The Dell Precision M4600 Mobile Workstation from 2011!!

Let's explore this Dell Precision M4600 Mobile Workstation from 2011!! This system definitely packs quite a bit of hardware in a notebook form factor. Is the system usable 12 years later? Will the NVIDIA dedicated graphics play any games? Let's find out! #nostalgia #dell #retropc #vintage #intel #workstation #precision #nvidia #pcperformance #gaming

[@FlyboyHelosim]

My pride and joy is the Dell Precision M6800. It's a couple of years newer than this and has even more going for it than this one. It's the last and most powerful Dell mobile workstation that still retains legacy features.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Awesome!!!

[@gentuxable]

I took one of these from my employer who got rid of them. Fascinating how long they've been in service and still work nicely.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Exactly. They really knew how to make decent systems (if you paid the money haha)

[@captainwasel8377]

This is pretty good, over 10 years old laptop and came with 16GB ram, that wasn't a thing for regular laptops back then, but since this is a workstation that makes sense and made it stand the test of time to this day.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Absolutely and here we are today with it cruising along!!

[@rmcdudmk212]

Wow I think this Dell is the newest machine I've seen on the channel. Awesome stuff, old Dell machines are fun.

[@TheRetroRecall]

It is, I debated doing it, but 12 years old... We will call that the limit haha!

[@rmcdudmk212]

@@TheRetroRecall well in computers 12 years old is vintage as far as I'm concerned 😁

[@BuddyS95]

I bought one of these on eBay for $75 just a couple days before you posted this video, and I couldn't be happier with it! The thing is an absolute TANK of a laptop.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Absolutely! Except I paid well close to 4k. Haha! Glad you got a steal of a deal, it's a great laptop!

[@Otakunopodcast]

Nice find, and in beautiful condition to boot! It's absolutely no slouch -- you've got the model with the Quad core i7 with NVIDIA discrete graphics. Changing out the SSD is probably not a bad idea. No idea how much usage that SSD got (you might be able to check in the SMART data) but a 12 year old SSD is probably pushing it. You don't need to go crazy and throw in a "fancy pants" SSD like Samsung EVO or anything like that, just a cheap off brand like Kingston, Teamgroup, etc. would be fine. Adding in some extra memory would make it even better. Technically you don't really need to, 16 GB is plenty (even by today's standards!) however since you have the Quad-core model, you can go all the way up to an insane 32 GB. The wobbly screen is common on older laptops, as well as laptops that are heavily used/get banged around a lot, and is caused by the screws holding down the display hinges gradually working themselves loose over time and/or as a result of physical shock. You should really get that fixed, as eventually it could cause the hinges to break entirely. Fortunately it's not that hard to fixable -- it's definitely doable by most people, and (unless the hinges are already broken) you won't need to buy new parts. All you have to do is open up the display bezel and tighten down the screws a bit. Check out the "Adamant IT" youtube channel, he has quite a few videos explaining the problem and demonstrating how to fix it (it looks daunting, but really isn't that difficult.)

[@TheRetroRecall]

I love this comment. Thank you so much for this info and insight!!!! Please keep on commenting haha!

[@annihilatorg]

I had a used m4800 a couple years ago. Other than the weight, it was a solid machine. I used it as a sort-of utility machine and installed an express card usb3.0 card and used it for downloading and burning raspberry pi isos to SD cards, music/dvd ripping and similar crap. I never tried to find a blu-ray drive, so your 4600 is killing it!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Awesome and thank you!!! Also, thanks for watching!!

[@pierreinthavong181]

Great dell M4600 laptop review, It was a beast!😁

[@TheRetroRecall]

Absolutely, very much so. Glad you enjoyed!

[@lucarellithomas223]

Currently use a Dell precision m6800 17" machine. I LOVE it as my mobile workstation. Anything nerd I do its used in some way if my desk workstation is down or not suitable. Check to see if it still has the cellular modem. I got lucky with mine and it still had everything. 16gb ram, i7 CPU, and dual 1tb ssds (I installed them). The port selection is great and it serves me really well. The amd fire pro thats in it kinda sucks but for light cad work it does surprisingly well. I have my cell modem activated as well witch comes in handy more than you'd realize. The only downside I had with it is the screen SUCKS! I got super lucky and found a nicer LVDS panel for it that was a major upgrade. Usually you have to calibrate it but somehow it worked out on its own. I choose non glossy but you can pick and choose. I do know that of you choose to upgrade the panel you have to be careful as its very specific in what will work in it. You gotta take it apart to see what type it is though. You can swap the top half for the touch screen model and funny enough the hook up for the Webcam is there too just my model wasn't equipped with it.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Awesome info. I will check to see if the cell module is in it.. That would definitely be neat if it was. As for the screen, you aren't wrong. I knew there was a touch screen option for this machine back in the day. I should look at options if I plan on doing anything with this system. Thanks again!

