Precision M4500 Owner's Lounge

Dear Forum Member,

I have a big problem at hand and I desperately need help with this.

Just bought a new M4500 a week back and ran into some login problem. Thought i would just restore the OS as i used to in XP and Vista. But when i did so, it formatted all my drives and unfortunately there were no restore points set. since the notebook was new, I had not transferred any data into it but now I am not able to get the laptop back to factory default condition and Dell has not provided any disc for it either.

The M4500 also had seperate Reader Drive for their "ON" business feature and even that is deleted so its neccessary I go back to factory default state. Now assuming that the default restore image in the laptop also has been lost, how can i get my system restored to factory default.

The Dell service was not available for saturday and Sunday and I just could not wait to get an answer as I am very restless because of this problem at hand.

PLEASE HELP ME!

Brief Config:
Intel i7 QM-620
WIN 7 x64
500Gb HDD
8GB RAM

Thanks in advance.

Regards

AMIT

 

First, unless you ordered something I didn't see offered, there is no restore image. Dell used to do that but stopped some time ago.

You are supposed to either order the recovery CD's for the op system, drivers, etc. when you buy the machine, or run the Dell utility that comes with it (or that you can download from the Dell site) to burn your own recovery CDs.

How did you manage to reformat your drives? Did you do so from within Windows and assume that you could recover later?

I think you will have to wait till Monday and order at least an operating system CD and CDs for the software you bought with the machine. Everything else you can download from the Dell site (and should, because the versions there are usually newer), including reader.

You should also get the fil from the Dell site that tells you what order you should reload drivers to keep them from interferring. I don't know if it is absolutely necessary but my M4500 works fine after loading Win 7 from scratch, following its instructions.

Have fun.
-Mike

 

Can I upgrade the CPU on an M4500? Or, am I stuck with the CPU it comes with?

 

After days of searching, I'm about to get M4500 via Dell Premier. Before that, I need answers to a few questions. I'm in social science and need a desktop replacement to shuttle b/w home and office. Running many windows (Office, Web, and statistical software). Sometimes doing simulations in Matlab that take ~ 40min/run with Core Duo.

Based on careful perusal of all messages in this thread, I identified the following issues (apart from SSD-related which I plan to upgrade to later):

1. Is the heat really an issue (assuming i7-820qm, 8G of ram, 1800m, 250G HD)? My 2-yr old Latitude E6500 has E8600 Duo and 4 gigs of ram and NVS 310 (or something) and it heats up quite well.

2. Related to 1 above: does the 620qm processor produce considerably less heat making it a better choice for an m4500?

3. If heat is an issue, are the full HD displays more "heat resistant" than the 16:9 ones?

4. Can m4500 use 90W Dell adapter? If yes, how does it impacts performance? Alternatively, how would a latitude E6500 feel with a 130W adapter for m4500 (I will have to use them interchangeably)?

5. Finally, I understand that m4500 is mostly Latitude e65(10) with a better graphics card. Ergo, there is no reason to expect Latitude e6510 w/ the same specs to have a better cooling system or be considerably lighter. Am I right?

6. Extra: has anyone buying from Dell Premier had any success with getting discounts from reps after cofiguring the system online. My online price isn't much different from Dell's regular price. Also, is Nvidea's 1800? really $200 more expensive than the 880m? That's the upgrade price I get.

Thank you.

 

We have 3 M4500. One the lid is never closed which works fine. One the lid is closed and the screen got burnt. I exchnaged his system out with another one that was never closed. Within 2 hrs the laptop was getting hot and the screen started the burning spot. I would recommend if you have one to call Dell to get this issue fixed.

 

Vavendak1: thank you for sharing the experience.
What processors do these m4500s have (620, 720, or 820)?

 

Hi everyone,

Thanks a bunch to all of you for all the useful info you've posted on this thread so far. I have read the entire thread (lots of spare time, true ), but I still couldn't find an answer, to a question I have regarding the 64GB SSD Mini-PCIx Card upgrade:

I will be ordering a Precision M4500 shortly. However, because I'm not getting it straight from Dell's Website (French student partnership thing, gets me 45% off, so I can't really complain ), not all upgrades are available, including the SSD MiniCard.
What I want to know is, can one purchase that same card on its own, after having bought the machine? Or, if that's not possible, does anyone know of any compatible products ou there? I have found some mini-PCIe SSD cards, but I'm not sure they'll fit in the M4500, size-wise... Someone also mentionned a Dell Mini - compatible card, any info on that?

Thanks!

 

Save £250 on systems over £2500 on Precision M4500 in the UK

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end date 07/07/2010


p.s
Any of you guys with accounts at Dell for Small and Medium Business UK have any spare codes for a Dell PowerEdge T710 server, please let me know.
Thanks

 

Hi Mike,

Thank you for your inputs. I already have the DVDs for restoring the OS. but the problem is that I cannot restore the system back to factory default because the recover partition got formatted during restore!!!

What actually happened is:

When I received the system the auto restore was turned off and later I encountered a login problem where my login image dissapeared, and during login windows started asking me both UserId and Password. I tried to rectify this but this did not help. so the only option i had was to restore. but since the auto restore was turned off, I couldnt use the previous image and I had to restore it from scratch!

this is when all my drives got formatted including the recovery drive! if the restore was turned on from the beggining as it should be by default, all this could have been avoided!

I will wait till monday and see what the guys from the customer care have to say bout it... for a system worth $2400...I had not expected this to happen. even 30 days have not passed by and i am facing this stupid problem!!!

Does anybody know about Dell replacement policy? For such an expensive system, I believe I deserve a replacement!

K09

 

Sorry, but I have no idea what it is you are trying to say. What is this "auto restore" you are talking about?

Uhmm, so you wiped the system because of a group policy setting you did not know about? Because this is all you were dealing with at this point.

Again, I have no idea what "auto restore" could be, but in any case it sounds like you re-nstalled the OS. Is that what you did, or were trying to do?

I am sorry, but I have to correct your grammar a little here: This is were YOU decided to completely wipe your hard drive, erasing all information it contained. This did not happen by itself, it was entirely your doing. I still don't know what you are on about regarding the "restore" being "turned on".

Well, as far as I can tell, whatever happened had nothing at all to do with your system, whatever it's worth. As far as I can tell, there was no hardware or software malfunction of any kind involved, so I am not sure what it is you are complaining about.

Why in the world would you think that? There was nothing wrong with your system. However, you should be aware that you are free to return your system, for a full refund, within 30 days of purchase.