Vostro 3460 Owner's Lounge

​

I use a plastic tool and push each of the retaining tabs backwards and then the keyboard pops up a little and eventually you can get them all lose.

 

Hello MGSteve!

Two days ago I bought a Vostro 3460 modell and now I popped up it's back to install my mSata SSD that I got from another shop.
And guess what?
Only the soldering pins are there, there aren't any mSata connector installed on my device neither. Dayyumm that makes me angry...
I'm from Hungary and I bought it from the only official Dell branded shop in our country. I called them back of course, but they didn't even have an idea what I'm talked about! That is insane. All they could say that I'm able to install a 2.5" sized ssd by replacing the hdd.

Yeah, thanks... That's an optimal solution for a laptop that theoretically able to get upgraded with an mSata device.
What a shame from dell, that they seem to have whitelisted regions and they cut corners on these small connectors.

So overall I'd like to ask you about that Dell support guy who might helped you. Did you asked him about this issue? What did he say about it?

Thank for you answer!

 

I have the older 3450 and I notice that the centrino 1030 card my wireless speed fluctuates a lot so I ordered a new 6250 card with 300mbps wireless N 2.5 and 5Ghz card with BT 4.0. I will be installing it when I swap in a SSD

 

New BIOS version A12 recently came out. Doesn't add better support for mSATA, but does add UEFI secure boot. Looks like it's mostly a Windows 8 compatibility update.

 

Isn't it possible to only install the /boot folder in a partition on the main HDD and the rest of the Linux installation on the Msata drive? that would solve the problem of the boot from Msata, right?
By the way, i was also wondering if these screw would work:
Amazon.com: Team Associated 21130 Button Head Phillips Screw M2x3 RC18T (20): Toys & Games

 

So I opened up my laptop over the holidays to upgrade the wifi card to an Intel 6235. I got a little carried away and ended up taking apart the rest of the laptop.

The good news is that there doesn't appear to be a wifi whitelist. The 6235 works perfectly after installing the driver.

The bad news is that the gt 630m graphics card is the older GF108 instead of GF117, so it uses more power and produces more heat. It's disappointing, but a not unsurprising cost cutting measure.
I took a picture of the dice on the mobo for those interested. The nvidia chip is almost as big as the CPU, indicating that it was built on 40nm lithography.

 

Great to note. I was thinking of doing the same wifi card upgrade from the Dell 1904.
Was also considering an upgrade to i5-3210M from the i3-3110M but not sure if it is worth it.

 

Do you feel CPU limited, especially in single threaded applications? The main advantage of the core i5 is turbo boost, which speeds up poorly threaded programs. If you wait a few years it'll be a lot cheaper, and maybe you can get the i7 3612qm instead.

 

I think that's what I'll do, just wait until prices come down.
I do have the intel 6235 wifi around, so I'll mull over doing that upgrade or not. The 1904 isn't bad.

 

Hey everyone! I have a few of questions, can I disable the Intel Rapid Storage Technology caching feature? because I'm going to instal an SSD 256GB for my main drive so I won't need the caching and I want to upgrade the msata to a larger one 128GB or 256GB and use it as regular storage, is this possible? And is Dell planning an update of the BIOS to make possible to boot of the msata drive? Thank you in advance for your answer.