Comments & Reviews (8)

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z31fanatic
Ben's cred: 140
Posted 08/08/2015 at 01:25 PM PT
Posted 08/08/2015 at 01:25 PM PT
Nice. I bought a Precision M4600 laptop for $400 with this sale. I will add another 8GB stick of RAM ($43) and a 250GB SSD ($90). Nice business machine for around $550.
AKM
Ben's cred: 61
Posted 08/08/2015 at 01:38 PM PT
Posted 08/08/2015 at 01:38 PM PT
I bought a 16GB Precision M4600 a month or so ago from Dell Financial. You'll like it. Mine has worked flawlessly. I put a Samsung 850 Pro SSD in it, it's very fast. I also ditched the CD drive and put a second hard drive (1TB spinner) in it. Bought a docking station with extra power supply on
ebay.
z31fanatic
Ben's cred: 140
Posted 08/08/2015 at 02:02 PM PT
Posted 08/08/2015 at 02:02 PM PT
Hmm, I thought the precision had a second hard drive slot without having to remove the DVD drive like the Latitudes. No big deal though.

How is the performance of the video card? I don't game at all but I do need it to run CAD and CAM programs like SolidWorks and Mastercam.
AKM
Ben's cred: 61
Posted 08/08/2015 at 04:27 PM PT
Posted 08/08/2015 at 04:27 PM PT
I have the nVidia Quadro 1000M version, and it's fine for my needs. As-shipped, it has both the Intel and nVidia cards active - I had to disable the Intel card completely for Matlab to run properly. Right now, Matlab is the most taxing video program I have on it. I had to disable the Intel card in the BIOS. The way it ships, it's supposed to "select the optimal video source for power consumption", but the Intel card was causing Matlab to crash. I still get 'enough' battery life (a couple hours plus is OK by me).
z31fanatic
Ben's cred: 140
Posted 08/08/2015 at 07:21 PM PT
Posted 08/08/2015 at 07:21 PM PT
By the way, the 50% and 30% off coupons also work on monitors.
AKM
Ben's cred: 2
Posted 08/09/2015 at 10:55 AM PT
Posted 08/09/2015 at 10:55 AM PT
I have the nVidia Quadro 1000M version, and it's fine for my needs. As-shipped, it has both the Intel and nVidia cards active - I had to disable the Intel card completely for Matlab to run properly. Right now, Matlab is the most taxing video program I have on it. I had to disable the Intel card in the BIOS. The way it ships, it's supposed to "select the optimal video source for power consumption", but the Intel card was causing Matlab to crash. I still get 'enough' battery life (a couple hours plus is OK by me).


Did you make these alterations on your own or through Dell?
dorianh49
Ben's cred: 103
Posted 08/09/2015 at 12:38 PM PT
Posted 08/09/2015 at 12:38 PM PT
Did you make these alterations on your own or through Dell?

These are refurb systems sold as-is. Upgrades are made on your own after purchase and receipt.
AKM
Ben's cred: 61
Posted 08/10/2015 at 10:10 AM PT
Posted 08/10/2015 at 10:10 AM PT
Depending on how they're optioned, these systems can ship with an nVidia graphics card in addition to the standard Intel integrated graphics. If it has both, then the system is configured (from the factory) to use both, depending on "requirements". I had both video cards showing up in my Device Manager. When I'd run Matlab, it would run OK at first, but then when I started working with my data files (500k+ rows of data with many columns), it'd crash. I guessed (correctly) that the video card was the culprit - after disabling the Intel integrated graphics, I haven't had a crash, and have since dealt with even larger datasets.