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Couple Precision M4400 questions...

post #1 of 22
1/25/09 at 2:17pm
Thread Starter 
Hi folks, been a while since I shopped for a new notebook.

Couple questions - I'm leaning towards an M2400 but prefer the M4400 as long as it can fit in my existing Zero Halliburton briefcase.

The interior dimensions of the case are 16" wide x 11" deep.

Currently, it fits my M70, with the AC adaptor & bluetooth mouse on the right side.

As far as the batteries on the M4400 - will the 9 cell extended battery fit in my existing 11" deep case?

Also, what's the standard AC adaptor for the M4400? Will the 90w adaptors work with the E-Port?

I have a couple extra 90w adaptors for my M70 (D series) that would hopefully work with the M4400 and/or E-Port.

Lastly - I realize there's no S-Video out port on the M4400/E-series.

How would I output video to my (non hdmi) TV? Is there some sort of cable adapter available from Dell that would convert a video signal from the M4400 to either the S-Video input or the yellow video RCA jack on my TV?

Currently I use the Dell S-video to video (yellow) adaptor cable.

User pros & cons on the LED versus LCD screen?

Does the webcam on the LED have a lower resolution than the LCD webcam?

Lastly - who makes the 320GB 7200rpm FFS drive? Hopefully Western Digital.

Is the 500GB 7200rpm drive a FFS drive as well?

Thanks in advance...
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post #2 of 22
1/26/09 at 11:00am
If your M70 fit your briefcase the M4400 should fit no problem. The 9 cell battery does protrude a bit from the rear but I don't think it'd be far enough to affect closing the briefcase. If your M70 was a bit of a tight squeeze though you may run into issues with the larger battery.

AC Adapters from the D Series are compatible with the E Series and the EPort I beleive will come with a 90W AC Adapter all its own. Not sure what the power is for the EPort PLus (the larger port replicator)

There's no S-Video out that I know of at least not in the form of a dongle cable that Dell provides. The only video dongles they have available are Display Port to DVI and DisplayPort to HDMI. However, I found This one with a google search that'll convert VGA to S-Video and composite. The reason the S-Video and composite connectors have been removed from most laptops is that TVs that are S-Video or Composite input only are going to be pretty much junk after the DTV transistion either next month or this June (depending on what Congress does). Component out would look MUCH Better than S-Video or composite on an old HDTV set, and you can get a dongle that converts VGA to Component as well.

I can't tell you much about LED vs CCFL myself because I've never used the two screens side-by-side to give you a comparison. Though the members on here with LED screens on their systems do seem to like them better than their CCFL counterparts. I think the Webcam is the same on the M4400 no matter which screen you select.

As far as who makes the hard drives, it's whomever got their truck to Dell's warehouse first at the price Dell was willing to pay on that particular day. And if you ever need your hard drive replaced under warranty, don't expect the same brand as a replacement. Only about 25% of the time do I get the same brand replacement drive as what shipped originally with the system.
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post #3 of 22
2/1/09 at 3:48am
I can't find a rule at home at the moment ,but dell say 10.1" deep,and the 9 cell sticks out 3/4" more than the flush six cell [I have both] which I know from measuring it before [but didn't measure overall depth] ......so it should go in your case with not much to spare.

Standard power adaptor is 130w,a bit thinner,but wider than the old 90w,have heard of people running their M6400's on a 90w doing low powered work,so the M4400 shouldn't be a problem as long as your not running lot's of peripherals and taxing it.

I have the WXGA+ LED screen,the only con is it's not my preferred WSXGA resolution,apart from that,it's the pick of screen's I've had from dell.....even backlighting,amazing brightness without being washed out,great contrast......the screen is the thing I like most about the notebook.
A few owner's who received LG branded WXGA+ screen's complained about the screen being grainy[mines a samsung] but other's love it.
Basically,I don't see a con of the LED backlit screen.

