Precision M4500 Owner's Lounge

Does anyone having any heat issues with their 720 or 820QM?

Thanks

 

I've purchased refurbished Dell Optiplex desktops, Latitude laptops, business printers, and switches for years, always with good results until this year. This year, all of my experiences have been nightmares. The product had obvious functional defects and hours of my time were wasted getting RMA's, credits for returned product, repacking/shipping bad refurbished product back to Dell, keeping records. No more Dell outlet for me; I can't afford it.

My suspicion is that Dell is focusing on the wrong metrics for their business processes: time-to-repair and ship returned products, or the value of return product inventory, instead of tracking the number of products re-returned (not actually repaired).

FWIW.

 

Let Prime95 run for ~1hr

Let Furmark run for ~1hr

Then if you're feeling brave, let them run together for ~1hr

See if you can get it to lock up again. If they pass these three (and memory has already passed), you can pretty much rule out a hardware issue which is good.

 

Done. I run it for 7 hours

Done. Max temp. of GPU was 78 C

Done. Despite it proccessor was throttling somtimes (when microchip of motherboard was over 80 C) but I guess it normal when both CPU and GPU run on max.

Do you have any other suggestions? Maybe some power charger issue or issue with motherboard?
I reinstalled Win couple of times already. I can't give laptop back right now because I have master theis due next month. You think that if problem still exists next 2 months , it won't be too late to send it back?

I'm confused!!!

Thanks again for help

P.S

Code:

QuadCore Intel Core i7 720QM, 2733 MHz (21 x 130)
Dell Precision M4500
Intel Ibex Peak-M QM57, Intel Lynnfield
RAM: 8181 MB  (DDR3-1333 DDR3 SDRAM)

BIOS: A04 Phoenix (07/08/10)
GPU: NVIDIA Quadro FX 880M  (1024 MB)

 

Hi fellow M4500 owners. I've got a problem. I'm wondering how I can have the problem and nobody else has it. Let me explain. (Bear with me...I'm longwinded.) Last month I took delivery of a M4500. Highest performance processer, Highest amount of ram. 64 bit Windows 7. 500 gig drive & many more bells and whistles. Cost a bundle. When it arrived I immediately knew the HD was defective. Vibrated the laptop. They replaced it and cured the vibration. In addition the backlight on the keyboard never worked. I replaced the keyboard and fixed that. THEN the 2 BIG problems that I find amazing. My touchpad / cursor are often erratic. I'll move my finger and nothing happens with the cursor. Then all of a sudden it will take 3 or 4 jumps to where it is supposed to be. Sometimes works for 45 minutes without a problem, then it goes crazy. Second: The audio will stop and be replaced with an echo of what was just playing. Sometimes for 1/2 second. Sometimes for 2 seconds. When Dell heard about these new problems they suggested an entire new M4500 be ordered. I got it today. SAME EXACT PROBLEMS WITH THE CURSOR AND SOUND!! I couldn't believe it. I spent three hours on the phone with Pro support (Super technicians) to no avail. The tech heard the audio several times with this anomaly. So, two identical laptops with the same exact troubles. My main question is: Are there any other owners with this same problem? There MUST be. Dell said twice that the engineers are working hard on an A05 BIOS revision to cure it. No expected date. If there ARE others with this same problem please let me and DELL know about it and encourage them to remedy the situation. I love this workstation, but will have to return this second one if they can't fix it. If for whatever reason anyone wants to know the exact configuration of my 4500 just ask. I'm grasping at straws at this point. I should mention that one Pro Gold technician told me "I'll bet you that when you get your new replacement 4500 that it will have the same exact problems." He sure was right. I figure they MUST have intimate knowledge of these problems. Comments? Suggestions?

 

I agree with you guys that this model may have structural problems. VeryOldGuy probably remembers when Dell's unofficial motto was "shovel crap out the door as fast as possible".

I got an i7-820 off of the outlet so I am trying again. But I have a backup HP Envy on the way as well so any problems with the Dell and it goes back.

If they can push out the A05 BIOS in 2 weeks great, I hope it works, otherwise I will simply RMA this one.

Anyone else having problems, do not waste your time banging on it just send it back. My prior RMA was quick and easy once I stated clearly that it was defective.

 

My 64GB mSata SSD has arrived from Poland.



Card is installed and working fine, with second HDD in place. I'll post How-To's ASAP

 

Interesting that you picked an Envy as a back up. That notebook is about as problematic as you'll find based on the anecdotal/unscientific evidence. HP's bottom of the rung in empirical reliability aggregates from Squaretrade isn't the most ringing endorsement either...

 

Try uninstalling the Dell Control Manager. It's worthless. If the sound is skipping that sounds like what I had.

 

If you read farther back in this exact forum thread you'll see that several people (including me) fixed this by uninstalling the Dell Control Point software. Not the *drivers* but the management software.