Precision M6400 Owner's Lounge

On the topic of getting a covet from the outlet store.

I think what has happened is "in the beginning", you needed to order the covet from dell do get the edge-to-edge LED LCD. Now I think that screen has become an option on the regular model on dell's site.

So at one point you could use that to figure out if you were getting a covet from the outlet store, now that newer non covets are coming back with those screens, you can't be sure either way anymore.

I for one got in on the outlet store months ago, and did get a covet. Personally I would say the orange case isn't that big of a deal, as mine at least not percisely fit (bottom left side of keyboard) anyway.

-James

 

Is anyone using the dock for the m6400?
Does it work ok? I read people having problems with overheating when conected to it.

Thanks

 

Do any of the E docks have a place for another hard drive like the D docks have? If none do I don't move the 6400 around enough to justify it. Every thing I have read in this forum is people with problems with them. But I sure would like to find some kind of cover for the dock connection. Anybody know if one exists?

 

I havent had any serious problems using the dock so far. Occasionally the grahics mess up (like once a month) but a reboot fixes that. And while it runs pretty hot I´ve never had any crashes due to it while docked.

 

Hi everyone,

I was just wondering about the fact that there is alot of talk about the screens and all i've really heard about the best use of them is photoshop and maya etc. I know for a workstation it might seem odd to want to do do anything on it entertainment wise but im sure we've all wondered how good bluray would actually look on it?

I know at the moment the internal drives are too expensive to justify a purchase, but what about external usb bluray drives? would they reproduce the video smoothly enough for you to enjoy the experience? has anyone tried?

I have watched a few 1080p clips on this 17" WUXGA and im really impressed!

Veni

PS.Thanks for the stop codes tanis, thats a great resource for my bookmarks

 

I've thought about buying an eSATA optical drive case and a BluRay drive for it. Should be much faster than using the USB plug.

 

Yeah get the 5.25" external enclosures w/esata & usb 2.0 for optical bays and get a desktop internal blu ray drive, voila.

 

While on the topic of the esata connector, does anyone know that if you list to boot to USB if that includes the esata? It recogonizes the drive I have connected but can you boot from the esata in any way and how do you do it? If setting it to USB won't work is there any place to put the esata on the boot menu? I thought esata was capable of transfering 3.5GB per second but this one sure doesn't. Mine is much faster than the USB but not by the specs I read on them. Am I missing a setting or registry hack to speed it up? It'd be nice to have my second OS on that instead of the second internal drive.

 

Hi guys!
Is there a simple way to install Windows XP and keep the AHCI bios setting? I'm using vista at the moment but want to install XP, so during XP installation a message comes up saying something like no hard drives detected or something like that and i cannot proceed with installation. When i changed AHCI to ATA, XP installs OK but i cannot use the eSata port, i cannot even install Intel Matrix driver. So how do i install XP with AHCI on my M6400. I've tried to google and it appears that i need to burn another cd with XP plus some drivers. Is there another way?
Thanks very much

 

The only ways for installing XP with AHCI are a Setup-CD with integrated drivers (you can do that easily with tools like nlite or winfuture XP IsoBuilder) or the drivers on a floppy disk. Hitting F6 during install allows you to select one of the drivers on the floppy disk.

regards
Christopher