Precision M6400 Owner's Lounge

Anyone else have this problem?

System boots, posts the bios fine. Once it gets ready to boot the OS, I get a No bootable device. Press F1 to search again, or F2 to enter setup. F1 works everytime. I ran several diagnostics, but did not run them all (needed to work to get paid - need to pay this thing off now).

Any thoughts?

 

Same here, seems that some of the M6400s has this Problem.
This also happens to me randomly, i use the Tool EasyBCD to rewrite the MBR(Vista bootloader) you can find it here. After i have done this it works for a while.

I found some Postings in the DELL Forum about a user with the same issue.
He (and Dell) tried nearly everything to get rid of this:
Change the Raid Levels from off, 0 and 1
Change the Mainboard
Change the HDD
nothing works
so i gues this is an Vist64 issue.

regards Christopher

 

Replying to the previous two posts. I may be completely off-base here.
If you have two hard drives and got away from any raid setup, try going into bios and uncheck the idle hard drive from the boot sequence screen.

 

Here's some bad news (for you). I picked up my Covet off the outlet site for 45% off the same configuration on the main dell site.

I figure, if I can wait a couple months after a model comes out, I'm never going full retail again.

I feel bad for you man, in this economy, selling a premium laptop like that, prepare to get bent over, especially when the outlet has such good deals.

Suggestion: Sell a body part instead.

 

Someone asked before but it didn't get answered. Can someone with the Blu-Ray drive post the part number? It can't be that hard to pop it out of the bay and look at it.

-James

 

Tried - unchecked all but the windows drive.

Doubt it. I can hit F12 and boot the drive fine. It is most definitely some sort of bios posting issue, or small percentage it is a Raid Controller or HDD issue.

Case

 

Shure but why doesn't it come up after rewriting the MBR (BCD) for a while?
Something must make changes to the BCD or destroy it in a way, that the BIOS can't use it anymore.

regards

 

What config did you get and what was the price ?

 

Patients is a virtue, checking the outlet site for a couple weeks, I finally found an EDGE to EDGE RGLED quad core. I believe the EDGE to EDGE must mean Covet, because the M6400 I got has the orange case. No where in the description did it say Covet however. It was also not easy to get, I was checking a couple times a day. Most of the systems were all base configurations and there was no option to specify "Covet" directly.

The Price configured on Dells retail site was about $5100 sans shipping & taxes.

At the time, 2/4/2009, this is the config and price of what I ordered.

Item Description:

-- Precision Mobile Workstation M6400 Laptop: Intel Core 2 Quad QX9300 (2.53GHz, 12M L2 Cache, 1066MHz FSB) Genuine Windows Vista Ultimate
Unit Price: $2,879.00
Quantity: 1
-- Precision Mobile Workstation M6400 Laptop: Intel Core 2 Quad QX9300 (2.53GHz, 12M L2 Cache, 1066MHz FSB)

-- Certified Refurbished
-- No Modem
-- NVIDIA Quadro FX 3700M, 1.0GB Discrete
-- Intel WiFi Link 5300 802.11a/g/n Draft Mini Card
-- Service Software
-- Power DVD Software
-- 9 Cell Battery, Primar
-- 210 AC Adapter
-- Genuine Windows Vista Ultimate
-- Back-lit Keyboard
-- 4 GB DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz (2 DIMMs)
-- No Fingerprint Reader
-- 125V Power Cord
-- 160 GB Free Fall Sensor Hard Drive (7200RPM) 2nd Drive
-- 160 GB Free Fall Sensor Hard Drive (7200RPM)
-- Dell Wireless 410 Bluetooth Module +UWB
-- 17 inch UltraSharp Wide Screen WUXGA (1920x1200)RGB LED Edge 2 Edge Display
-- 8X DVD ± RW w/dbl layer write capability
-- Roxio Creator DE

-- Prec M6400: 3Yr Basic Ltd Warranty and NBD On-site Service (Included In Price)
Unit Price: $0.00
Quantity: 1
Total Price: $0.00

Subtotal: $2,879.00
Shipping and Handling: $69.00
Total: $3,149.94

I threw in another 4 GIGS for $77, and a couple 320GB WD 7200RPM drives.

I love this thing. For the money I couldn't turn it down.

-James

 

Wow, jmacdonald801, congrats, thats a super deal !

Since you spent so much time on outlet, whats there new arrivals pattern ? When do new laptops come in ? Which days ?

Also, why didnt you get accidental protection ? Its only $135 or so, and IMHO well worth it for a $3000 system