Precision M4600 Owners Lounge

That's alarming! Sorry to hear that you had such a bad experience. Sounds like you might've gotten a lemon. I don't own a M4600, so I'm not sure if a sizeable percentage of other M4600's owners have also experienced similarly, if so, then it would make me think twice about a precision, but if not, then sounds like you have a lemon.

 

Faulty bad modules returned, they accepted there was a fault, they've sent some some replacements and it's all up and running - 32gb @ 1600mhz no blue screens.

 

This holiday, I tried upgrading the Quadro 1000M to the 6770m but when I put everything back together again, I had power but the display didn't come back on. Popped the 1000M back in and no problems.

Do I need a special BIOS for the M4600 to be able to recognize/detect the 6770m? I asked Dell Enterprise Support, and they recommended installing the M5950 instead.

On the positive side, the disassembly/reassembly went much faster/smoother the 2nd time around when reinstalling the 1000M.

 

I'm sure you will hear from others, but the M5950 is brutal on battery life.

 

I've had my M4600 for almost a year and I just had the keyboard and touchpad / palmrest replaced. A key fell off the keyboard and the left mouse button was sticky. I've also had to reimage the system twice due to the ATI driver going nuts, causing BSOD. I like the laptop otherwise, but it hasn't been very reliable and with the M5950 it's absolutely terrible on battery life. If you purchase one of these, be sure you get the full warranty.

 

I've noticed a few times that the power outlets in airline seats don't have enough power for the M4600. Apparently they are limited to 75 watts. If you try to connect the standard 180w power supply, the power cuts out. Dell has a 65 watt power supply that is supposedly intended for airplane use. Here is a link. Has anyone tried this power supply with an M4600? Does it work?

 

hello guys, one question. when keyboard lighting is enabled and you dont type for a while / stay idle and watch the screen, the keyboard lighting still switches on automatically every 1-2 minutes..

 

I had this same problem when I took the computer apart to put arctic silver thermal grease on my laptop (The temps were significantly higher than my last laptop and when I took this laptop apart

I found they did a shoddy job of putting thermal grease on both the CPU and GPU). The first time I turned on my computer there was no display when I turned the laptop on. I did a hard shutdown

and restart twice and on the third time my display worked. Then I restarted my computer again because the touchpad wasn't working. The display worked fine but it didn't fix the touchpad. So I

took apart my computer and reconnected the touchpad and the display wouldn't work again. I knew the laptop was working because I heard sound through my earbuds, and I could hear the

login sound when I typed my password and hit enter. I did a hard shutdown several times but no luck, and as a last resort I took out my battery waited some minutes and put it back in and

my display worked and has been working since. I don't really know what the rhyme or reason is for this I just know what happened in my experience and I hope it helps.


On another note. My screen sometimes goes blank with nothing showing except the cursor. I can move it around and my computer still works ( I hit Windows+L and I hear

the sound it makes then I type in my password and hit enter and it makes the login sound) this happens after I've been using the computer a while, and once it happens

if I try to run a full screen game with less than the native resolution I get a blank screen. When I exit out of the game my screen is blank. If I shut the lid on my laptop and

open it again the screen is back to normal. but if I try to run the game again it has the same issue. Also after this point, if I go to the switch users screen I get the same blank

screen with only the cursor showing and it doesn't go away if I shut the lid and open it again I have to navigate with the keyboard and memorizing where everything is to log back

in again, after which my screen can be reset by shutting the lid and opening it again. If I restart then my computer is fine for a while, I can run full screen games using less than

the native resolution and I can see the switch users screen fine, but after a while the computer messes up again. It looks like a software issue since the computer works fine when

restarted, but I've never been able to figure out why it does this, I've tried updating the video card drivers and installing and uninstalling PremierColor to no avail.

My specs are:

Core i7 2760 QM 2.4 GHz
8 GB ram 2GB x 4
Nvidia k1000m
FHD RGBLED IPS display
750GB HDD
Windows 7 Professional x64 SP1

 

I don't have this problem on mine. The only thing I could suggest is maybe your touchpad is really sensitive. I know it's probably not the case but you can try disabling your touchpad by hitting Fn+F5 until your touchpad is disabled

and then seeing if you still have the same problem.

 

I hope I have done my due diligence in searching through the thread for these questions, but alas, I have not found answers [or even another asking these questions].

1.) Has anyone else had issues with the hard drive screws not fitting replacement hard drives? I removed a 7.5 mm Seagate 320GB in the main bay and replaced it with a 9mm Intel 510 SSD. While the screws fit fine in the drive itself when removed, they do not seem to secure the drive when installed. At the moment I have them in a baggie, and the hard drive is held in place by just the L shaped sliding brace under the battery. Not worried so much about an insecure drive, but would prefer to keep all the screws and such installed and working so I still have them a year or two down the road.

2.) Addressed! SATA IIII for 2.5" bay, SATA II everyone else.

3.) I found two other threads discussing bags and cases for the laptop; is there any definitive agreement on one that may be more superior to others?

4.) Addressed! Installed a few more drivers and all set I believe.

5.) Optimus? Currnetly have a Q1000 installed, but to some degree would like a consumer grade GPU instead of workstation for a few Steam games. Picked up the Precision because I liked the look, not really for the CAD need. Figure it's a great business face presentation laptop when necessary, but can still handle higher end games. Would Optimus work fine if I installed a Dell/Alienware 675 or 680?