Dell Precision M6700 Owners Thread

While we're on the subject of carrying cases; does anyone know a nice aluminium briefcase that can fit the M6700?

I'm looking for a full aluminium laptop case (top and bottom shell made of one piece, not panels and frames), to store an M6700, power adapter, power cord and a full size wireless mouse.

The briefcase should have sufficient padding around the sides of the laptop (soft and about 10 mm thick), a single combination lock and good quality latches.

 

Being new to this forum but understanding your need for a "quality salesperson"; you should ask to speak to a Precision WS Engineer on your account team.
Dealing with the ID10T's on the phone will get you nowhere fast.

 

Thank you Tom,

Is it padded inside ? And more specific at the bottom ???

 

Hi all,
You guys are the pro's, and frankly the options from Dell on this don't seem to account for everything I've read here. Hopefully you can help clear it up for me.

My past two laptops have been Dell XPS. The last one was a M1730 before they bought Alienware. It has been a good machine (dual core, good graphics, low noise), but is showing its age as it approaches 5 years old. I don't want to get an Alienware and the current XPS line is not really a desktop replacement.

So a few questions about the M6700. I'm anticipating getting one with Win 7 Professional with XP mode, 8GB RAM.

1) Firepro vs. Nvidia 3000M: Performance shows the 3000M has the edge, but also about 15W more use
a) Can you confirm: Optimus is on Nvidia only. Optimus is enabled in BIOS and saves power. But Optimus cannot be used on IPS display, correct?
b) Anyone do an M6700 comparison between these two cards? I can read the specs and see the bit differences, but does anyone have any good/bad on these (especially w/r/t driver issues perhaps)?

2) SSD
a) I see many people splitting applications on a smaller SSD and data on HDD's. This seems somewhat cumbersome. I'd like to have a RAID 1 dual SSD 512GB setup (I'm paranoid about data loss, so the second drive would be pure backup), but Dell is charging an arm and a leg for that. It seems like I could buy two Crucial drives for the same up-tick Dell will charge me for one. Has anyone tried successfully to call Dell and get them to knock the price down?
b) Does anyone have any configuration stories to share that describe how you partiioned your system to maximize performance with an SSD and two HDD's in RAID 1?

Thanks!

 

Optimus is indeed nVidia + non IPS only. You can always call dell to get the price down, but the drives are so easy to install yourself, there's no reason not to really. I can do a 3DMark 11 bench with the latest firepro drivers on mine if you'd like.

 

Thank you tijo.

If I install my own drives, will Dell provide a Win 7 installation and driver disk that I can use to perform a clean install however? I know I can add extra drives, but what would the process be if I got their cheapest model (HDD wise) and then wanted to scrap it completely for a SSD?

No need to run bench for me, though I appreciate it. More importantly perhaps, how long have you had your machine and have you had any Firepro driver issues (or any other kind of issue)?

That drive can handle two monitors, correct?

Thanks!

 

Make sure you have the options selected to include all the required resource DVDs along with your order, like the Operating System Recovery DVD & Drivers DVD. I don't believe they're selected by default.

I made sure Dell included all DVDs along with my computer, I had the 4 following DVDs delivered along with my computer:

OS Media : MUI Windows 7 SP1 Professional (64Bit OS) Resource DVD
- Reinstallation DVD Windows 7 SP1 64-Bit

Resource DVD : Mobile Precision M6700 Recovery DVD
- Resource Media DVD: Device drivers & Utilities
- Resource Media DVD: Dell Webcam Central for Business

Optical Media : Power DVD Media
- Dell Application DVD: Cyberlink(tm) PowerDVD(tm) 9.5 & Remote Media 1.6 - Japan

 

I would say it is lightly padded. The notebook itself is in a sleeve like part of the bag which itself is lightly padded (plus the thick leather in the bottom). It has a quite massive side protection which can be taken out (and it has to for M6600/6700, otherwise it wont fit). So I would say this bag has ok bottom protection, and good side protection for 15,6, and so-so for 17,3.

That being said I carry my M6600 each work day (on public transport too), and nothing really happened with it since last august (so about 16 months).

 

Thanks rQcreative, I should have looked harder at that, I didn't realize that was the full Win 7 install...

 

Here is a link to tijo's helpful post about a clean reinstall on the M6700:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...700-windows-7-clean-install-minor-tweaks.html

I created a check list of drivers and checked off each driver as they were installed.