New M6500 Discussion Thread

theZoid,



Yes, you just have to change to “ AHCI Mode ” before you do a clean install that’s all.

aka.Flux,



You need to be in " ACHI Mode " for Trim to work.






I hope this helps,

 

It worked for me with just changing it to AHCI and NOT reinstalling windows. You can give it a try. if you get a BSOD, just change it back.

My system came with teh Samsung SSD with the newer firmware. It was not set to AHCI in the bios, so I went and set it. rebooted, in windows, it found new hardware, then I rebooted again.

Trim seems to be working fine as well. I was concerned that it would not since it did not have AHCI set at time of install.

 

afternoon chaps,

I have a question. I am considering the M6500 due to its professional build. I am a technical professional who will likely be using lots of VMs on the system so the i7 and up to 16GB of RAM is very appealing, as is the dual disk bays.

Unfortunately I also have a bit of a gaming habit I mainly play, Warcraft, Supreme Commander, CS:Source, Left for Dead, etc. Nothing cutting edge, but its not old school either.

My question is really how will the ATI FirePro M7740 handle it being a "workstation" card and not optimised for gaming? According to NotebookCheck (http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-FirePro-M7740.18791.0.html) it uses GDDR5 and scores a *very* respectable 17k on 3DMark05 which leads me to believe it would be great... but benchmarks are never the same as actual gaming experiences so I'm wondering if you guys can help

Anyone play any of the games listed above that can post a few words on how well it performs? The number one game is ofc WoW - as long as it "pwns" WoW I can cope and will likely place my order asap

Thanks all

EDIT - I should probably point out that I have discounted the Alienware M17x. I have already owned it... great piece of kit, but imo the SLI configuration is more trouble than its worth and the battery life was <1hour generally. I got a full refund on the system due to the DPC latancy issues and don't plan to buy the revised "fixed" version. Nice machine but too many problems for my liking and it weighed about the same as my car The M6500 appears significantly lighter and a wee bit smaller as well - which would be welcome.

 

Hello, my name is Dani.

I have just bought a M6500 and I am pretty happy with it from now. The laptop came 3 days ago.

Questions:

- I have put 2 (dell) samsungs ssd 256 gb in raid mode. It give me a sustain 150 mb/sg ratio with hdtunepro. Is it not very low for being a raid 0 with two ssd?

- How I could know the firmware of the harddrives? What firmware I should have for not destroing my drives writing all the time with the raid?

Thank you very much in advance!!

 

Put my new order in on Friday, Should go out to Dell this coming week.
I originally wanted the Covet, If for no other reasons to shut up the Mac users I know.
But the Glass screen, more money, the USB3 not available at this point &#8230;..
So it&#8217;s another gray laptop for me&#8230;.

M6500 Mobile Workstation for Quad Core Processors w/ USB 3,
Windows® 7 with XP mode
Intel® Core&#8482; i7-920XM Extreme Edition 2.00GHz 8MB
8.0GB, DDR3-1600MHz SDRAM, 4 DIMMS
Quadro® FX 3800M
256GB Mobility Solid State Drive
FIPS Certified Fingerprint Reader
17" Wide Screen WUXGA RGBLED LCD Panel w/ integrated camera and mic
Dell 365 Bluetooth 2.1 and Dell Ulta Wide Band 420
8X DVD+/-RW Slot Load w/Roxio and Cyberlink PowerDVD&#8482;
Contactless Smart Card Reader
Intel® WiFi Link 5300 802.11a/g/n Draft Mini Card
210W/240W switchable Slim 3P A/C Adapter

$4,836.00

I have a OCZ Agility Series OCZSSD2-1AGT250G for the second drive.
My first exclusively solid state storage computer&#8230;Sweet!!!

 

Are the OCZ drives certified for the 6500?

 

I'm running Sins of a Solar Empire and World of Warcraft at native 1280x800 resolution on medium settings on my Vostro 1220 12 incher with an integrated intel x4500HD graphics chip. Runs smooth.

The Precision with ANY graphics card is a no brainer for gaming.

 

Any word on how Dell is going to help us early adopters to USB 3.0?

 

Hi Gazpachete,




Trim will not work in RAID; you will have to switch to ACHI Mode, in order to use Trim.



ACHI: SATA is configured for AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) mode, which offers faster performance, eSATA support and increased battery life. This mode requires an additional storage driver which Windows 7 should install automatically after reboot, and TRIM is supported in ACHI Mode & Windows 7.



IRRT (Dell Default): SATA is configured to support IRRT (Intel’s Rapid Recovery Technology); This mode supposedly supports AHCI mode features as well as disk mirroring (RAID-1). IRRT allows data backup and restoration. This mode is primarily for RAID; TRIM is not supported in RAID.


If you compare the two, you will see the benefits of ACHI Mode.


If you haven’t performed a clean install of your system, switching to ACHI Mode is easy just go into your BIOS > System Configuration > SATA Operation > and just select ACHI, that’s it your done.

As far as your Samsung 256GB firmware (FW) update, see attached Samsung 256GB & 128GB FW Update ReadMe.pdf, click on the Firmware Version Bookmark in the pdf to check and see if you have the latest version of the firmware. And click on the ACHI or ATA Mode Bookmark. This pdf is from Samsung so read the entire pdf.


To see what version of the firmware, you are running.

Go to Device Manager > Disk Drives > Locate your SSD > Double-click your SSD
and go to the Drivers Tab look at the Driver Version, compare and update
if needed.



This is the latest firmware for the Samsung 256GB & 128GB SSD’s and there is a good amount of usual information on this webpage as well.


You will need something like rocketfish it’s a hard drive enclosure kit.
Just Google: 2.5 hard drive enclosure kit


Before you update your firmware you should Burn an image of your primary hard drive C: drive to an external hard drive. I like Acronis True Image Home 2010 you can buy it just about anywhere. You can
download free trial of Acronis True Image Home 2010 at the bottom of the webpage.
Just Google: Acronis True Image Home 2010


You can buy, Acronis True Image Home 2010 -> Dell Only price for $35.95 that's a good price.




Some of the other BIOS settings I am working on read my post#2356
feedback on the pdf is welcome, we all will benefit from good BIOS settings
Thank You.





I Hope This Helps,

 

YBcold asks...
Are the OCZ drives certified for the 6500?

I don't think so,
I have OCZ left over from another project.
I thought I'd put it in and one of two things will happen!
M