Precision M6400 Owner's Lounge

You'll dig it... Enjoy!

 

Have had my Covet for about 4 months now. Couldn't be happier. Haven't been bothered by any of the serious problems mentioned here. Only experienced some minor issues which doesn't bother me much:

1. Keyboard flex (minor)
2. Small red dot in lower left corner of the E2E RBG LED screen (LG)
3. Dell connection manager didn't work after I upgraded it ("Can't connect to service"), but I don't need it anyway. I use Vista's built in WiFi support, and the "Dell/Ericsson Wireless Manager" to configure my 5530 WWAN HSDPA card.

Has anyone tried using the embedded contactless smart card reader?

 

I'm from Norway, and I bought my M6400 with the Dell 5530 WWAN HSDPA card. No service/subscription contract needed. I just inserted my existing SIM card, found the "Internet configuration settings" for my service provider on their web site (I needed to configure the APN and AuthType fields), and it just worked

 

The Dell HSDPA cards are not sim-locked, and you can use any service provider that you want.

In the UK, whilst mine came with a Vodafone SIM and Dell tried to insist that I had to use them, I have so far used Orange and currently T-Mobile. Just change the SIM and off you go.

 

Anybody care to comment on the value of waiting for the Intel Clarksfield to become available instead of purchasing the M6400 now with the QX9300? The thermal profile doesn't look too different (at least for the highest end Clarksfield), but maybe the Turbo clock rate (3.2 GHz) would be useful?

I would assume that the new chips would be implemented in the M6400, although I believe that the socket is different, implying a new motherboard. This could come in handy, though, in the sense that the next generation is supposed to maintain this new socket for plug-in compatibility.

 

I don't get this very common obsessing over RAID0. If what you do is important, you'll be backing up. What's the prob?

In terms of probabilities, you're not even actually doubling the chance of drive failure as either drive is just as likely to fail if in a single-drive situation. And either way, you'll be hosed.

I've run RAID0 on machines which support it when I need performance. On the M6400C's I run two Vertexes. No problems M6400C-wise so far, although a few problems with the drives themselves.

Oh yes - probably a long shot, but has anyone come up with any elegant ways of sticking 3DConnexion (maybe the notebook variant) devices on the unit itself? Or indeed another 3D mouse which has some way to clamp onto a notebook? Sometimes I'm doing something with the machine perched on a non-flat surface and it would be good if the mouse could be attached to the computer.

 

Hey, my second post. I'm pretty certain I'm getting an M6400 within the next few weeks, so I just wanted to run my decisions by all the experts here, and ask a few questions.

First, I can't decide between the Covet and the standard. I love the orange, but for some reason the Covet is priced more (and the nice people at dell aren't telling me why). Might have to find one on dell outlet...

Second, here are the specs I'm almost certain I want:

Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme QX9300
XP 64 bit downgrade (upgraded to Win7 asap)
RGB LED Edge2Edge Display
NVIDIA Quadro FX 3700M
Minimum Ram
Internal Swipe Fingerprint Reader
(don't really care about the webcam)
No Raid
Minimum single hard drive
Intel Wifi 5300 Card
Bluetooth
Maybe Blueray?

The upgrades I would do myself are 4x2gb DDR3 Ram, a 128gb or 256gb (can't decide) SSD, and another 500gb 7200 HDD. (newegg)

Is it easy enough to upgrade all of that? I don't want to break the comp several days after buying it...

This comp will mainly be for school use. I'm an architectural engineering major, so I'm going to be running autocad, 3d modeling programs, and other engineering analysis programs. Also some gaming on the side. Also, this comp will be plugged in most of the time, so I'm far more concerned with performance over battery life.

As well, if someone could tell me the best strategy to get this for minimum cost through dell (I've heard of dell outlet), I'd really appreciate it.

So can you guys tell me what you think? Help me make a couple decisions? I really appreciate it.

 

The orange case will cost a couple or a few hundred bucks because there's no difference between the covet and the silver other than the price (if similarly configured). I have close to the same specs your looking at and got what sure seemed to me like a new computer for less than half price. That was with coupons and they have a 15% one running on Outlet Precisions now. If what I got from the Outlet store is the norm then there's just no other sensible way to buy. A perfect Covet that priced out at 56 hundred bucks for 2200 dollars using an 18% coupon. Even has complete care for 3 years. Mine came with twin 320GB drives and I got a deal on a 64GB Samsung SSD so now have a rocket speed OS with lots of storage. Have windows 7 on a partition and don't like it at all. Vista shaved off about 7GB but still 5GB fatter than my XP. And does nothing more or better so far. Maybe I'm missing all the great new stuff but seeing through the menus ain't worth multi-gigs. Call me old fashioned but it just stinks (IMHO).

If you buy at the Outlet most have a color description which is always silver. The ones that have no color description are the orange ones. It's strange but if you put orange or burnt orange in the search criteria It'll tell you every time it has none, but look at the specs for all the ones with no color listed...they are all EtE RGB with the 3700 GPU and the other Covet stuff. And they have good download manuals that show you how easy changing or adding drives is. I've had not a single problem with mine and it's the coolest and best computer I've ever owned.

 

I have run into a strange problem with my M6400. I am kinda stumped. I would appreciate any advice. For some reason, my machine would BSOD and reboot every time Windows Energy screen saver activates (Vista 64bit Ultimate). I haven't had problems with any other screen saver. I was told by Dell that some system files might have been corrupted on my machine and to re-install the OS. I re-formated my hard drive and re-installed the OS, still has the same problem. Any idea why this might be happening? Thanks.

 

Ok, it looks like the processor I'm looking for (quad QX9300) is a going to be a rarity on the outlet store, so I guess all I can do now is wait and check...

Weird, I'm seeing an Intel Core 2 Duo - 2530, on the "orange" lines, but there's no option for that in the customization page....could that be the quad core at 2.53 ghz?

Does anybody know how easy it is to upgrade the wireless card? And add a fingerprint reader? And add Bluetooth? (this is in case the outlet store laptop comes without those things).