[@FlyboyHelosim]

I've been using an M6800 for about 4 years now and recently bought a second one for cheap intended as a backup or for parts, as it's often cheaper to buy a complete second system instead of trying to source parts individually. Needless to say, I should be setup for life now. I've also got all the different docking stations, external media bays, and different selections of components where there are multiple options such as the Wi-Fi cards, WWAN cards, etc.

[@TheRetroRecall]

That's awesome. I think I have the docking station but not 100% confident in that.

[@billoverson2263]

Love that Dell included a trackpoint for quite a long time. This model is equivalent of TP W520.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Absolutely and loved my W520!! Both were work horses!

[@karl-erikkald8876]

My HP EliteBook 8740w also has a BluRay drive. In fact, it's the only laptop in my collection to have that feature. I love that beast to death. Primarily use it to play older games. It runs Windows 7 beautifully, but I might upgrade it to Windows 10 now that Steam is soon about to drop support for pre-Windows 10. I know there are ways to disable Steam client from auto-updating itself, but it's only a temporary workaround, the old client will at some point stop connecting to the Steam backend at some point in the future. Overall, these old Dell/HP/Lenovo workstations are awesome!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice and I didn't know that about steam. I have that on this machine and although it has Windows 10 already, it's good to know for any of my other setups. Thanks again!

[@maxtornogood]

Very nice rig! I could absolutely use such a setup in 2023 if it was all I had. So close to being Windows 11 compatible but that friggin' TPM!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Exactly!!! There has to be a way lol

[@azurexdave04]

Mobile workstation laptops from like 12 - 13 years ago are simply the best. So much reliable that you could even use it to hit somebody or to stop a bullet thanks to their thickness =))

[@TheRetroRecall]

Hahaha yes!

[@michaelwood9866]

i have an hp mobile workstation 17 inch....it's a beast!

[@nickwood8694]

we have the same last name

[@michaelwood9866]

@@nickwood8694 rare

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice!!! What is the model?

[@stephanbachman3264]

I currently use this laptop with an i7-2860QM and 32gb of ddr3 ram (No dedicated graphics). I actually edit in 4k on it (It is veryyyy sloww).I have used it for a couple years now and I just bought an HP Victus 15 brand new with an i713700h and the rtx 4050 and had it upgraded to 2tb fast ssd and 64gb ddr4 ram. The Victus hasn't shipped to me yet but I am very excited

[@TheRetroRecall]

That's awesome!!!! Enjoy!!

[@Iram008]

I have the HP EliteBook 8760W that i upgrade to i7 2860QM 2.5GHz, Nvidia GeForce gtx 980M ans 24 GB memory. Put in 2 SSD of 1 TB and a HDD of 1TB. Found the cellular module so it's max out. It is my favorite laptop so i will never sell or trash it. I don't use it as my daily Laptop but i use it along side it.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I love this. The specs are awesome and very happy you keep it around. I will be doing the same with this system :)

[@OfficialiGamer]

that's aweome dude! I just restored a 2001 Sony Vaio FX240, like your precision it was in imaculate shape. Has an 800MHz Pentium III-M 128MB of PC100 SDRAM, CDRW\DVD Combo Drive and integrated Intel 815 graphics. Looking amazing running Windows 98 SE. Only thing I gotta figure out is to see if I can get the LCD to "stretch" or scale lower resolutions, its a 1024xx768 LCD, but anything lower just gets smaller. aka 640x480 is using up like 60% of the screen

[@TheRetroRecall]

That sounds like an amazing system. I love Sony Vaios of that era!

[@martyp2138]

Set one of these up back in the day at an old company for a CAD manager, was used for 2D CAD and modelling 3D laser scanning data. Was a monster back then for a laptop. I had a Dell XPS 630 desktop for the same tasks which was a beast too, although it has a high end ATi Radeon not Quadro/FirePro GPU. I can’t remember how much the Quadro ended up benefiting the software (Leica Cyclone) speed wise in comparison although I think it was slightly more stable.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Awesome, thanks for sharing this!

