Precision M6400 Owner's Lounge

i have been trying to install the drivers for the Broadcom USH, but for some reason you have to download them and install them from a bootable usb key. i have tried to make my usb key bootable but it is not working. does anyone have a good link to make this work? or a link to drivers that dont need to be installed from a bootable usb key?

 

Just to clarify. You are talking about the firmware for the USH device, not the driver. The driver is included in the control point security driver!

 

correct, the firmware.

 

Hey all,

Just got my Dell Covet M6400. Current contractor couldn't finagle reimbursement for my HP HDX18t so it went back and this is its replacement. Immediately wiped the stock OS install to put a fresh one on (considering for some reason the install had old drivers from months back). Installed the modded 180.48 drivers under XP 32-bit (System was Vista Ultimate with XP Pro downgrade). All development work I'm doing is under XP (virtualized line processors for transactions.)

So far, so good. Only gripe so far are the edge corners when typing. My shoulders are very wide, so my arms angle in when typing and tend to rest on the corners and they are a tad sharp.

3DMark06 score of 12171 (No overclocks of any sort), is pretty impressive for a single card notebook. FX3700 packs a major punch. Excellent build and the screen is much better than I could ever imagined..very lush and vivid.

And yeah, the AC Adapter is pretty, um, meaty.

 

great, to update my own question...there is a new system software update from dell available. this installs a few things, including the firmware for the broadcom ush. also, there is a new driver for the audio, no more hickups during startup. there is a new update for the wireless card, which was slightly problematic at times too. really hoping dell comes through with a qraphics driver update certified by autodesk soon so i dont feel compelled to return this thing when my 30 days runs out.

 

I am quite unhappy with my new M6400 Covet. I have had issue after issue with the machine since I received it two weeks ago. Unfortunately, I have another one on the way (will deliver tomorrow). I am strongly considering boxing them both up and sending them back.

Here are my list of issues (seems to be common per this thread):
- BSOD endless reboot cycle when I ran Windows update
- Slow booting compared to my M6300 machine
- nvlddmkm video driver crashes (extra awesome when doing presentations - had to bust out the M6300 to continue the presentation - kinda hurts the selling when the crashing happens)
- Choppy windows starting/closing
- GoToMeeting locks up machine entirely - no mouse, no keyboard, nothing... extra awesome when trying to work remotely
- Squeaky keyboard (annoying... thought it was just me... but someone else mentioned it so I will too...)
- Hard drive constantly flashes (RAID 1)... even when not doing anything for some time... maybe it has to do with the two 250GB, 7400RPM-ish drives being from different manufacturers... I understand that is extra awesome for Raid 1 - two different spool up speeds.
- Can't use the webcam as I understand that it has major driver issues, including most of the BSOD problems with Windows update - IRQ conflicts?!?!? Please... this is 2008 man...

I use Autodesk Inventor and GoToMeeting daily. The lack of video driver support for this "CAD workstation equvilalent" is unacceptable. Sorry for the rant... I will save the rest for Dell... calling them in a moment...

Just wanted to log my frustrations and report my issues with the M6400. I think there are more than just a few who are having these issues - as the Audodesk users spool up, the video issues will mount. Hopefully, this thread willl get Dell's attention.

I REALLY WANTED THIS MACHINE TO BE AS AWESOME AS I EXPECTED IT TO BE!!!

My M90 and M6300 are tanks... Just not as strong of specs as the M6400.

Well... I'll see if I can convince customer support now to make it right ASAP... wish me luck! :-D

George.

 

Here are my list of issues (seems to be common per this thread):
- BSOD endless reboot cycle when I ran Windows update
I got that one too on the last update set.
- Slow booting compared to my M6300 machine
I didn't get this one - mine boots pretty fast.

- nvlddmkm video driver crashes (extra awesome when doing presentations - had to bust out the M6300 to continue the presentation - kinda hurts the selling when the crashing happens)
I got these when running Maya. Turning power saving off seemed to make them go away for the most part. (blech.) You might consider reinstalling it from the OS CD. I've had tech support point me to 32-bit drivers for 64-bit windows... I suspect they had some kind of problem with their release image.

-EDIT- Specifically, in case you didn't see my other thread, it was the PCI Express Power Saving Mode (or something close to that - it was specifically related to the PCI-E bus. The card's PowerMizer might be separate. It was not related to the CPU power saving thankfully. So tweak your power profile and see if that helps.)

- Choppy windows starting/closing
Have not noticed this one on mine. Unless... Are you talking about windows itself starting? Or starting and closing programs? I got extremely choppy audio when windows starts, made my new $4600 laptop look like a POS to everybody present. Very embarrassing. I uninstalled the Dell ControlPoint Connection Manager and it went away.

BTW I found out the ControlPoint Connection Manager is a 450MB behemoth whose job it is to... connect you to the internet? And let you set which wifi turns off with the switch? Seriously Dell? It's larger than the software the film industry uses to animate their digital characters!

- GoToMeeting locks up machine entirely - no mouse, no keyboard, nothing... extra awesome when trying to work remotely
I got those lockups running AfterEffects, Premiere Pro, and Audition CS3, out of the box. I again suspect some kind of bad Dell image. Reinstalling from CD and installing the drivers manually got at least AfterEffects running. (Haven't tested the others - deadlines on an AfterFX project!)

