Precision M4400 Owner's Lounge

woo hoo, looks like they're gonna send me a new one!

 

If you are running vista you have to know that on a fresh install it will do a lot of background work for the first few days. Vista basically builds an optimized prefetch file that will eventually make your applications startup faster and help the overall system seem snappier.

So, for the first few days there is a lot more Hard Disk access and processor activity. This activity will make the machine run a little hotter than you it normally would.

While you may simply be surfing the internet, the vista is hard at work in the background...

Again, this is only for a few days and that activity will drop off as the system gets used to your way of doing things.

The USB question was answered a few posts ago.

The downclocking issue is covered extensively elsewhere in this forum.

Actually, most of your questions are answered somewhere within the forum.

Have a look at those threads they may be helpful and check back here too. I am sure others will jump in with answers.
Cheers

 

I never saw an answer to the USB question, I'll read back. But anyway, since they're going to replace the system, it's kind of a moot point.

I'll keep in mind what you said about Vista and the first few days - this is my first system running Vista, so it's been an interesting time.

 

I plugged the same device into the ports on the left, and it worked at full speed. Maybe it is something wrong with that device, though, because another USB stick in the right-hand ports didn't give me the USB 1.1 message.

 

There may be a possibility that the peripheral you are using draws more power than the ports on the right can supply and that may very well mean something is wrong with the ports. Maybe the person who had the machine before you did, plugged something in there that caused a power surge that may have affected the port's voltage.

The end result would be that most things would work ok but more demanding stuff like external usb powered hard drives would cause the usb port to fail to connect at full speed and probably not even work properly anyway.

Please let us know if the new system resolves the issue.

FYI: I have plugged a mutitude of usb peripherals in all of the usb ports on this computer (includin the twin esata/usb port) and all of them connected properly so don't expect any less from your system!

 

The device is an MP3 player, and it was charging as well as transfering data, so the thought that it was drawing more than my other USB device (a simple thumb drive) has merit.

I'll definitely be testing it out in the new machine.

 

i really wish this machine "worked out of the box".

i still feel like i'm testing a prototype

im gonna write a letter to dell about this to voice my dissatisfaction.

we should really get some kind of petition going.