Precision M4600 Owners Lounge

I dunno mine is way better the my m4400 and a lot better then my m4500 and I am picky as hell. I am impressed

 

Does anyone know how to get HDMI audio to work on the M4600?

 

Frequency Scaling:

Hi All:

I have loaded gentoo linux on my new Precision M4600 and also just installed another 8G of ram sticks I picked up at Sim Lim last week so am now running 16G. My kernel:
jserinki7 jserink # uname -a
Linux jserinki7 2.6.39-gentoo-r3 #13 SMP PREEMPT Mon Sep 26 16:23:14 SGT 2011 x86_64 Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2720QM CPU @ 2.20GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

The unit was delivered with BIOS A05. The only thing that does not work is frequency scaling, the unit is continually sitting at 2.2G:
jserinki7 jserink # cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 42
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2720QM CPU @ 2.20GHz
stepping : 7
cpu MHz : 2195.098
cache size : 6144 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 8
core id : 0
cpu cores : 4
apicid : 0
initial apicid : 0
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 13
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic popcnt aes xsave avx lahf_lm ida arat epb xsaveopt pln pts dts tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid
bogomips : 4390.19
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

Notice the blank under power management. When I try to load the acpi-freq kernel module that should take care of adjusting the processor's clock, i get this form the syslog:
Sep 26 16:38:45 [kernel] [ 634.265261] [Firmware Bug]: ACPI: Invalid BIOS _PSS frequency: 0x80000000 MHz
Sep 26 16:38:45 [kernel] [ 634.265265] [Firmware Bug]: BIOS needs update for CPU frequency support

Yikes!

I've downloaded the latest microcode update from Intel and i can see it loading but it did not fix the problem.

Ok course, sending this to dell tech support gets the 'slopping shoulder answer' we don't support linux. I'm just wondering if anyone using windows 7 x64 is seeing something odd with frequency scaling?

Also, boot up messages are rife with ACPI errors.

i've been trying to convince myself to boot into windows 7 and check this out a bit more in depth but i haven't made the time yet.

Are any windows users seeing this?

Cheers,
john

 

You don't need the acpi-cpufreq module, and /proc/cpuinfo is incorrect. The only tool that I've found that correctly reports the speed is i7z (http://code.google.com/p/i7z/).

That being said, the A04 bios does a much better job of controlling the cpu frequency -- with A05, it would go from maybe 1.6 ghz to 2.2 ghz, but with A04, it works properly and scales from 800 mhz to 3.3 ghz (you can see my earlier posts about turbo boost not working in windows). I ended up downgrading my bios back to A04 (it came with A04 though).

EDIT: I just checked and my power management line is also blank, but I do have correct frequency scaling with the A04 bios.

 

My M4600 properly scales the frequency from 800 MHz to 3.2 GHz with A05 BIOS, under Win7 x64 Pro. Core i5-2520M. As Dell is currently only supporting Win7 on the M4600 they are not responsible for it.

What is the output from cpufreq-info on your M4600?

Frequency scaling also currently don't work on Westmere sixcore X5675 (3.07 GHz) under the Dell-supported SLES11 SP1 (current kernel):

Code:

xxxxxxxx:~ # cpufreq-info
cpufrequtils 004: cpufreq-info (C) Dominik Brodowski 2004-2006
Report errors and bugs to http://bugs.opensuse.org, please.
analyzing CPU 0:
  no or unknown cpufreq driver is active on this CPU
analyzing CPU 1:
  no or unknown cpufreq driver is active on this CPU
analyzing CPU 2:
  no or unknown cpufreq driver is active on this CPU
analyzing CPU 3:
  no or unknown cpufreq driver is active on this CPU
analyzing CPU 4:
  no or unknown cpufreq driver is active on this CPU
analyzing CPU 5:
  no or unknown cpufreq driver is active on this CPU
analyzing CPU 6:
  no or unknown cpufreq driver is active on this CPU
analyzing CPU 7:
  no or unknown cpufreq driver is active on this CPU
analyzing CPU 8:
  no or unknown cpufreq driver is active on this CPU
analyzing CPU 9:
  no or unknown cpufreq driver is active on this CPU
analyzing CPU 10:
  no or unknown cpufreq driver is active on this CPU
analyzing CPU 11:
  no or unknown cpufreq driver is active on this CPU
xxxxxxxx:~ # cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 44
model name      : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU           X5675  @ 3.07GHz
stepping        : 2
cpu MHz         : 3058.761
cache size      : 12288 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 12
core id         : 0
cpu cores       : 6
apicid          : 0
initial apicid  : 0
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 11
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm dca sse4_1 sse4_2 popcnt aes lahf_lm ida arat tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid
bogomips        : 6117.52
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes   : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:
[...]

 

i've reinstalled windows completely.

does anyone know what file i need to get the dell webcam program back ?

 

I just received my new M4600 with the NVIDIA 2000M and the E-Port Plus replicator. It's an awesome machine, but I ran into a similar problem others have mentioned earlier in this thread. I finally got around to connecting it to the E-Port Plus and my two Dell 2007FP (1600x1200 each) monitors work great through them. However, whenever the notebook is connected to the docking station, the fan (I assume it’s the NVIDIA GPU fan) constantly cycles on and off. It remains off for about 25 or 30 seconds and then kicks on full blast for about 15 seconds and then shuts off. The cycle then repeats indefinitely. I find this very distracting, but I’m more concerned about the hardware stress this is causing and may affect its longevity. FYI, I noticed the on-board Intel video is disabled when the two external monitors are active on the dock, so I suspect it’s NVIDIA’s problem.

Someone said they talked to Dell and they said it would be corrected with A05 bios. My notebook came shipped with that so it's still a problem. Anyone else have this problem or know of a solution?

 

My unit has been shipped from Shangai. It seems that assembly is not made in Ireland anymore.

 

Found the solution. My Dell came shipped with version 263.86 of the NVIDIA Quadro Driver installed. I went to the NVIDIA support site and noticed that 280.26 was available. I installed this and no more fan cycling, even after several reboot tests. My GPU fan now runs constantly but slowly. The driver (Win x64) is available here... NVIDIA DRIVERS 280.26 WHQL

 

Interesting that turbo boost is working on your machine... I guess dell only disabled turbo boost on the quad cores in A05