Precision M4600 Owners Lounge

I can answer a few of your questions. The BIOS in these machines does not allow the CPU to be overclocked (and AFAIK no one has managed to override that), even if you have a CPU with an unlocked multiplier (which I believe is just the "XM" ones). You can overclock the GPU easily though if you need to do that. (Well, at least with NVIDIA. That's the only one I've tried.)

You shouldn't experience any throttling as long as you are using a 180W power supply (or better). The cooling in these machines is really good.

Switchable graphics is only available for NVIDIA cards unless you have M6800/M4800.

Replacing the screen should be straightforward. Getting an IPS display won't work (there is a different motherboard with a different display connector for that), but a regular TN panel will be fine.

 

tip for those that can't get brightness to work in windows 10:

open regedit and go to key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Class\{4d36e968-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}\0000

change the value of "KMD_EnableBrightnessInterface2" to "0"

I found that windows 10 hated the dell driver, but brightness didn't work with the latest driver, and using this tip from windows 8 I was able to get brightness to work again.

original source, from when I needed it for windows 8:

http://commweb-ps3.us.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/19438012

(has additional things to try if that doesn't work)

 

Ah right, my mistake.

I've looked again at the Dell Driver page for the m4600 and tried this one:
Intel HD 2000/2500/3000/4000 Graphics Driver (Video_Driver_95G93_WN_6.14.10.5436_A09.EXE)

That would look to be the right one, but I'm running into a similar incompatibility issue - "This computer does not meet the minimum system requirements for installing the software". Anyway around this? Thanks.

Eschrofe: Sorry, didn't see your reply before posting, will try your suggestions. I've looked at your link and suggestion, but I don't have that KMD key in my registry in that place. Weird.

 

Hey everyone,
New member here. I ordered a M4600 refurbished from Dell directly on Monday. Should get here tomorrow.
i7-2860QM, Quadro 1000M, 8GB RAM, and 320GB HDD configuration.
I can't tolerate spinning drives so ordered a 240GB SSD and an extra 16GB of RAM from Newegg. I'm all in $590 which I thought it's a decent deal.
I'll be using it mostly to run CAD and CAM software like SolidWorks and Mastercam. I hope it won't disappoint me.

 

Received the laptop yesterday. Set up W7, added the extra RAM and had no problem even though the two sticks of 8GB I bought are 1600MHz and the two 4GB sticks that were in there are 1333MHz. W7 is reporting 24GB.
Cloned the hard drive to the new SSD and everything went ok.
Then upgraded to 10 but reverted back to 7 today. Had problems with the touchpad, sleep, and hibernate. I will wait a few months for the dust to settle before I go to 10 again.

I do have one question. I am thinking about getting another SSD and put it in the dvd bay. I want to do RAID 0 configuration.
Is RAID 0 possible with W7 on this machine?

 

RAID 0 is possible. If you set the disk controller mode to "RAID" in the BIOS, you should get a RAID status screen at boot telling you which button combo to press to enter RAID setup, where you can set up arrays. (This screen may not show up unless you have multiple disks installed.)

A couple of notes --- putting the drive in a RAID 0 array will effectively destroy any data on it already, so you'll need a migration path. (Maybe clone to your old hard drive, set up the RAID array, and then clone back onto that.) Also, if the disk controller was not already set to "RAID" mode, Windows will not boot after you switch it without taking some steps in advance. In "RAID" mode you must use the Intel disk controller drivers.

 

10 does not have all the drivers needed by default (atleast on launch day) follow this guide to get 10 fully working properly:

http://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/636355?c=us&s=bsd&cs=04&l=en#One

(i realize it's actually for 7, but works for both 8 and 10 too.)

 

Thanks for the reply.
I did some further investigation and it looks like the dvd bay sata is sata2 which is limited to 300mbps. Am I right?
I don't know if it's worth bothering with it now. The Samsung 850 Evo I have now is around 500mbps read and write so it's good enough. I think I'll stick a 1 or 2 TB hard drive in the dvd bay for more storage instead.

 

Yes, I had forgotten but on the M4600 the only SATA-3 port is the main 2.5" drive bay. The mSATA and the optical drive bay are both SATA-2.

 

Hi.

I bought mine from eBay in June with this configuration:

i7 2720QM
8GB DDR3 (2x4GB)
250GB 7200rpm, i'd changed it, now i have a Samsung EVO 850 500GB SSD
Quadro 2000m 2GB

I'm thinking if it's worth it to upgrade the CPU and GPU, for now it's enought for me (web development)