List of m4600 problems

Overall, I've been pretty satisfied with my m4600, but there are still a few niggling things about it that I wish dell would fix.

1. On the m5950 systems, allow the GPU to throttle down to 100/150 mhz to save battery, and don't make users have to go into the Catalyst control center to fix it every time.
2. On that note, make CCC actually work. 95% of the time I try to open the application, nothing happens.
3. Problems with sleep mode. Sometimes, the keyboard backlight and screen turn off when you close the laptop, but the laptop never goes into sleep mode, which drains the battery.
4. There is also a screen brightness bug, which means that you can't change the screen brightness without a reboot under certain circumstances.
5. There are some problems with headphones, namely occasional problems with automatically switching to headphones when plugged in.
6. Turbo boost doesn't work in A05 bios, both for increasing and decreasing the clock.


I know people have mentioned others, but I thought I'd try to make a comprehensive list of them. I like the dell m4600 overall, but I think there's still room to make it better.

Feel free to add more if you have any.

 

Cant you set the sleep mode from windows ?

 

Yes, you can. However, I usually prefer to just close the lid, and it should go into sleep mode automatically. If I'm going to be away from a charger for a while, this is not good. I've had times where I open my laptop to see that there's only 20% left.

 

How long have you been away from your machine when the battery only has 20% left? Sleep keeps the RAM powered on so that when you open the lid, the computer resumes almost instantaneously.

 

Still, that should take a bloody long time.

Note that, for Sleep in Windows, you adjust the advanced power options and configure the behavior under "Power buttons and lid" > "Lid close action"

...and then wait until you see the light on the left hand side blinking. If it never does, that's a problem.

 

I'm aware of how sleep works, but thats not my point. I left the computer for a few hours with the lid closed, and when I opened it, I realized that somehow the computer had turned off the display, but didn't shut off the processor. Since it was in my bag for a few hours, and was very hot to the touch, it certainly wasn't in sleep mode, though the power settings clearly say to go into sleep with the lid closed. I haven't been able to repeat it consistently, but I've had the same problem more than once.

 

Disable Bluetooth devices being able to wake up the machine. Could be a mouse bouncing around in your bag.

 

Hmm, I'll try that, but I think its unlikely. If I recall correctly, the hardware wireless switch was off at the time.

 

Make sure the wireless switch is set up in the BIOS to control the bluetooth as well.

 

I checked that as well, and it is. It doesn't happen very often, maybe only one out of every twenty times that I close the lid.