Precision M6400 Owner's Lounge

Windows Update is imo, THE biggest performance obstacle for a laptop. You can spend hundreds upgrading hardware to get better performance, only to watch the next Windows "patch" suck it right up.

If I weren't a .NET developer, I'd own a Mac.

I wish you luck in resolving the boot time. Report back if you are successful.

 

I'm a .NET developer myself.

I'm up and running now that the security suite is disabled. Screen should be replaced this week.

 

Glad to see more are shipping and arriving. Has anyone actually received a Covet model yet? Mine is scheduled to ship in the middle of November.

 

I have never seen any significant performance degradation, let alone anything as dramatic as what the poster above reported, after any Vista patch, and I apply them religiously. I have seen problems with the TPM-related (security) software that was mentioned. First of all, on my M90, after I enabled the TPM module, on reboot the machine spent a couple of minutes in POST alone, but only on the first boot. Second, you may want to check the configuration of your TPM Suite (probably Embassy). If you still get these slow boots, try to disable the startup items related to the security suite first. Otherwise, Dell support may be a good idea...

 

Oops, sorry, saw this one just now...

 

I'm on XP. I was speaking generally.

 

Hi folks, I received and am using my M6400 now. The build quality is great and, unlike the prior poster, I have no problems with the quality of the keyboard. The screen is fantastic too. I do have one issue though -- I ran HDTune and got an average speed of 90MB/s. This is fast, but I have dual Samsung SSDs in RAID 0 configuration. I would have expected the average speed to be higher, especially considering that NBR's review of the M6300 with SSD recorded speeds as fast as 150 MB/s. The fastest I got was 125. Anyone have any idea why this is? I am running Windows XP SP3 32bit. Thanks!!!

 

Does the keyboard flex?

Dragos

 

I would like to know the same. As I said in my comments, compared to the M6300, the keyboard has a significant amount of flex. I have 2 M6300s, 2 E1705s and an XPS 1330. I thought the XPS 1330 had the most amount of flex until I received the M6400.

 

man you guys are soo lucky.. i ordered mine on the 16/10 and have to wait untill the 8/12/2008 arrrg..... Your order is in production as of 17/10/2008 how annoying is that!!!

i wanted to order 2 hd in raid but the system + rep could not configue the covet in that way.. so looks like i will have to buy the drive myself and set the laptop up...

quad core galore here i come..!!! aahhhh... can;t wait...