Precision M6400 Owner's Lounge

And to answer my own question ... bought one, very nice, extremely light with every possible connector for wall/auto/air power.

Although on boot up M6400 says 90W power source (not 120W) and recommends that a 150W power source be used. Machine worked fine, battery was also charged, but was not doing intensive work.

 

Could anyone give me dimensions of the laptop with the 9 cell battery. The only dimensions i could find were

13.1" x 9.37" x 1" - 1.2"

But I would imagine thats with a battery that doesn't stick out the back.

 

The M6400 came with 9 cell battery only, and doesn't stick out the back, there is no way to stick out the back in this model.

 

my mistake, was confusing the e6400 and m6400

 

Anyone had to warranty their nVidia video card yet? They are going to replace my 3700M for the second time. The first time it would overheat and slow down drastically. They replaced it. Now it will just crash out to desktop or lock up completely on any game after 5 - 15 minutes.

Not having good luck with the video. Hope the second replacement works better.

This is all at stock speeds. With the replacement I could get it to work by actually UNDERCLOCKING it to 500mhz. Sad.

-James

 

Well now we officially welcome you to this thread and the unknown, unsolved problem.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=383459&page=5

 

Hi,

I am new to this board and glad that I have found a post/forum dedicated to the M6400 or Precision line. I have two precisions. A M4400 that runs Vista 64bit and a M6400 Covet that is running Windows 7 build 7232. I originally had the M6400 Silver which was specced out like a Covet but they did not install the E2Edge in the build. Then when i tried to get them to fix it they said I could not get it wit 64bit OS and the 12GIG of memory so they took it back and I has to order the Covet to get the specs I wanted. Kinda strange that the M6400 cannot spec out the same as the Covet even though they are the same laptop. No offense but I do not like the Orange cover so they getting me the Silver/Alum due to all the problems I had with the wrong items being shipped. My order/package list states a Edge 2 Edge screen and it didn't ship with it. They need to work on Quality Control.

Anyways I have a question for those with the Covet/M6400. Can you sucessfully get the docking station to function correctly? Upon bootup I get prompt screen telling me it cannot recognize the device I am plugged into and that I need to re-seat the laptop or restart. I have the option to hit ESC to continue. I obviously hit continue but when I do finally boot up which is really slow compared to a non-docked bootup time. The initial bootup with the new docking station didn't result in any new hardware found? Also my E-Sata port is not functional and I have an E-Sata external drive plugged in and it cannot be found. I have tried to turn it off and back on as well as hardware search but could not get it recognized.

I have configured the BIOS for additional settings and they still don't work. A5 BIOS as well.

I cannot get the Dell Control Manager to function properly or install correctly due to driver issues. I get a Smart Card issue that cannot be fixed so far.

My AT&T HSPA connector has issues and I have to install the Vista 64Bit software under OS compatibility mode.

Just wondering if someone has successfully installed all the correct drivers for the M6400 with Windows 7. Did you have to run it all in Vista compatibility mode instead of running it as is?

Just trying to get a handle on Windows 7 64Bit on this machine. I just want 100% functionality or I have to revert back to Vista 64Bit which isn't bad but its not Windows 7.

Thank you for any replies/help.

 

Yes. My FX2700m died completely - Dell replaced the MoBo and CPU before thinking to try the GPU.

The GPU that they replaced it with though, was a dud. It overheated *immediatly* and slowed to a crawl.

Got another new FX2700m and now all is well. See this thread
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=385020

 

I am using the docking station and have no problems with it at all.
I am running Vista x64 with 16Gb ram.

 

I think I have to go back to Vista 64 until Windows 7 has the drivers I need. When docked to the new station it didn't recognize it, it won't recognize E-Sata drive and it takes over 10 mins to boot up now. Now when i take it off the dock and reboot from start it just hangs after the logon and just sits there for over an hour now.

I need the data on the laptop and I can't get to it. Ugh.

Vista 64 was working fine. I was hoping Windows 7 was doing the same. I use the Control Point Software and its a mess with Windows 7.