I remember you from a few year's ago also using secondary hard drive's in the media bay......a point of note is that the dell secondary hard drive module only takes a 1.8" hard drive or ssd on the new model's,I have ordered a Lenovo T400/500 chinese accessory HD module that also fits the new dell's apparently and takes a 2.5" hard drive.......will let you know how it goes if your interested.
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post #4 of 22
2/1/09 at 4:56pm
Thanks for that heads up on the brick Gerry, The service manual tells me many things but generally speaking not the shipped wattage of the power brick. I foolishly assumed that it wouldn't be more than 90W because most 15.4" systems don't need more than that, but I guess those Quadros do like the juice.

Good thing I direct wired a 400W Inverter in my car, a 130W Dell brick blew the fuse to my cigarette lighter once before I direct wired.
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post #5 of 22
2/1/09 at 9:21pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks much MrEvil & gerryjoson; would definitely be interested to see how that Lenovo solution works out!
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post #6 of 22
2/2/09 at 1:58am
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrEvil View Post
Thanks for that heads up on the brick Gerry, The service manual tells me many things but generally speaking not the shipped wattage of the power brick. I foolishly assumed that it wouldn't be more than 90W because most 15.4" systems don't need more than that, but I guess those Quadros do like the juice.

Good thing I direct wired a 400W Inverter in my car, a 130W Dell brick blew the fuse to my cigarette lighter once before I direct wired.
Holy smoke....400W!!

Don't know if the Quadro 770m would be the need,maybe the 44/45w cpu option's? interesting that the FX1700m appear's to run 125mhz more on the core speed only,same memory and shader speed,which doesn't equal 9700GT specification like I would have thought and really doubt that the small increase in core speed would need extra voltage to attain nvidia's up to 50W tdp rating.......have a feeling dell have purposely used lower rate's on their 1700m to manage heat,which has been a problem on a some people's machine's......and from the comparison's done on the opposition website,the FX1700m is generally thought of as a complete waste of 300 bucks due to it not being any faster than the 770M.

Are you still thinking of getting one?


Quote:
Originally Posted by ofelas View Post
Thanks much MrEvil & gerryjoson; would definitely be interested to see how that Lenovo solution works out!
NP ofelas,will let you know when I have it.
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post #7 of 22
2/2/09 at 11:42pm
Yeah Gerry, still thinking of getting an M4400, but I'm just waiting for the warranty to go out on my D820. It still works fine for me really, but I'd like to have the M4400 before QuakeCon so I don't have to tote a desktop all the way to Dallas this year.

As for the 400W AC Inverter, my Crown Victoria is an ex county mountie and has two factory installed 30A accessory circuits originally intended for police equipment, plus a 200A Alternator. So I figured might as well make full use of the available current.
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post #8 of 22
2/10/09 at 12:36am
Quote:
Originally Posted by gerryjoson View Post
Standard power adaptor is 130w,a bit thinner,but wider than the old 90w,have heard of people running their M6400's on a 90w doing low powered work,so the M4400 shouldn't be a problem as long as your not running lot's of peripherals and taxing it.
Theoretically, this should be true but I can tell you that most likely it will not work very well. The 90 W adaptor will power the system and charge the battery with no problem. However, the Dell BIOS is crap IMO and seems to just castrate the system when it detects an "improper" power supply. Something as simple as mp4 video will be unplayable on the 90 W adaptor and obviously gaming will take a major hit as well. Its stupid because you will be able to get MUCH more frames per second out of the battery (9-cell) than the 90 W power supply (in my case I got 9x the fps of the 90W adaptor by taxing the 80 Whr battery 100%). This is stupid since the brick should be 90 Whr from what I understand. Also, the laptop will not boot with the 90 W adaptor and you have to use battery power to boot it. Another annoying thing but that's it.
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post #9 of 22
2/10/09 at 3:22am
I haven't got a 90W adaptor to try myself,but suspect your probably right zzpulp in the M6400's case particularly.....was just reporting what I saw a couple of M6400 user's say,they didn't really go into specific's as to what was unable to function properly apart from window's giving warning's about the power supply.....but it's interesting what you say,and seem's surprising how the battery can supply more power.

