Precision M6400 Owner's Lounge

What is the value of a 300 dollar piece of glass over the regular RGB screen offered in the 6400? If I understand correctly that's basically what the 'edge to edge' thing is about. And is this thing a bit buggy on any large scale? Seems there's a fair number of comments describing all kinds of problems. And how much longer is XP going to be offered by Dell on their workstations? I need the 6400 now but can wait a little bit if it's having any real issues to iron out for some reason but I have to buy while XPs still available. I've tried Vista and I'm a solid thumbs down on that piece of somthing soft and smelly. I could always get a 6300, which for me is the very best laptop I've owned or seen, in fact I don't know why they don't offer an upgraded 6300 (dual drives, RGB, DD3 memory). For the many that prefer an external number pad and a touchpad in the center where it belongs. And it would require very little on Dells part, just change up a few trays and such.

 

I'm really sick of people complaining about Vista. Basically the irrational complaints usually fall into 4 categories.
-People ing before they used it with SP1.
-People complaining when they are using it on sub standard hardware.
-And people complaining because its different from XP.
-And the Apple and *nix fanbois.

99% of the legit complaints of Vista outside the above can be tracked down to one and only one thing. Its not the OS. Its the idiots developing the drivers for the hardware. And this is not Dell. This is Nvidia. This is the audio driver manufacturer, etc. If you are careful when you reimage this system and pick and choose where you get your drivers (Clue: Its not always best to get it from support.dell.com's site.) Vista can be a highly stable and fast OS.
The simple fact of the matter is XP came out in Fall '01. That puts it just over 7 years old. This is ancient for an OS that is running on current hardware. And the fact is that XP does not utilize the full capabilities of the system because of the age of the OS. From power management, to res independent UI, to offloading more of the UI onto the GPU, to better security, to allowing developers to use more eye candy.
I will be blunt. With the power of this system there is NO way in hell I would ever put XP on a modern system again other then in a VMWare Workstation image and virtualize it. Beyond that. It simply does not make any sense to use an antique OS on a new system. Hell even standby is even more reliable then on XP, as is driver rollback if you need it.

*shrugs* But that's just me.

 

I'm using it with the service pack and still don't like it. There may be problems with drivers but the main problem is the OS> Yes, I am totally familiar with xp and that has some affect on my opinion but really it's the sheer size of the thing, it frags up incredibly fast, treats me like I'm some kind of idiot that needs to give the computer permission every time I open the same program twice in a day and even if you try turning the thing off then it just keeps nagging you to turn it on. I don't need or want a mother or father figure OS and I don't need Gigabytes of junk that collect in it weekly. At 1.5 GB XP is about the size of the eye candy files in Vista. I don't have much problem with it's speed like so many complain of, almost always because they don't have 4GB of memory. No matter how you make the argument Vista is about 80% useless crap that I just don't need or want. And since Microsoft isn't even using Vista in their corporate offices that should tell you something. A company that uses it's 'antique' OS as opposed to it's shiny new bloatware should tell you something. Since you seem to think Vista is such an improvement perhaps you could tell me why. Because I sure as hell can't see anything great at all about it. And since they're spending so much to replace their "New improved" windows almost as soon as it was launched I don't think it's just me and my favoring the 'antique' windows that's Vista's problems.

 

Can we keep this thread about the M6400 and not turn it into yet another xp vs vista debate?

In terms of the drivers there seems to a few problems with the dell stuff. Most people seem to be having luck just wiping all the junk off and re installing vista/xp

Would be good to get an FAQ up and running about all this stuff. From what I can make out pretty much every issue has been fixed now, from the sound issues, to the video card, etc. But all these tips are spread all over the shop.

Regards,
Simon

 

I'm with you, I have the M6400 with XP64, and this is the fastest computer a ever have, and you right about every thing.
My issues with vista is more software compatibility than driver compatibility. I have a D820, that I'd been using with XP without any issues, then decide to upgrade to Vista when SP1 came out, and now that computers slower, I still do not understand why under Vista the HD lit its on almost 90% of the time and all those permission is asking for.
My advise is use the OS that best mach your software, because not all software have been optimize for Vista, and some time Vista remind me Millenium, that when out in less than two years, but Microsoft extend the support for XP for 3 month more.

 

We can not be out of Vista/XP comments for M6400, if you review this forum, you will found more issues under Vista than under XP.
This is a workstation, and most people use this computer with software that cost twice and more we pay for the M6400, and you don't make a "try" with Vista to see if is working well, especially when what you are doing, could cost money to you.
As usual in this forum, this are my thought.

 

every problem has been worked out other than the graphics card. doesnt matter what driver you have or from where, i get crashes with them all. the computer is great other than that though.

 

Sorry about even mentioning Vista, but when I get a "your such an idiot for dissing Vista" as an answer to a totally unrelated question it pisses me off. I was just looking for some detail info and the first answer takes it into that territory. IT WAS THE ANSWER NOT THE QUESTION! that got this thread distracted and as the original questioneer I don't like it either.

 

I am seriously considering the M6400. Can you guys be so kind as to tell me what dells lead times have been lately. Will I receive my machine in two weeks or a month?? THANKS!

 

You know, I happen to think that Vista's alright, overall, but I must say that things really do depend a lot on your hardware, and corresponding drivers. I am running Vista on my M90, and it works and is fast enough, I guess (on a machine with a 2.6GHz dual core and 4gigs of memory), but XP was faster. And don't get me started on Standby: Vista takes a lot longer to wake up from standby on that machine and, in particular, it takes ages to get my network connection back up, which is a nuisance. Plus, I get driver error messages and service shutdowns after waking up, so I cannot really use Standby reliably on Vista anymore, which is a major nuisance.

Again, you are right that this is not Vista's fault, but that kind of thing does get annoying. For me it's really Vista's search capabilities that won me over, but just barely so. Given the time that has passed between the release of XP and Vista, I must agree that Vista has precious little to show; like I said, for me, Vista is a better choice than XP, but only marginally so. I can see why other people feel quite different about its benefits versus XP.

Oh, and of course things look a lot bleaker if you compare the Vista we have with the one that was promised a few years ago.