[@xPLAYnOfficial]

My main laptop that I've been daily driving for a while now is the 2007 Dell Precision M6300, which has a Core 2 Duo T7500, 8GB DDR2, Nvidia Quadro FX 1600M, a 1TB SSD, DVD burner, a USB 3.0 CardBus expansion card, and a dual-band WiFi card upgrade. Yes it's pretty much maxed out (sans a CPU and GPU upgrade but I never felt the need to do so), but quite honestly it runs Windows 10 very well and it's still very usable for everything I do, including some light gaming, video editing in 1080p, graphic design, game development, and more! Just about the only real limitation is that I cannot screen capture any of my work anymore because the CPU and GPU just get way too overloaded attempting to do so. I've had this on Linux before, and it did run better than Windows, but my game development and graphic design work require Windows so there's really no getting around that. All-in-all, these systems are great! Very usable still to this day (as with all older machines an SSD is basically required or else they become basically unusable for how slow Windows 10 runs on an aging 5400RPM HDD).

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks for sharing your setup!! You are right, its awesome being able to use these old systems even today. That's how much tech has changed and also hasn't in the same breath. I find it was much more exciting VS the innovations or lack thereof today. I digress... :). Thanks for watching

[@xPLAYnOfficial]

@@TheRetroRecall yeah the decade from 2010 - 2020 was a lot more of a plateau than the tech from 2000 - 2010. That is actually abgood thing though since it allows for people with financially-estranged situations to still be able to make something work. The fact that my laptop is nearing the 20-year-old mark and still relevant on a modern Windows OS is a testament to that.

[@TheRetroRecall]

100%!

[@JohanlastZa]

I am busy fixing up a Dell Latitude E6540, i7-4800MQ 2.7 GHz, 16GB ram (upgraded from 8GB), 512 GB SSD (replaced the 1TB 7200 HDD) and AMD Radeon HD 8790M 2GB. It needs a new 9 cell battery and a 180 charger. It runs Win7/Win 10 and Win 11 with zero issues of any kind. But I will be running Windows 7 on it permanently for Windows 7 era gaming

[@TheRetroRecall]

Now that sounds like a decent build! It should handle whatever you throw at it from that era.

[@johnpendleton1647]

I use my M4600 with Linux everyday for entertainment. Playing music and videos. Works wonderful!! Also use a M6700 everyday for everything else!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Awesome.. Another great machine still in use today! Thanks for sharing.

[@megasoid]

I have two M4800s and one M6800. All three run like tops to this day.

[@TheRetroRecall]

That's awesome, such rock solid machines!!! The one in this video I'm still using today, works flawlessly.

[@phillipmullins1643]

That Dell Laptop you reviewed is akin to my 2011 MacBook Pro 17" even down to the amount of memory (16 Gb) and the weight of this laptop is about as heavy as my MacBook. It is hefty to carry around and I only use it as a traveling computer, with a 2012 27" IMac as my home computer. I was a strictly an Intel Microsoft user for many years but went to Macs just recently. I wonder, how reparable is the laptop?. My MacBook Pro is quite upgradable as to SSD and optical drives and even display.Although I have only one SSD in it it can support a second Hard Drive with the proper hardware.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice. This machine seems pretty user accessible from the back. Just a couple of screws and you are good to access the drive bay and ram. It is quite a heavy machine for sure.

[@nickwood8694]

you can use rufus to bypass all that TPM and min hardware req etc etc

[@TheRetroRecall]

Good to know!!

[@gttarus1]

Looks like the laptop was almost never taken off the dock. Probably explains why it is in such good shape.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Beautiful machine. Not even a scratch!

[@MichaelAChang]

I still have my M4700 (i7-3840QM) in a docking station and 2-24" monitors as a desktop replacement.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha that's great! It really is a nice machine.

[@karl-erikkald8876]

Windows 11 setup requires UEFI and TPM 1.2, according to Microsoft's own documentation. The setup doesn't check the CPU model and TPM 2. Officially, Windows 11 is supported on 8th gen Intel or 2nd gen Ryzen, with certain higher end Intel 7th gen chips like the i7-7820HQ also being supported. Windows 10 is also not 'officially' supported on this machine, Intel states only Ivy Bridge (3rd gen Intel Core CPUs) or newer platforms are validated and supported for use with Windows 10. So Dell's website doesn't provide any Windows 10 drivers for this machine. But Windows 7 or 8/8.1 drivers will work on Windows 10. That's how I've gotten Windows 10 up and running on multiple Core 2 Duo and 1st/2nd gen Core machines. Windows 10 drivers also work on Windows 11. The ThinkPad T460s runs the latest Windows 11 beautifully.