Dell seem's to love messing up each successive version of M4400 bios's a little more than the last,they are up to A11,most people have less problem's with earlier A02 or A03

Ofelas,haven't received the hard drive caddy yet,but won't forget to let you know here.
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post #10 of 22
2/10/09 at 12:56pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks folks.
Just FYI - I have a 90W adaptor from a D-Series M70, and it works just fine with the M4400.
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post #11 of 22
2/10/09 at 2:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by gerryjoson View Post
I haven't got a 90W adaptor to try myself,but suspect your probably right zzpulp in the M6400's case particularly.....was just reporting what I saw a couple of M6400 user's say,they didn't really go into specific's as to what was unable to function properly apart from window's giving warning's about the power supply.....but it's interesting what you say,and seem's surprising how the battery can supply more power.

Dell seem's to love messing up each successive version of M4400 bios's a little more than the last,they are up to A11,most people have less problem's with earlier A02 or A03

Ofelas,haven't received the hard drive caddy yet,but won't forget to let you know here.
Oh yeah, another annoying thing you reminded me of. Its not really Windows or the BIOS that reports the unsupported power adaptor. Its quickset that gives that message. I have quickset on for a few of my shortcut keys but I just turn it off when I'm using 90W power because its annoying to have that popup every time you plug in the adaptor. This may not be the case for the M4400 since its 15.4" (I assume) but its definitely the case on my M1710 (17").
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post #12 of 22
2/19/09 at 3:25am
Lenovo T400/T500 hard drive module work's fine after removing locating lug on the back of the module.

The cheap one I bought [manufactured in the philippines] from ebay,had sloppy manufacturing tolerances when it came to the plastic surrounding the sata connector,making it impossible to push the module in,but was easily fixed with a sharp knife.

The module has no locking device on it,but is tight enough on it's sata connector,that it seem's it wouldn't fall out without dropping the notebook

Pity that the matrix storage manager has no option to configure raid0.........another oversight by dell

How's your M4400 going ofelas?
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post #13 of 22
2/19/09 at 11:54am
Thread Starter 
Thanks for the heads up on the caddy Gerry!

As far as the M4400 - so far so good; I'm glad I stopped by & asked before I chose the model!

No issues so far, though I've heard a few folks have had issues with overheating and/or the fans coming on way too often & loud.

I use the excellent 178.26 WHQL drivers from LaptopVideo2Go - they run a couple degrees cooler than any other driver I've tried, and are as fast & stable as the Dell supplied 176.07.

FWIW - running on BIOS A11 here.

System idles at 36 to 38 for the first two cores, and about 33 to 35 for the third & fourth cores.

With normal usage, like web browsing, composing emails, file transfers etc., the CPU temps remain stable at about 40-42 for the first 2 cores & 37-39 for the other two cores, and ~50-52 for the GPU.

The fan does come on once in a while, spins on low/medium for about a minute or so, and then turns off.

After an hour or so of gaming, the CPU temps are about 50-52, and the GPU is approx 80; takes about 2 minutes each on High, Medium & Low before the system reaches idle temps, and the fan turns off.

My hard drive is always less than 35 under normal use; the highest I've seen from it is 38 after installing COD5, and running a series of drive tests - this with the 500GB WD as the primary drive using IRRT.

Ambient temp is ~23, laptop is undocked, and I'm not using a notebook cooler.

Power setting is "Balanced"
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post #14 of 22
2/19/09 at 5:48pm
Very nice spec's ofelas !

Are you pleased with the LED WXGA+?

I'm surprised you get similar max CPU/GPU temp's as me with your QX [I only have lowly 25w P8600].....mind you i have higher ambient temp's at the moment.

Will give the driver you listed a go,haven't tried any different one's for quite a while as the one's I did gave worse performance than the dell driver.
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post #15 of 22
2/19/09 at 9:55pm
Thread Starter 
Howdy Gerry, yup, I'm quite happy with the machine, and the LED, being my first, seems nice enough. WXGA+ is just about right for me,m as I don't need multiple windows that the WUXGA+ affords.

