Precision M6400 Owner's Lounge

Just got it in, put my two Patriot SSD's in and set the up as RAID 0. When I tried to setup Vista right away and it seemed like it detected my SSD's. It told me "Windows could not format a partition on disk0" when it started Copying Files.... I then loaded the "F6 drivers" and it started going properly.

 

I'm getting there, so far so good. My only last thing is when I installed the drivers for the 410 Bluetooth module, it got the Wireless USB part setup, but it doesn't see the bluetooth part of it. Weird.

edit: Figured it out. Dell doesn't have the 410 BT drivers on their website. I popped in the system resource CD and it had the right drivers on it. WIN!

 

I know the OS comes with SP1, my question though was the order of installation when you're doing a clean install of the OS. Is it OS-SP1-Drivers-Updates, or OS-Drivers-SP1-Updates?

 

What have I missed?? Last week you were speculating the glass didn't do anything on the E2E screens, and possibly spoiled an otherwise good screen by fixing a plate of glass on top....

I'm not having a go.... I'm just curious as to why you changed your mind.

 

I don't think you understand. SP1 is integrated into the Vista install. to use a algebra equation it would be (Vista + SP1) + Drivers + Updates = done

 

My mistake. The last time I ordered Vista x64 Ultimate, the OS and SP1 came as separate CD's. I assumed they wouldn't package them together. Sorry about that.

 

Well its POSSIBLE that you can't slip stream the SP into the DVD itself in 64 bit but I HIGHLY doubt that. What most likely happened is you got the system just after Dell certified SP1 but before they integrated it into the disk itself so they sent out update disks with the install disks. I know though for a fact that Vista 32-bit disks shipping with consumer models are all integrated on one disk. No need to do anything other then install the OS. If you do have two disks. Use the same equation above. OS first. SP1. Drivers. Then updates.

 

Sounds good, thanks for the clarification. I just checked the bill from TigerDirect, and I ordered it at the end of June 2008 - I don't know where all that is in the timeline of MS's certification, but as they come together now, it won't be an issue. I didn't order it with a computer, btw, just a standalone OS. I used it to upgrade a Dell XP machine to Vista.

 

I've been lurking for sometime now. I received my Covet on 12/10 and I'm in the process of rebuilding it now. Everything seemed fine for the first couple of days then little problems started cropping up. Next thing you know, it will not connect wirelessly but it will connect via the network jack. Next morning, will not connect via network jack, but will via wireless. Thought my router was going bad. Got back to work the next Monday and the Covert nearly disabled the entire 10 floors of my building.

Very disappointing. I hope this reinstall does the trick. I plan on leaving off the Dell Control Point garbage.

Just a couple of notes:
1) Vistas support of docking stations SUCKS. Did M$ through out all the hardware profile goodness? There is no "Undock" option on the start menu.
2) No Cisco VPN client for Vista x64. Cisco, get off your butts and fix this. There is a cient available but it doesn't support PIX hardware.

 

My M6400 is hooked up to a Netgear Gigabit Smart Switch (GS108T). I have other devices attached to this switch that are running fine at 1000Mbs. Unfortunately, my M6400 (which has a Broadcom NetXtreme 57xx gigabit controller) appears to be throttled back to 100Mbs. Any idea why? Shouldn't I be getting 1000Mbs? I'm running 64-bit Vista Ultimate, if that matters.