Precision M4400 Owner's Lounge

i used the drivers from the website as the CD was old...it said it's revision was august.

how would i go about testing the hard drive and dvd drive? any benchmarks or anything? since the two systems are identical i figure i might as well test the variables and put some photo's on the net of components frm different suppliers.

especially since ther have been a lot of complaints about the DVDRW drive

also, the hard drive firmware, can i boot from USB key instead of CD? i dont have a blank cd

 

Hmm...not sure about USB, i only read options for either Floppy or CD....i'd just wait with that update 'till u get a cd then.

You could use HD tune to benchmark your disks....not sure about the DVDRW

 

I can confirm about it being either cd or floppy. What I did was use an old cdrw I had around since I knew I would only need to use this update once.

 

how do you install the broadcom USH firmware?

 

I haven't done that update yet. I my broadcom ush driver installation has always failed so when I try the update from within windows it says the unit is not activated or available and so the update cannot continue.


If I remember, you can run it from windows or from a dos boot disk. There are several different folders in the extraction directory that have these different methods available. I believe there is a readme file in each directory with instructions for each method.

You will see a .BAT file that automates the process if in DOS mode but you have to have the files and folders in the proper directory for it to work.

 

it failed on my old m4400 too..im wondering if this update will solve the out of sleep issues

im using vista x64

 

Wasn't there something about enabling it in BIOS but not activating it, then install update and then activate it? To be honest this is just something i read, i don't really know what i'm talking about, LOL

 

Hmmm. It's possible. It's a catch 22 situation. Vista sees it in the device manager and tries to install the driver. The driver installation fails. Device cannot be loaded. Firmware update looks for device. Cannot find device since driver not loaded. Firmware update fails.

Honestly, I haven't given this much time to see where I was making a mistake. It was probably running fine with the OS it was delivered with. Sadly, as I always do with Dell machines, I remove all partitions and do a clean format and install. Then, I have to go through the process of installing everything from scratch. It's a bit of a pain but I wouldn't have it any other way.

I am on vista bus 64 too bTW.

 

crap im using the windows driver and the sound is still skipping

guess im gonna have to call dell tomorrow

 

Just for the heck of it, try disabling your wifi card and see if it still skips.