M6600 Owners Thread

ok well I can confirm it is not to do with Premier Colour (I didn't install that as when I checked the "dell build" it shipped with it annoyed the crap out of me in about 2mins. Constantly changing the contrast and stuff to make the screen basically unviewable....)

How Dell think their images are acceptable for anyone to actually use I just don't know. First thing you need to do upon arrival is flatten it and start again with non-retarded settings.

Anyway - I went to the BIOS and took it off of max brightness, then magically the brightness keys within Windows now work. Put it back to max brightness in BIOS and they don't work... put it back to not max brightness in BIOS and the Windows keys work again. Good Job Dell

 

Darn, i wish the was my fix too. Tried your bios adjustments, but no avail.

here is my original write up on dells community forum:

fn brightness key Issue: system | dell m6600 | win 7 64 | nvidia 3000m | Optimus is enabled

Using the hot key "fn+up" or "fn+down" iniates the brightness ui like normal, however no change in brightness and no change in the ui level indicator. It just stays in the same spot.

Also, none of the windows 7 (64 bit ) brightness settings or adjustments sliders effect the brightness either. The sliders just slide without any effect.

Same with the Premier Color application. Slides but no change.

Using the on screen key board doesn't work either.

Every other fn key works like expected, it's just the brightness.

However, I still have brightness control in the bios and it seems the sytem is staying where the bios has been set. For instance if I us ac-power, it is set to the bios brightness on ac, and if i use the battery, it will dim to the bios brightness on battery setting.

This is happening on two dell m6600's.

I just recently updated to the latest whql certified nvidia verde driver on both (ver295) and the Optimus stability has been way, way, way better. Dare i say it's working as expected.

I have tried updating one of the m6600's dell system management to the dell features enhancement pack (which is supposedly the new system management) and still exactly the same, except the ui has been overhauled and resemble a regretable 1990's world of ui design.

any ideas?

reading above, i noticed someone mentioned that maybe having the intel driver from the intel website and not the driver release from the dell website installed might be an issue. Both systems have that intel provided driver installed, so maybe that is the culprit. Shucks... I'll try rolling the driver back on one of the systems and see what happens.

thanks in advance,
Daniel

 

I could well believe that PremierColour (%spit%) is having an impact as suggested by someone else. I don't have it installed and the BIOS change appears to be working. Uninstall it and try again - or do you need it for some reason?

 

You can edit the Dell Power Plan, from control Panel. as long as you are logged in as the computer administrator.

The only 2 items is the "Require Password on wakeup" fixed to "Yes" which can't be changed.

 

Do they not offer it in orange at all now?

I'm only slightly ashamed to admit that the orange was a major reason behind picking it in preference to the equivalent Elitebooks around the time of the M6400 and the 6500... until I switched away from Dell.

The brown is a bit... "accountant" :/

Oh, and one other possibly last question(s).
- Is there a thread / place I can go to to get confirmation (from more than a couple of people) of real-life runtimes in typical Office / Web-type use in Optimus?
- Or alternatively can more than a few of you chime in with real-life runtimes?
- Also, does running apps like Lightroom trigger the GPU? (or is there a way of manually keeping it to the IGP?)

 

Got word from our rep and confirmed it on the Dell site - you CAN now order the AMD® FirePro® M8900 Mobility card with the 17.3" FHD(1920x1080) IPS Panel.

Glad another option is available.

 

Interesting note on Premier color. I as well thought the app was gross at first, but after having saved a profile to control the color and contrast adjustments, it doesn't freak out with awful settings anymore. But like you and countless others have pointed out, what is the value with this program? Seems like a redundant step in color management?

Another solution that worked on my end however:

As was mentioned a bit earlier by someone else in the thread, installing the Intel provided drivers and not the Dell provided driver caused my fn brightness key issue.

I had installed the latest Intel provided drivers because they were more recent (version 8.15.10.2509) to troubleshoot the Optimus issues I was having with After Effects.

So, I re-installed the latest Dell provided release of the Intel graphics driver (r307994, version 8.15.10.2418). The installer notified my that I was installing an older version of the driver, I proceeded.

The fn brightness key is back baby! Ok, so now that I got some satisfaction, does anyone have a hypothesis as to why this would happen? What does Dell do to the driver before they release it on their website besides certify it and wrap it up in their own package installer?

Side note: the system that I tested this on has the LG lcd screen and has suffered from flickering in the past. Well, that is gone too. Lowest brightness setting and no flicker at all. My other system has the AU lcd and it defintely looks better in my opinion and has never had an issue with flickering, but for those of you suffering with the LG flicker, there is hope on that front. It's worth mentioning that this system also has the Dell Feature Enhancements Pack update and not Dell System Management.

All this boggles my mind...

However, the jury is sill out on Optimus and it's stability with After Effects and Mocha AE. After having reverted back on the Dell provided Intel graphics driver it could get whacky again, but I'm hoping the recently updated Nvidia verde driver (295) was all I needed all along....

Fingers crossed.

 

If anyone here has a touchscreen and uses it with the pressure sensitivity enabled in photoshop or illustrator you may have noticed that it creates annoying empty text files named wintab32.dll.

Just grabbed the 12/23/2011 6.177 driver & software update from Downloads & Drivers - N-trig at it appears to have resolved the issue.

 

Back from hiatus and i must say this is a great resource with people from all over the world collaborating and helpin each other out

I am wondering if anyone with the touch screen has tried an antiglare screen protector with any success cuz i think itll help with the glare issue and if not has anyone noticed any scratches from excessive stylus use

 

I recently bought a wacom cintiq and i must say i am very dissapointed in the very prevalent cursor wobble supposedly stemming from electrical inerference

I was wondering if anyone has experienced a similar issue with the stylus on the touch screen is there a jitter when u keep the pen still or when u draw does it glitch and leave uneven bumps as u go any experience with similar issues or those with no issues would be great