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M4300 Laptop Replacement.

Question asked by Dougal Hiscock on Jun 24, 2012
Latest reply on Aug 14, 2012 by Dougal Hiscock

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Hi All

The time has come to upgrade from my trusty M4300 laptop. My assemblies have grown to the point where somedays I see more hourglass than cursor.

The M4600 is a pretty clear candidate, but how long in the tooth is it and when would a replacement be due? What other machines should I be considering? About my only special requirement is a docking station.

I've found Dell laptops to be excellent, this one has a replacement keyboard/touchpad (warranty), one replacement battery and one dead screen pixel in 5 years.

How much ram are people realisticly using? My worst assembly is about to have about 2000 parts. Currently I'm limited to 4gb and still running XP32. Still running SW2009 but considering subscribing again.

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Alin Vargatu Jun 24, 2012 11:23 AM
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Dougal, I just replaced my M4400 with the M4600. The SW performance test results show a doubling in speed in all categories.
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- Dougal Hiscock @ Alin Vargatu on Jun 24, 2012 6:03 PM
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  Alin, can you share your M4600 spec? It's good to know there's a doubling between the 4400 and 4600, any idea how much faster a 4400 is over a 4300?
  
  Jerry, what do you mean by swapping? The peformance is okay for normal models and assemblies. It's mainly when displaying all the links in a modular conveyor belt or dealing with imported parts (mesh etc) that it's really painful.
  I have run a trial install of win7-64 and SW2010 64bit (which I also have, but not in final SP) on this machine, but couldn't get the graphics to run properly.
  I have no problems (besides the learning curve) migrating to win7. It's not just solidworks that will be a battle to run on any new machine. I've got a whole heap of other programs and utils, at least some of which won't play the game.
  I'll be installing prior versions also.
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  - Alin Vargatu @ Dougal Hiscock on Jun 24, 2012 9:42 PM
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    There you go:
    
    [System Summary]
    Item Value
    OS Name Microsoft Windows 7 Professional
    Version 6.1.7601 Service Pack 1 Build 7601
    Other OS Description Not Available
    OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
    System Name
    System Manufacturer Dell Inc.
    System Model Precision M4600
    System Type x64-based PC
    Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2640M CPU @ 2.80GHz, 2801 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)
    BIOS Version/Date Dell Inc. A08, 18/10/2011
    SMBIOS Version 2.6
    Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume2
    Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 8.00 GB
    Total Physical Memory 7.96 GB
    Available Physical Memory 5.16 GB
    Total Virtual Memory 15.9 GB
    Available Virtual Memory 12.3 GB
    Page File Space 7.96 GB
    Page File C:\pagefile.sys
    [Display]
    Item Value
    Name AMD (ATI) FirePro M5950 (FireGL) Mobility Pro Graphics
    PNP Device ID PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_6740&SUBSYS_04A31028&REV_00\4&2BFF4559&0&0008
    Adapter Type ATI display adapter (0x6740), ATI Technologies Inc. compatible
    Adapter Description AMD (ATI) FirePro M5950 (FireGL) Mobility Pro Graphics
    Adapter RAM 1.00 GB (1,073,741,824 bytes)
    Installed Drivers aticfx64.dll,aticfx64.dll,aticfx64.dll,aticfx32,aticfx32,aticfx32,atiumd64.dll,atidxx64.dll,atidxx64.dll,atiumdag,atidxx32,atidxx32,atiumdva,atiumd6a.cap,atitmm64.dll
    Driver Version 8.851.0.0
    
    Name [00000007] Intel(R) 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection
    Adapter Type Ethernet 802.3
    Product Type Intel(R) 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection
    Installed Yes
    
    [Drives]
    Item Value
    Drive C:
    Description Local Fixed Disk
    Compressed No
    File System NTFS
    Size 450.96 GB (484,213,518,336 bytes)
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    - Dougal Hiscock @ Alin Vargatu on Jun 24, 2012 9:55 PM
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      Thanks Alin. I see you've got the AMD/ATI card instead of the Nividia. How is 8GB of RAM working out for you?
      
      Do you run any legacy 32bit applications? I'm not familiar with win7 business. How does your one do on Anna's Punch Holder benchmark?
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  - Jerry Steiger @ Dougal Hiscock on Jun 25, 2012 4:13 PM
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    Dougal,
    
    By swapping, I mean swapping memory in and out of the disk drive because you don't have enough memory. You can use the task manager to watch your Page Fault Deltas to see if that is the problem. From your description, it sounds like that is probably not the issue, that you need a better graphics card, since it seems like it is on graphically intense assemblies that you are having problems.
    
