M6600 Owners Thread

Maybe because their prices are the lowest in the pc industry (along with the quality too?), this will compensate enough for upgrading from your own end; like for a better screen. I gotta admit, although their tech support team has very little experiences whatsoever, but their customer support is excellent. They'll always try to find a way to make you happy. Also, they give you the option (if you are able) to do warranty work yourself if you're not comfortable about having a tech messing with your machine. I've done most of the work myself such as changing the optical drive, screen, dc connector jack, etc..

 

I treat it as joke, this series is the most expensive in many countries (it's premium level).

 

It's very expensive , maybe their consumer level laptops are little bit cheaper. My order is refurbished and it's new configuration costs 6000$. If someone spends this kind of money (6000$ for a new one) , he will probably add 1000$ to get better product and have a peace mind. Selling this product with this kind of money must guarantee a top level product and top level stability especially when it comes to workstations. If I was an IT manager and had to decide what laptop to buy for engineering department I would rather spend more money on a more stable pc, than spending less and have the engineers waste their time on waiting for their laptops to be repaired. So cheaper in this case is not an excuse. I hope Dell will at least comment about flickering monitor issues and tell us what to do.

 

I don't think they were comparing it to other consumer level laptops, but to workstation class desktop replacements.

 

Awesome, so any 9.5mm optical bay drive should work right? I noticed on amazon there are ones specific to apple or some specific to IBM laptops.

And if it's sata 2 then I guess any sata 2 ssd will operate at it's max capability.

 

Hi Everybody,

I came across this wonderful forum yesterday before choosing which laptop to buy. I think I read about 200 of the posts so far. In my opinion, this forum has the best experts on the web from what I have seen.

Well, now I have just ordered my M6600 from Dell.

Specs are:

M920XM Quad Processor
12GB RAM (2x4GB)+(2x2GB)
500GB SATA (7200RPM)x2
2.1MP Camera
Win7 Ultimate
Intel Pro Wireless 6300 Half Mini Card
AMD FirePro M8900 Mobility Pro Graphics with 2GB GDDR5
Dell 375 Bluetooth Card
2x Bluray Writer.

I'm told it has a Multi-Touch Screen.

I have ordered an NVIDIA Quadro 4000M card separately in case i should replace.
I've also ordered an IPS RGB Replacement Screen, part number: VCV1F
Although I requested the IPS, the description says: "Liquid Crystal Display,17.3FHD,Light Emitting Diode,Low Voltage Differential Signaling,AG,Z,Length/Long,2".

Anyhow, I would like your suggestions:

1) If the ordered screen is the IPS RGB, should I remove the TouchScreen and install the IPS RGB instead? Is it easy to replace the screen? If I want to revert to the original Touch Screen, is that easy also?

2) Is one of the 2 graphics cards more suited to one type of screen than the other?

3) I would like to upgrade the RAM to 32GB. I found Crucial selling 8GB chips (e.g. 2x8GB) but very expensive. Crucial have 2 types, please tell me which you recommend/prefer and why:

i. Part Number: CT2392273
Module Size: 16GB kit (8GBx2)
Package: 204-pin SODIMM
Feature: DDR3 PC3-12800
Specs: DDR3 PC3-12800 • CL=11 • Unbuffered • NON-ECC • DDR3-1600 • 1.35V • 1024Meg x 64 •

ii. Part Number: CT2286474
Module Size: 16GB kit (8GBx2)
Package: 204-pin SODIMM
Feature: DDR3 PC3-10600
Specs: DDR3 PC3-10600 • CL=9 • Unbuffered • NON-ECC • DDR3-1333 • 1.35V • 1024Meg x 64 •

4) Any suggestions on how to set up my Windows environment, partitioning etc. I plan to leverage VMWare workstation images as much as possible, hence the intention to upgrade the RAM to 32GB. If anybody can share their method of laptop setup that allows ease of vmware image usage, copying etc.

Many thanks in advance for your replies which I eagerly anticipate with excitement.

 

I can't answer all your questions but I think I read somewhere that you can't use the ips screen with the 9800. I could be wrong.

As for ram, I just bought 8 gig sticks from frys. Currently the corsair ram is on sale. 69.99 per 8 gig stick.

Also, the 1600 ram is faster but sometimes people have issues getting it to run at that speed. So up to you if you want to deal with that.

 

According to the spec sheet there, that drive is 12.7mm tall so it will not fit in the M6600. You will need a drive that is 9.5mm tall.

Can't really make a judgement as to whether "any" 9.5mm optical bay drive should work. For the two brands you mentioned, I'm not really familiar with the internals of Apple machines but I know they hide their drives behind a good chunk of aluminum so it wouldn't surprise me if there was something odd about how they are attached that those drive bays rely on. Also I think some Lenovos have a "swappable" drive bay which may be a little bit of a non-standard shape. All that aside... any bay that is designed to fit in a standard 9.5mm optical bay should be fine, I'm sure there are plenty available.

 

1) If you got the touch screen, you do not have an IPS display. With the touch screen, the top panel of the laptop is a little thicker than without (you can see this in Bokeh's review, which has its own thread in this forum), not sure if that will cause trouble when swapping to a non-touch screen, but it sure would keep you from installing the touch screen in a machine that didn't originally have one.

2) You can only use the IPS display with an NVIDIA card. Otherwise it's a matter of preference; the ATi has more raw performance and is cheaper, but the NVIDIA gets you CUDA and Optimus.

 

There is no flickering on the LG LP173WF3 IPS panel. I am looking at it right now.

Keep in mind that it has RGBLED backlighting, so at min brightness white is less than 15 cd/m2. Full brightness is 300 cd/m2. The specs on Dell's site are wrong about the brightness. It says the max brightness is 210, but it really is 300.

Contrast ratio at full brightness is close to 800:1 (.38 cd/m2 black, 302 cd/m2 white). The black level is so low that I have to be careful about light pollution in the room when I measure. At lower brightness levels I am still seeing 500:1.

Color gamut is wider than the U2410 desktop monitor.

Only real consideration is that the panel needs 30 minutes to warm up before you do serious color work. This is normal.