- Squeaky keyboard (annoying... thought it was just me... but someone else mentioned it so I will too...)
My keyboard is pretty good. It has slightly less travel than a desktop keyboard but that doesn't bother me. I get no flexing / squeaking. (So a replacement may very well fix that.)

- Hard drive constantly flashes (RAID 1)... even when not doing anything for some time... maybe it has to do with the two 250GB, 7400RPM-ish drives being from different manufacturers... I understand that is extra awesome for Raid 1 - two different spool up speeds.
THAT one is Vista. Many people have tried to make that stop happening, few have come back alive and sane... It could be any one of: Search Indexing service, BITS grabbing windows updates, system restore -slash- "previous versions" making shadow copies (still haven't worked out what MS did to those), or even a third party program downloading its updates. I guess we all just have to face it, idle hard drives are a thing of the past.

You can run drives from different manufacturers just fine in RAID far as I can tell. You might lose a few dozen megs of space, but that would only be because one manufacturer might have had more space than the other. I got a pile of 200GB drives in Raid-5 a few years back, half Maxtor half WD, and one brand had something like 202GB while the other had 200 on the dot. Now, I SUPPOSE it's possible I would have gotten better performance if I hadn't... the Raid-5 did not perform as highly as I thought... but I built a 12x250GB 7200rpm SATA raid-50 server for network video editing for another guy, all the same manufacturer and model, and it barely got much speed up on my machine. So I figured that either A: my expectations of Raid-5 were too high, or more likely B: RAID performance is highly limited by spin speed.

Either way I think the "same manufacturer" recommendation is just for companies with huge arrays who have found that having everything the same helps them notice patterns and troubleshoot. And/or the typical paranoia that goes along with dropping millions of your boss's dollars on a system that you're putting together...

- Can't use the webcam as I understand that it has major driver issues, including most of the BSOD problems with Windows update - IRQ conflicts?!?!? Please... this is 2008 man...
I'm not having difficulties with the webcam other than it being of poor quality.

I use Autodesk Inventor and GoToMeeting daily. The lack of video driver support for this "CAD workstation equvilalent" is unacceptable. Sorry for the rant... I will save the rest for Dell... calling them in a moment...
I absolutely agree... Dell seems not to understand that different apps have qualified different drivers! They can't just pick one, especially since according to everyone I've talked to, they do NOT have a team who tests software on the laptops. So they haven't even picked a driver that they know works on all apps, they've just picked one.

According to someone I spoke with at NVidia, there is a gradual push going on to make sure that OEMs will never have to modify drivers again, and can do whatever it is they want to do through an API. Also according to someone I spoke to at Dell, they don't do a whole lot to the drivers, and he says people have good success downloading the ones from the nvidia site.

Now... Those won't install perfectly off the bat. But if you modify the INI file along with instructions you'll find on laptopvideo2go.com, you can get the drivers from nvidia to load. What remains to be seen is, will the backlight still turn off with lid close event? Other than that I've identified the nvidia-direct drivers include PowerMizer support (though you might have to set a flag in the INI) and there isn't really anything else obvious that Dell could have put in.

Just wanted to log my frustrations and report my issues with the M6400. I think there are more than just a few who are having these issues - as the Audodesk users spool up, the video issues will mount. Hopefully, this thread willl get Dell's attention.
It strikes me that my issues were also with an autodesk product. (Maya to be exact.) That's when I got the nvdldmddmdm problems. (sp?) Hmmm.


My M90 and M6300 are tanks... Just not as strong of specs as the M6400.
You know what, my HP 8710w functioned nearly perfectly also. What needs to be found out is, is it the newer hardware that has issues? Or is it the way that Dell has assembled it? If I had a lot more time than I do have, I might scope out the Lenovo and HP forums and see if people report the nvlmmdummdumm problem there too. (I love that error. Matched only by one I got from AfterEffects: "The licensing system has suffered a catastrophic failure. Reinstall or contact support." Great! So the licensing is broken! Guess I can't run my software cuz Adobe can't make sure it's mine!

Incidentally the new Lenovo release is pretty competitive with the M6400. It has an LED to light the keyboard in the dark, and in place of the jog/shuttle it has a slightly more useful built-in palmrest Wacom tablet. (Wacom branded even.) I need large amounts of RAM though, and I have a separate Cintiq, so the four slots of RAM won over the built-in Wacom.

 

"You know what, my HP 8710w functioned nearly perfectly also. What needs to be found out is, is it the newer hardware that has issues? Or is it the way that Dell has assembled it? If I had a lot more time than I do have, I might scope out the Lenovo and HP forums and see if people report the nvlmmdummdumm problem there too."

Just to chime in on this one.. I've been keeping a close eye on the Hp 8730w Laptop for some time, it's either the dell or the Hp for me. Too be honest the Hp 8730w hardly has any error threads going. And the people I've talked to that own one haven't had a single problem.
I really wanted to get the Dell m6400 but day after day I'm hearing problem after problem. The Hp doesn't seem to have any of these issues from what I can make out.

Regards,
Simon

 

Well, after looking at the HP-section - there are no 8730w-threads at all.

 

And you think that's a bad sign?