    Jerry Steiger
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    - Dougal Hiscock @ Jerry Steiger on Jun 25, 2012 5:55 PM
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      Jerry
      
      Yes, all the time.
      The pagefile usually runs up to 2GB, but solidworks usually has all sorts of issues before this gets any higher ("failed to save document" being a favourite). The SW2009 that I'm using is 32bit and my M4300 is physically limited to 4GB of ram. So nothing much can be improved there without a major upgrade.
      SW2009 also has a lot of memory leaks. To release memory and get the page file back down you don't have to just close parts/assemblies, you have to close solidworks.
      The more parts I have opened/closed in a session, the higher the PF runs. But I usually get a crash once a week to sort it out and give me a forced restart.
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      - Jerry Steiger @ Dougal Hiscock on Jun 25, 2012 8:46 PM
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        Dougal,
        
        Are you running with the 3 GB switch? That would help with your memory problems until you get your new machine.
        
        I usually can't last a week without a restart. For a while I would restart every morning, but I'm not working with really big files now, so I often go several days.
        
        Jerry Steiger
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        Dougal Hiscock @ Jerry Steiger on Jun 25, 2012 9:01 PM
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        Yes I'm runing the 3GB switch and have been since the beginning. It's as simple as being up against the wall. For most of my jobs I work around the computers limitations, but when it gets to needing full featured models at the end of a job for GA drawings and renderings, that's when it really starts to drag.
        
        I don't have any deadline for replacement. But now is a good time to start looking around.
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Jerry Steiger Jun 24, 2012 1:36 PM
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Dougal,

Does you task manager show that you are swapping a lot? If so, that could explain your slow response. Switching to 64 bit and doubling (or tripling or quadrupling) your RAM would be a good thing to do when you upgrade.(Or even a way to postpone an upgrade, although 5 years is asking a lot of a CAD computer.)

You may not have much choice about upgrading. SW2009 is not supported on Windows 7. It doesn't make an awful lot of sense to load XP on a new machine. People seem to feel that 7 is much better than XP 64 bit.

Jerry Steiger
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Patrick Couture Jun 26, 2012 1:11 PM
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I don't know when Dell will update their precision line but Lenovo already released the W530 with the new Ivy bridge chip, and Hp announced their new line of Elitebooks so I guess it's a matter of weeks before they update so if you're not in a hurry and want the latest then I would wait maybe until fall at worst.

Patrick
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- Dougal Hiscock @ Patrick Couture on Jun 26, 2012 5:06 PM
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  I was pointed to the W530 yesterday, it is a serious contender. I was also shown these by a friend: http://eurocom.com/
  The Eurocom Race 2.0 specs up quite nicely and competitive on price.
  
  But for local support Dell has a serious edge here. I am in New Zealand about 2 hours drive from the nearest city. Dell send techs out to me next business day.
  Looks like the next few months will be interesting.
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  - Patrick Couture @ Dougal Hiscock on Jun 27, 2012 8:05 AM
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    Yeah! I too really like the specs of the Eurocom Racer 2.0. Especially because I can spec a 15" laptop with an Nvidia's 3000m GPU.
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Dougal Hiscock Jul 31, 2012 7:21 PM
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The Dell M4700 has been released and it looks quite good.

But I'm unable to fathom why in the US it sells for $US1833 where in NZ it's selling for the equivalent of $US3,836.
Same spec machine
2.6GHz
Win 7-64 pro
3 year next day warranty & support
1920x1080 screen
Webcam
8GB ram
750gb Hdd
8x DVD drive
2GB Quadro
No office suite etc.

That's $US2k difference in price for the same machine. Well I guess the charger plug will be a different shape, but that's about it.
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- Jerry Steiger @ Dougal Hiscock on Aug 4, 2012 1:34 PM
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  Dougal,
  
  Expensive charger plug! I'm amazed that Dell can get away with that. Maybe they can't and the price will drop significantly as the competition takes their market share. Since notebooks are notoriously unreliable, perhaps the better support is worth a significant price increase, but I would certainly think seriously about the Lenovo and Eurocom machines if I was in your situation.
  
  Maybe Dell is taking lessons on pricing from SolidWorks. As I recall, you get shafted on the price for the software as well.
  
  Jerry Steiger
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  - Dougal Hiscock @ Jerry Steiger on Aug 4, 2012 7:20 PM
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    Hi Jerry
    
    I called up Dell last week and asked if I could please have the US online price. After about half a hour of being passed around different people I was offered a business quote.
    I won't diclose the exact price or discount, but it was sharp enough that it wasn't worth the hassle of trying to buy the same computer out of the US. Dell came to the party.
    
    So now I'll just have to wait until it arrives (it has been built and is in transit already) to see how much I like it. These are so new there aren't any reviews to go off. Just the press-release.
    
