons. I want the pointstick with its buttons still function. Can you please recommend me what to do?

Thank You very much

 

First Impressions:

Ok guys I have been running this thing for a week now and thought I would detail my impressions so far.

Performance:
Performance is exceptional. The 8GB Ram and Q9300 cpu really make this thing fly. I was running 2 W2K8 Vms while building 3 others yesterday and still had snappy performance on the host OS. (I have 2GB RAM reserved for the host) Very impressive. I haven't run any benchmarks on it or tweaked the performance in any way from standard. The VMs were running on two separate spindles to balance disk I/O.

I have installed Crysis and Fallout 3. Fallout 3 runs well on 1920x1200 at High Detail. Ultra High caused some stuttering but dropping it to high removed these problems.

Crysis is playable at 1440x900 resolution on Medium detail. The crysis configuration tool tried to set the game to High detail but it was not nearly smooth enough to play.

Screen:
The WUXGA RGB LED screen from Samsung is amazing. If anything its a little too bright on full brightness. I sat it next to my old Precision m90 and the difference was stunning. The clarity and colour depth are more than sufficient for anything that I will be doing on this machine. I had some reservations about the glossy screen as I have had headaches using those in the past but this one seems to be fine so far.

Keyboard:
The keyboard backlight is pretty cool. I have it turned off most of the time and dont use the light sensor at all. It is quite nice while working when in a dark room however. The key response feels a little spongy to me and the keyboard doesnt have a firm feel to it while touch typing. This may just be something I will need to get used to over time.

Touchpad:
Not impressed with this using the default windows drivers. However the performance of the touchpad in Linux is very responsive. May just need to download a different driver for use with windows.

Case:
I love the black case and the lines of the machine. Looks very high quality. My only complaint is that the black shows every spec of dust that lands on it. Im constantly wiping it down as I like it to look clean

The screen hinges feel very strong. My last 3 precisions had hopeless hinges. They loosened up and did not hold the screen well after 6 months of use. Will be interesting to see how these go. The back of the screen with the wavy pattern looks very neat. It acutally fits well with the overall look of the machine.

The weight of the machine is pretty good. I have the 6 cell battery as I next to never run on battery for long. Good thing to because it seems the battery life is around 90mins tops with everything running. Probably less.

Speakers:
The speakers are sub par. They sound very tinny when pushed. So much so that I went and bought a set of logitech v10 usb speakers to make up for it.


Storage:
I have three spindles attached.

1. Toshiba 500GB (Came with the system)
2. Seagate 500GB (NewModeUS Module)
3. Western Digital 1TB (eSata Connected)

All three drives are fully visible in Windows 7. I have had some difficulties getting the eSata drive working in Ubuntu. (Only tried for 10 mins so pretty sure I can get it working later).

Performance from all three is very good. However I would have really liked a RAID0 option for the two internal disks. I have had a cursory look at the Intel RAID controller and didnt see the option there. Will investigate more later.

Thats about it for first impressions thus far. I will post some Fallout 3 and Crysis frame rates when I get a chance


Ben

 

Can any of you guys link to do a good deal on a 500gb HD for the m4400 that would do it justice? thanks !!

 

I picked up a seagate momentus from Hong Kong via eBay for $96.00 AUD. Was only 5400rpm but works perfectly for what I use the machine for.

Edit: No issues with warranty as you just register it on the Seagate website. They handle the warranty not the vendor.

 

@sopeno
If you download Dell's touchpad drivers and install them, there will be an icon next to the system clock (on the taskbar) that looks like the touchpad. If click on that, it will bring up Dell's touchpad settings (you can also get there in control panel) and there it gives you the option to enable/disable either the touchpad or trackpoint.