Precision M6400 Owner's Lounge

I have a very serious problem with my M6400 that I noticed this weekend. I've spent quite some time hammering the spacebar levelling my sham...I mean working on a very important project and even tho I was wearing earphones I could hear the spacebar squeaking enough to almost drive me insane come Sunday.

Unless I hit the spacebar dead on center its making a really squeaky sound. No other key has the problem. Since I've already got the keyboard replaced once (due to a loose key) I thought I'd check if anyone else have this problem before I get this one replaced as well. So anyone elses keyboard has a squeaky/noisy spacebar?

 

I can't say I have, or at least have noticed. If I do, and I begin to notice it, I'm going to sue you !

Sounds like something that can be fixed quite easily. My keyboard does have what I consider a large amount of flex though. When I press, say the M key, I can see all the keys above and around it move, including the number keys 3 levels above it.

 

Is anyone using the M6400 for recording audio with Nuendo, Pro Tools, Sonar etc?

If so, how is the firewire connection? Is throughout good enough for a firewire soundcard like the RME Fireface? Can you get low latency?

 

Note that you can run CHKDSK off the CD if you boot to it and go into the repair console.

 

Saaweeeet! Thank you for this tid-bit of info. This will definitely come in handy some day!

 

The only catch on this idea....is that most HD manufacturers have a longer warranty then Dell has on this laptop. As an example my Seagate has a 5 year manufacturer warranty on the 160GB drive that I have. The only caveat to the warranty though is I'm willing to be Dell's turn around time is faster then Seagate, WD, Toshiba, etc.
I don't know what memory's warranty is; however general rule of thumb is that there is at least a 1 year warranty and generally after 1 year worth of burn in since there are no moving parts if memory hasn't failed, and it doesn't get overly hot, it should be fine long term. I've actually made the decision to go 360GB + 360GB in a RAID0 config with an external eSATA in a RAID 1 config and ship with 4GB in 2 slots and upgrade to 8GB with a third party. Why not just go 2 GB and then add 6GB more? Because I like to have matched memory brand in the slots.

But that's me

Add some WD-40 http://www.wd40.com/

*ducks as someone throws a mouse at his head*

 

That is what was enabled by default by Dell in the bios. If i change to AHCI, my system wont boot. If i have to, I will reinstall. Can someone with a single HD setup check the setting in the bios for me?

I have enabled install VT-x, but kept VT-d disabled as it was causing performance issues, and im not sure it is used by Type 2 hypervisors. I think VT-d is a Type 1 hypervisor technology. Can someone verify this for me as well?

 

Thanks. Keyword "beta" SP2 explains what I needed to know.

 

Were all your errors from the factory install?
Hard to belive Dell is shipping these with such errors.

 

I couldn't tell by the driver names, because they are so cryptic.
You might want to enable logging for one startup and inspect the log.
That is another reason I was trying to get others to run a ScanDisk and see if it works. To enable logging:
http://www.watchingthenet.com/how-to-enable-boot-logging-for-fixing-startup-problems-in-windows.html

Thanks!