    I'll have another few questions when it arrives for the best way to run SW2009 on it. I'll see if it plays ball with the graphics card that didn't exist when 2009 was written.
    I have two decent size projects on the go and I don't want to migrate to a newer SW version until they are finished at the end of the year.
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    - Dougal Hiscock @ Dougal Hiscock on Aug 9, 2012 10:48 PM
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      It's here already. Given the lack of M4700 reviews, if anyone has any questions I'm happy to answer them. I had the case open within half an hour to check out the ejectable hdd and optical drive bay which can be swapped out for another 2x hdd's.
      The power supplies are getting huge. The one for the computer is probably 50% bigger than the old, the one for the docking station is half the size of a net-book.
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      - Dougal Hiscock @ Dougal Hiscock on Aug 13, 2012 4:16 AM
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        Running sw2009 on win7-64 Anna's punch holder was dispatched in about 65 seconds. For some reason it didn't display the total and I had to add up all the bits myself.
        My old M4300 from memory was around 125 seconds. So almost twice as fast. But for some other strange reason the M4300 keeps locking up on the punch holder and won't run it through.
        Rendering (photoworks) however is blindingly fast. It's a fraction of the time the M4300 took, it also has no problems rendering complex models the M4300 spat the dummy over.
        
        I am running realhack to convince sw2009 that the quadro can handle realview. It's working nicely, but hasn't been tested properly yet.
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        Anna Wood @ Dougal Hiscock on Aug 13, 2012 4:58 AM
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        Make sure you have Verification on Rebuild turned OFF in SolidWorks.
        
        Cheers,
        
        Anna
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        Dougal Hiscock @ Anna Wood on Aug 13, 2012 5:05 AM
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        Thanks Anna, but what difference does that make?
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        Anna Wood @ Dougal Hiscock on Aug 13, 2012 5:14 AM
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        VOR will significantly increase the time needed to run the test. It makes a huge difference. This is likely the cause of your lockup. All numbers reported for the benchmark should with VOR turned Off for an apples to apples comparison.
        
        Also be the sure the Windows 7 Power Options in the Control Panel are set to High Performance. Windows 7 installs a Balanced Power profile by default.
        
        Cheers,
        
        Anna
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      - Patrick Couture @ Dougal Hiscock on Aug 13, 2012 10:40 AM
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        Hi Dougal!
        
        On the Dell website there is only one LCD Display available and it's a 1366 x 768 resolution is that right?
        
        How do you like the M4700 so far!
        
        Thanks
        
        Patrick
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        Dougal Hiscock @ Patrick Couture on Aug 13, 2012 7:28 PM
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        Thanks again Anna.
        
        Patrick, there are at least three screen options. I chose the 1920x1080 (I'm still moaning about the demise of 1920x1200) and there was another dearer 1920x1080 with better colour definition or something like that. Maybe important for graphic designers but not for me.
        I have the 2GB quadro card and screen rendering is literally done at the speed it takes to wipe steam off a bathroom mirror.
        
        So far I like it. Feels solid, has everything I need and I'm liking win7 more than I thought I would. I'm still in the setup and testing stages, it will be a few weeks yet before I have everything I need swapped across and running the 4700 full time.
        There is great access to modems/ram/backup batteries etc under the bottom cover (2 screws) and the drive bays (HDD and optical) are easily removed if required. The optical bay can apparently be swapped out to house 2x hdd's or SSD's.
        
        I am finding the typing position a bit different due to the numeric keypad on the right pushing the keyboard location left. My 4300 has no keypad and the keyboard centred. But most of the time it'll be in a dock with an external keyboard.
        The soft-touch palm rest feels great to touch, but isn't as easy to wipe dust off. Dimension wise it's about half an inch wider than my 4300 with similar depth and thickness.
        Another thing I really like is a complete lack of blue LED lights. All indicator LED's are white and unobtrusive.
        
        All up I think Dell has a winner with this one.
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        Dougal Hiscock @ Dougal Hiscock on Aug 14, 2012 4:47 PM
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        Following Anna's instruction to turn off VOR, my M4300 ran the punch holder on sw2009 in 130 seconds. Pretty much exactly double the time the M4700 takes.
        
        I am running a fresh reinstall of the M4700 to build it up as needed and the drivers are becoming a major PITA. Turns out the drivers on the supplied disc don't match the system requirements. The Ethernet driver supplied on the dvd was causing an "automation error" which prevents most things from running. The Intel video driver was flagged as not applicable to the system, but is needed to then install the Nividia driver.
        
        I was able to get everything working, but the process involved a lot of driver trial and error. I've pulled the latest drivers down from the dell website overnight (took a few hours) and will have a fresh install attempt later on.
        For now I need to ignore it and get some work done using the old faithful.
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M4300 Laptop Replacement.

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