[@TheRetroRecall]

This is great info, thanks for this! Windows 10 seems to be running quite well, and at this moment in time Is still relevant. I am sure there are work arounds to get 11 on this, however its not a 911 the moment. Just the drivers may be an issue if I ever got it working I'm sure.

[@altonkilbourn1595]

I have a dell precision m4700 the ram is max out with 32gb ddr3 15.6 1080p display intel core i7 3940xm extreme cpu upgraded the dvd drive to a bluray drive

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice setup! With these configs, they have stood the test of time!

[@Jackpkmn]

Some quick research suggest you may be able to rat rod the hell out of this thing with a FirePro M5100. A GCN1.0 card that could run modded drivers to run modern games on. I am somewhat tempted to try this idea out for myself actually.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Definitely have me curious now....

[@Jackpkmn]

@@TheRetroRecall According to my research the Dell M4600 has an MXM-A 3.0 slot, the newest gpus that used this version of the slot include the Quadro M1200 and Radeon Embedded 9174 (2017) idk if i would push it that far. The FirePro M5100 is only from a year after this laptop's release and is more than twice as powerful as the Quadro M2000.

[@TheRetroRecall]

So you're thinking the firepro 5100 would work in this system?

[@Jackpkmn]

@@TheRetroRecall I 100% do.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Now I need to see if I can find one.

[@altonkilbourn1595]

I use my dell precision m4700 with pc game pass and when i take my dell precisionm 4700 to coffee shops are the library some people tell it's to big and thick and start laughing until they see it running and it's so fast running programs and and the notebook has windows 10 prp 64bit

[@TheRetroRecall]

100%!! I took mine to a business meeting and I got some laughs too!

[@michaelwood9866]

it's a hp elitebook workstation 8760w so a tad older maybe? i7 2720QM and mine has 12gb ddr3 ram at the moment....and a amd firepro 5950 1gb card.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice specs!!

[@EastAngliaUK]

is this your main laptop?

[@TheRetroRecall]

It used to be for many years, I now use a Lenovo Thinkpad P series.

[@iabconsulting]

From the BIOS, it looks like this computer could run Windows 11.

[@LatitudeSky]

The 2nd gen I7 CPU is not officially supported by Windows 11. Earliest supported I7 would be a 7th gen. There are hacks and such to get around some of those restrictions but it would not be officially supported.

[@iabconsulting]

@@LatitudeSky I had an older Dell laptop with a touch screen. It did run 11 but very slowly. I think it was an I5 processor. The laptop was at least 10 years old. Just wondered. :)

[@TheRetroRecall]

I definitely have to try this!

[@RuruFIN]

At least the CPU supports 32GB. :)

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes!!

[@Mohaned-si9se]

Buy it now or not and how much is its price in Egypt?

[@TheRetroRecall]

I am not too sure, I would have to use google for that one :)

[@Mohaned-si9se]

@@TheRetroRecallShould I buy it now and is it good?

[@TheRetroRecall]

I think it's a fantastic laptop!

[@VeryWarmBear1]

There is always tiny 11 if one must

[@TheRetroRecall]

I wasn't aware. Must check that out!

[@altonkilbourn1595]

It won't work with windows 11 because of the cpu and tpm chip is not supported by Microsoft you can a work around and get windows 11 working on the notebook

[@comrade137]

10:35 I have fingerprint scanner but have no camera.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Interesting. I didn't Think they were an option at this point.

[@adelmocazares1228]

watching on my dell m4600. running windows 11. bypassing requirememnts from rufus. i find w11 snappier than w10.

[@TheRetroRecall]

That's awesome. This machine is soooo good.

[@altonkilbourn1595]

I put windows 11 pro on my dell precision m4700 but had to go back windows 10 pro windows 11 started to mess up and Microsoft is changing so older cpu want work with the next windows 11 upgrade

[@TheRetroRecall]

I like Windows 10. I have 11, it's ok, but I think I'm going to roll it back.

[@crabdonkey6381]

I don't like side status lights! Have a Lattitude 7400 with Core 2 Duo processor running Windows 10. A little slow but amazing for a 15 year old machine,

[@TheRetroRecall]

I think I'm with you on that one :) always hard to see (conveniently) what the system is doing. Nice regarding your machine! A little slow is ok as long as it gets the job done.

[@FlyboyHelosim]

If it's anything like the bigger M6800 it's also got status lights at the top of the palmrest. The reason for having the side ones is so you can see what's happening with the lid closed.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Now you have me doubting myself, I'll have to check :)