Dell Precision M6700 Owners Thread

Bokeh, Do you think a clone would be the way to go? BTW, thanks for this thread.

 

I have this laptop via work and it's new so it's never been used. I've noticed the graphic card driver recovers from a crash frequently. All I'm doing is 2D work via browser (i.e. clikcing on a link or viewing files via SVN). I've updated the drivers to the latest ones that Dell shows for my service tag and it still happens often. Anyone else seeing this issue?

 

Which GPU do you have, if you have a nVidia GPU, you need to install both the nVidia and Intel display drivers. You could also try disabling hardware acceleration in your browser as a temporary fix.

Do note that my guide was written for a non RAID user so the part about installing the RST drivers will not apply if you plan to use RAID. I read the reimage guide, as well as rob's guide before doing my clean install. That combined with my previous experiences doing clean installs on Asus notebooks as well as custom built desktops resulted in the procedure i used in my post about doing a clean install on the M6700. Do not that the links to drivers may not be the most up to date.

As a side note, apart from including drivers and software for every device available, the stock install on the M6700 is pretty lean. If you have a fully loaded M6700 and don't want to bother with a clean install, just don't. Just get rid of the trial software included.

 

The laptop has an AMD FirePro M6000 card in it. I went to the Dell site and got the latest Dell driver for the service tag and still getting this issue. Interestingly, I recently replaced an nVidia 560ti in my desktop at home with an AMD HD 7950 and even with the 12.10 driver, I get these at least once everytime I play a game. Must be AMD driver crappiness I never saw driver issues with the 560ti since I put it in there on 2/2011.

 

No such issue on my M6700 and i got the firepro too. I would do a complete uninstall of all video drivers, run driver sweeper in safe mode to clear any remnants and install the latest available on Dell's site.

 

I finally pulled the trigger on a M6700. I left out the BluRay, Memory, mSATA and SSDs as user stuffing options.

Win7 64 Ultimate, i7-3940XM, NVIDIA Quadro K3000M, 17.3" (1920x1080), Wifi and Bluetooth

Has anyone used a mSATA on the M6700 and installed their OS on another drive? All of Dell's OEM configurations have the OS on the mSATA. I don't know if this is a requirement or their company practice.

Thanks

 

I have a mSATA drive in mine and you definitely aren't required to put the OS there. It shows up like just another disk.

 

Aaron,

Thanks much for the update. Must be a Dell build policy issue then and not a physical requirement.
I would rather have the OS on a faster SATA3 interface then a slower SATA2 interface.

 

I have an Intel 520 running Windows 7, a Chronos Deluxe 240GB (already had it on hand so it was "free") running Windows 8 and a 256GB mSATA holding the data common to both OS installs (aka libraries and steam). You can pretty much use any drive configuration you want if you set it yourself.

 

I have bought an m6700 with the intent of adding an ssd myself. I have trouble deciding whether I should go for a 265gb crucial m4 msata and a dual 1tb raid 0 setup, or just get a normal 2.5 inch ssd.

Will the difference between sata2 and sata3 for the ssd be noticeable? And does an 5400rpm raid 0 array affect the battery life heavily?