Precision M4600 Owners Lounge

No, with neither of any panels should you have problems when multitasking, as multitasking and "smearing" (i guess you mean the screen is not updated properly, so that if you move a window it leaves a "trail" on the screen) is something related to the processor and the Graphics Processing Unit, but not to the screen itself. As all the Processor Models have the Hyperthreading enabled Multitasking is not a problem. For heavy Multitasking though I would recommend you to choose a quad-core processor (you can identify it through the QM at the end opposed to the M. e.g: i7-2760QM).

 

Sorry but that is not correct. The MXM GFX card is required for the system to operate but you are correct asking why. Optimus basically does this for you.

Dell-Mano_G

 

Hello all,

Just replaced my M4400 with a M4600 from the outlet.

I run the laptop in a docking station attached to two external monitors. I noticed that the external monitors do not display the BIOS loading screen, or, most importantly, the BIOS password screen during boot. The external monitors are in "sleep" mode and do not even register an input until the windows password screen appears.

This is different than the way the M4400 worked and different than any other laptop I've ever had worked. It's annoying because I have to type in my BIOS password "blind" and I can't see what the system is doing during bootup. If something is wrong during boot, I have to kick it out of the docking station and boot using the built in LCD to see what it's doing.

Anybody else running a docking station? What does your M4600 do during bootup? I'm running bios A08, but it did the same thing with A03.

 

That has to do with how Optimus works. If you turn off Optimus you should see the boot cycle.

 

So does upgrading the LCD from the HD to the FHD screen require a new video cable?

Also anyone have a part # for the backlit US keyboard.

 

Thanks man, I turned off optimus and that did the trick. Since I run in the docking station 99.9% of the time, I'll take the tradeoff of no optimus (which is apparently buggy anyway) in order to see what the computer is doing during boot.

This is something nvidia should fix....

 

Does anyone use the m4600 in a docking station with a 130W power supply with two monitors attached? Does it work OK or do you really need a 210W power supply like Dell recommend?

 

My M4600 came from the outlet without a backlit keyboard, so I bought one from ebay and swapped it out. Took 15 minutes, works perfectly.

You want part number HG3G3 - it's the same keyboard as is used in the latitude E6520. Many more E6520 keyboards are listed on ebay than M4600 keyboards.

 

Thx found several on Ebay

+Rep

 

Thanks for that info on the keyboard -well worth knowing!

Does anyone know if the 128gb msata mini card that the m4600 can be configured with has TRIM? I'm worried about performance, and since I'm waiting for ages for an outlet system that ticks all my boxes (including the 128gb mini card) I'm thinking of buying an Intel 310 Series 80gb msata and adding to a machine that comes without the msata.

Reading elsewhere, it seems that non-TRIM ssd drives degrade significantly in performance if they are more than 75% full... which makes the 80gb Intel and the 128gb Samsung quite comparable in practical, high performance size.

thanks