As far as the temps - I used a microdot of OCZ Freeze on both CPU dies as well as the GPU die - I'm sure that helped. I prefer it to Arctic Silver 5; Freeze is electrically non conductive, and requires no break in time, and rates at least as thermally efficient as AS5 going by what various overclockers' forums say.

On a side note - two nice updates for the M4400 as of this afternoon - new BIOS version A12 for the M4400 is available for download.

Also, a new video driver for the M4400 - version 176.53 - targeted towards non English languages displaying correcanel, but as with the BIOS revisions - most video drivers also contain thermal adjustments which affect clock adjustment rates - or so it seems, based on different drivers yielding different temperatures; obviously, don't quote me on that, but Pieter would be the man to ask I reckon.

Most Dell BIOS revisions also contain adjustments to the thermal tables based on user input, even if they're not listed as "fixes".

Here's the official changes/enhancements to BIOS A12 -

Fixes/Enhancements
------------------
1. Updated Intel(R) Active Management Technology firmware for Intel(R) vPro-configured systems:
- Fixed a vulnerability in which an ME-knowledgeable malicious user with local machine access could potentially exploit boundary errors in some ME application functions to gain control over those ME applications.
- Fixed a remote Denial of Service (DOS) vulnerability which a malicious user could potentially exploit to cause the reboot of a system running susceptible versions of Intel® Active Management Technology (Intel® AMT).
2. Added USB provision file format 2.0 support for Intel(R) vPro-configured systems.
3. Updated warning message when changing the SATA Operation field in BIOS Setup.
4. Added support to make Pre-Boot Authentication single sign on work with hard disk drive passwords.
5. Fixed the issue where Dell Diagnostics fan script test fails with a USB 2.0 scanner attached.
6. Fixed the issue where Dell Diagnostics LCD brightness test fails when ALS is enabled.
7. Updated medium fan speed.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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post #16 of 22
2/21/09 at 1:29am
I'm now running it on A12 bios,doesn't seem any problem's with it,don't really get their updated medium fan speed thing......maybe runs a couple of hundred rpm faster?

I have been using Tuniq TX-2 thermal paste for the last month or so,was using AS5,but the tuniq is slightly better,much cleaner and easier to apply,and like your OSZ,not electrically conductive.
The factory application of paste was pretty badly done on mine and I was getting temp's in the high 80's,low 90's,and that was with really low ambient temp's around 14-15 degC.

Good to hear the M4400 is being kind to you so far,after hanging out on nbrf for a while,I was starting to think I had the only one without problem's
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post #17 of 22
4/5/09 at 1:15pm
Thread Starter 
I hear ya GJ! Here're my results after stressing the CPU with 1024 wPrime, and running 3DMark06 right after -

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post #18 of 22
4/12/09 at 12:52am

FX770m VGA to Composite

Hi Ofelas

Sorry to join this thread but I'm curious to know if you managed to sort out a solution for the whole VGA to composite video thing. I'm seriously looking at an M4400 with the FX770m card but the only thing that is putting me off is the lack of 'analogue' video output. Did the dongle work or have you had to resort to and external converter..?

Thanks

Gav
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post #19 of 22
4/12/09 at 11:15am
Thread Starter 
djgavh - I'm a novice when it comes to anything multimedia + electronic; I can barely figure out which end of the remote is which.

Having said that - I bought a VGA port to S-Video + Composite adapter cable off FleaBay; doesn't work for me when I hook it up to the television, I get absolutely no output. I'm sure there's a workaround, as I believe some have reported it works - perhaps a cable from a different maker.

I don't have HDMI or digital, just an analog TV, so I guess I'm not going to buy a new television so I can watch movies from my M4400; this is when I miss my M70 with it's S-Video output
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post #20 of 22
4/12/09 at 11:51am
Thanks for getting back to me. I read on a few forums that the m4400 with the MX770 card doesn't support 'TV out' so just wanted to see if you had found a work around. I don't really want to buy a conterter box. It's just something else to cart about to gigs.. Thanks for your help though
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