Precision M4500 Owner's Lounge

2gb RAM to 8gb RAM WEI went from 5.5 to 6.8 Now the 500gb 7200 Seagate is holding me back at 5.9

 

Dang, I installed both intel and dell wireless...should I uninstall one and rely only on the other? I also didn't install the control point or security software, does that mean my finger-swiper won't work? Also, where can I find instructions on this touchpad? Is it possible to use the microphone standalone? I'm wanting to record lectures from my profs.
Thanks,
Jesse

 

A month ago I got my M4500 and now I am thinking about upgrading it with 64GB mSATA SSD. Why are you buying these drives from eBay while Dell has them about $40 cheaper? Yesterday I asked a random sales rep (in Poland) on chat giving her the part number, and the price she gave me was 688zł with tax and shipping ($225).

 

I know someone in an earlier post had similar issues, but I'm wondering if anyone else has. My first M4500 has been a disaster. I wiped the OS immediately, and then put a clean install of Windows 7 on it. After a day or two, it began to blue screen, referencing the USB controller - but without any USB devices attached. Dell did some troubleshooting, decided that the USB controller was bad, and replaced the MB. After the MB, I again reinstalled the OS. The result has been even worse than the first time - it hard freezes 4 or 5 times a day now. I'm actually posting from my 3 year old laptop because the M4500 is too unstable to use.

Now, I've tried uninstalling drivers (including the security driver pack), disabling hardware, running the driver verifier, diagnostics, etc. Nothing. Just continued freezes. Dell is going to replace the entire machine, but I'm worried now about getting another lemon.

Edit: See http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...ision-m4500-owners-lounge-89.html#post6613552 (post 890) for someone with similar issues.

 

What part number did you give her?

 

I configured M4500 on dell.us and copied part number shown in configurator: product code - 64SDMC2, sku (=dell part no) - 342-1359. You should be ok if you ask for 64GB SSD card which can be mounted along with HDD. The quote I got from Dell lists it as "Hard Drive : 64GB Solid State Drive Mini Card (Kit)".

 

Hi,

OK, so I've received the M4500 now. Ordered with just the 64GB SSD and then bought a 500 GB Western Digital disk and placed it in the normal hard drive slot. Performance wise it is a big step up from my previous D830 . I'm running Win 7 32-bit. There are two things that do bother me though:

1. I'm not impressed by video quality. When I first played a DVD it was all distorted and not even watchable. Tried MCE and Media Player as well as VLC. See attached images. I've since installed several new video drivers (both from Dell and Nvidia) although they improve the Video performance so that it is watchable it is nowhere near as as good as on my old D830 (both have 1920x1200 screens). The M4500 has the 880 GPU. I'm not really going to use it for Video so not a showstopper but still pretty annoying a brand new laptop. Guess the GPU is faulty?

2. The left speaker sounds really bad. Not sure how to describe but it sound like something is not attached properly. Almost like tinfoil covers the left speaker. Guess I will have to get it replaced.

Anyone else had any of these issues?

 

Have you tried a game yet? The video issue seems odd since I've never seen a time where it's specific just to dvd playback. How does a non-dvd source look? Have you tried Power-DVD? I'd try both and if you still have the same issue, I'd definitely call in to get it fixed.

 

I tried to connect my Targus bluetooth mouse to the computer and the comp never finds it. So I try to install the latest BT driver from Dell and get error 1935 near the end of the install that cause the whole install to rollback. Any thoughts? I thought the whole purpose of getting a BT module was that I don't have to use the supplied dongle. It recognized my blackberry.
Thanks,
Jesse

 

I paid $215 total on eBay. I tried to buy one through Dell US and they're not selling it. It depends who you ask. All the Dell tech support guys say you can buy it, but when it comes to actually contacting Dell Parts, they won't sell it.