Precision M4600 Owners Lounge

Did you try without docking station?
Your DS might be the culprit...

 

Yes, I testet all ports on the laptop itself. Just the dvi is only available on the docking.

 

What you could do, is flash bios to A16, and then enter factory defaults in the bios, it just might work. (If not done already)
Are you using latest drivers from AMD website?

 

I installed A16 before I removed the Radeon. I don't need to install the AMD driver without the ati card, right?

 

Why remove the 5950?

Just to have longer battery life?

Would repaste GPU and put it right back in.

 

I removed the Ati because of the really annoying fan control in a quiet environment. Ever 30 seconds "wuuuuuuh". I can manage a constant noise like my HP emited, but this on and off cycle drived me crazy. I read a lot in this forum about this problem and it seems that there is no real solution. The fan tools won't work, because they are overwritten by the Bios. Since I don't need the power of the Ati, I removed it to get rid of the heat source. Now the Precision is completely silent in office use. Unfortnately I can't find information about the video port behaviour with no discrete graphics card installed. There are some forum members who have done the same procedure. I will try to contact them. Of all the graphics card options, the ati seems to be the most hot headed one. I wouldn't say no to the power of a M4000, but if the fan cycling "issue" stays the same I have to live temporarily with the lack of decent video ports.

Edit: Okay, seems that the iGPU is just tethered to the VGA plug and the digital ports are driven by the discrete GPU (M4700 Thread). What a pity, but well the Precision is meant to be a full workstation.

 

Hey guys, it's been a while since I've posted here. I've got a problem with my m4600 and the gpu upgrade mentioned just prior.
mine originally came with a firepro m5950, and I upgraded the bios to A16 (like in 2013), and I recently got a firepro m4000 dell version off ebay to install as an upgrade.
I just finished upgrading the hardware and installing the new drivers, but for the life of me the m4000 will not work right. the laptop boots and posts a video signal, no problem, but Bios cannot fond the card. it just says: video controller unknown. Windows, GPU-z and cpu-z all pick it up as standard graphics adapter.
At this point, I have no idea what to do. I have uninstalled and reinstalled drivers and that does not solve the problem. I think the problem is either bios related or that the ebay seller may have given me a bad card. it just doesnt make sense. what did I miss?
I attached some images for reference. thanks everybody.



in addition, I got the card from this seller, this is the exact listing:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/161648792736?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

the card was also listed as a 2gb card, but everything is saying it's a 1gb card. the ram modules also say:
hynix H5GQ1H24BFR-T2C
which indicate it's 1gb ram, but IDK, maybe im reading the ram codes wrong.
if you guys have any input, I would be all ears. thanks a bunch everybody.

 

You must have a discrete GPU to use the HDMI, DisplayPort, or DVI (dock). Even with an NVIDIA card and Optimus enabled, if you connect a display to one of these ports, it will be driven solely by the NVIDIA GPU (not the Intel GPU) so the NVIDIA GPU will be on all of the time.

 

I have reseated the m4000, uninstalled the old drivers, installed drivers from AMD's site instead of dell's, and that did not solve the problem. I installed my old m5950 and, for the hell of it, reinstalled the bios version, even though it was the latest. then i installed the m4000 again, to see if that would solve the problem. nope. bios still picks it up as "unknown video card." Because the bios reads it as "unknown video card" windows picks it up identically, and uses the stock windows drivers for generic VGA adapter, not the amd specific driver which is installed. thus the graphics card is entirely useless, cant do multiple monitors or work in any graphics based productivity application.

at this point the only thing i can think of is that the card was damaged by ESD as it was not received in an ESD bag in the mail, but instead rapped in paper in a bubble-lined envelope.

I called dell and they did not seem to know why, but they did tell me that it was NOT because of any specific revision of my motherboard or that the latest bios was installed with my old m5950. They pointed to the GPU as the problem

Let me know what you guys thank. thanks.

 

The fact that the bios does not recognize the card should be no issue, I had the same with my M4000 and still have with my M5100.

If you have a spare HDD / SSD or do not value your current OS install too much, I'd try a clean install.

Worked for me, I had some video issues when I booted with M4000 for the first time, did a clean install and it worked.

Took the drivers from the AMD website for the M4700, not for the M4600 (& Now on M4800 drivers).