Precision M6400 Owner's Lounge

I've spent a couple of months following the Outlet store (both before and after my purchase) and they can have four or five machines one day and the next have 50. And I had no problem finding the QX9300 either. I was looking for the X9100 and that was hard to find. In fact I never did looking mainly at the 'no color listed' units. Changing out the wireless card is a five minute chore, and that's if you take your time. The bluetooth is also a card so I imagine it's probably equally easy. The fingerprint reader I wouldn't know about. Seems to me like a gadget that will in time probably cause some kind of problem. I have absolutely no evidence of that but what if your finger gets cut off for example? I think a good password is better than an unnecessary electronic doohicky that you need working just to get into your system. Since I was looking mainly at the 'no color listed' machines I found lots of em had the QX9300. As I said earlier all the no color machines have the 3700GPU and the edge to edge RGB display as well as the slot load CD/DVD.

I just pulled up the outlet page and one of three 'no color' units had a quad core with the 12mb cache but it's not the QX9300 quad, it another one I never heard of running at 2.26ghz. And the 2530 is a duo core.

And finally, I am no expert unfortunately but I did a whole lot of reading on SSDs and almost went with the Intel MLC but as a non expert civil engineer the SLC design sounds like a much better choice even if they are way more expensive. Got the Samsung 64GB SLC because the overwhelming opinion is that SLC drives will last longer and have fewer problems than all the wear leveling differences between the two designs. That opinion was gathered from hundreds of comments made in multiple forums and factory specs and articles and reviews. I just moved 'My Documents' to the 320GB second drive and even with over a hundred installed programs am using only 30% of my 64 gig SSD. But that's just an educated opinion as I have 0 experience in MLC SSDs. But I've read tons of complaints about everything from performance degradation to outright drive failure with the MLCs. Bookmark the Outlet page and check it morning noon and night and you'll find your orange 6400 with the QX9300. It took me around a couple of weeks to find the loaded machine I ended up buying. And it was worth every minute of waiting and shopping for what I ended up with. Good luck!

 

Thank you for all your help.

Although I have to say, the SLC ssd's are cost prohibitive to me right now. I want something between 128 and 256gb, and the largest they make is 120gb...at $1400 on newegg....this sounds like something I would upgrade in the future when prices comes down.

 

gulfstreamtec said,
"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....."

While this generally seems to be true, it is not entirely true. I ordered a 'no color listed' unit from the outlet store and it was silver. You don't find out until after you've purchased the laptop and you get a look at the detailed specs.

 

To see if it is the orange Covet, look at the screen description. While there is an RGBLED option for the silver model, only the Covet has "RGB LED Edge 2 Edge."

 

Sorry for the bad info. I didn't put that theory out until I opened the box and found an orange case. Started looking and every one I looked at had the edge to edge and all the other Covet stuff. Just did the same with the three no color listed machines today and all have the edge to edge RGB screen. But I assumed and you know what they say about assume, it makes an a.ss out of u and me. Oh well. And since I'm full of crap on that one, is there any difference besides the color between the Covet and a similiarly equipped silver 6400? I haven't been able to find one but maybe I'm wrong on that too.

Weird, I keep trying to make an old saying about the word assume and they take the first three letters out every time. It's supposed to be assume makes a 'buttocks' out of u and me. Tenth try and just a period or two and I get to write (more or less)

 

Hi everyone, ive been reading the posts here for a few weeks and its nice to have a resource to come to whenever im wondering why my m6400 is acting up (which is rare i'll admit!). Youve all helped lots, thanks!

Ive had my m6400 for two weeks and it has run absolutely fine without any problems but recently ive been getting a few blue screen (BSOD) errors and I am sure it's a driver problem but I recently found a way to analyse those BSODs which I hope will help someone else. Ill admit this might be all wrong but maybe someone else can add to it.

What I've learned is that everytime your PC has a BSOD it stores information about why it has crashed in something called a DUMP file. If you search your windows directory for *.dmp you might find them. If you analyse that file with windows debug tools here --> http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/default.mspx you can analyse what the most likely cause is.

What I thought was really nice, because im such a newbie, is that the analysis will end with something like "problem caused by: ETC" and tell you the name of the naughty driver that needs updating! Strangely my BSOD was a Drive_IRQ_LESS_THAN_EQUAL and my analysis said it was probably caused by svchost.exe, so im still trying to find out what it could mean, but at least this might help you others!

Veni

 

How did you arrive at that conclusion? Am just curious with all this Outlet store talk and checked Dell U.S. as well as Dell Costa Rica and both silver M6400s have a $599 RGB LED Edge to Edge display option. Did I misunderstand your statement?

 

I'm looking at the US Outlet. The one listed as silver has "17 inch UltraSharp WUXGA (1920x1200) RGB LED Display" listed as the screen option while the ones without a color list "17 inch UltraSharp Wide Screen WUXGA (1920x1200)RGB LED Edge 2 Edge Display" in the system details. Of course, Dell may be less than consistent in how they list the display.

 

Hi take a Look at this (a little outdated) site

http://www.aumha.org/a/stop.php

Thats my first place when i got BSOD Issues

It lists all BSOD Codes and have links to relevant KB Articles

regards
Christopher

 

I'm beating a dead horse at this point but it's the second weird thing that's happened today on this page. This is from the U.S. site but acessed from Costa Rica. The Costa Rica Dell doesn't even sell the Covet but again, for 599 will give you the edge to edge. As you can see I'm not nuts. A little confused but not nuts. I've never uploaded a pic here so if it doesn't appear you'll just have to take my word on it.