Precision M6400 Owner's Lounge

Right, my Covet arrived 30 mins ago.

First, this machine is BEAUTIFUL. Those worrying about the orange being too, well, orange, don't worry - It is very dark, metallic orange, almost red. Most people would say copper. Build quality is great. There is some keyboard flex, but I'm not sure if that is going to be a problem as I haven;t used it enough to decide. Screen looks pretty good thus far, but I haven't done anything with it (It actually looks like digital vibrance is on even though it isn't). Will post pics later.

Now the bad -
The machine has been running for 5 mins, and already one service (DCM?) has crashed, and the machine bluescreened when trying to connect wirelessly to my router. It will not connect to my router claiming a database error - that the profile already exists. Pretty pathetic when a machine can't connect wirelessly out of the box. It won't even let me switch to letting windows configure wireless....

Additionally I have the sound stuttering issue that others have attributed to the fingerprint reader.

Frankly those who are waiting may well benefit from having these issues ironed out when the machine arrives.

 

CONGRATS!!! on your new toy. Check to see if you have the latest BIOS loaded - if not maybe that will resolve the sound stuttering issue.

R U planning on doing a clean install? When I get mine -- 1st thing I am going to do is a clean install without all the Dell stuff and update windows with all the most recent hotfixes and patches. Simply the operating system and related drivers. I think that this is the only way to begin to isolate the cause of the issues.

Enjoy your new machine! I'm jealous. I expect mine to arrive end of week - beginning of next. Unfortunately i won't be home till 12/21 to see it. Hazards of being a consultant and being on the road.





I'm still waiting on mine. It is in the "boxing" stage -- and has been for 2 days now.

 

Just to update- I managed to get the Intel wireless working by deleting and reinstalling the drivers from the resource CD. I haven't had any more bluescreens thankfully.

The screen is great, and I haven't seen any refresh problems as yet suggesting it'll be fine for gaming too. Perhaps the matte screen would have suited me better, but I can live with the glossy I think. The screen is more than bright enough to compensate I think, but I'll see when I use it during the day in bright rooms.

 

I bet we'll be in boxing stage til the quoted ship date. 16 more days for me

Hell, I can head to Texas & pack it myself if they're short on warehouse staff...

 

Mine arrived yesterday (UK). Big, beautiful, solid and very very fast. No issuses yet with anything out of the box (12GBram, quadcore) Vista64 runs without a hiccup and found the wireless lan easily.

I only ordered one SSD and will need to add another HDD for work and don't intend to raid these. What's the general advice for which 7200 drive to add?

 

Quick question:-

I set up the fingerprint reader, but had to set a bios password and windows password, and now have to scan twice to get back in. Is there any way to reduce this to one?

Cheers.

 

I've got a WD 320GB 7200RPM Scorpio Black (with free-fall sensor) to put into mine when it a arrive.

 

Yes - you could set the bios password so that it just wants confirmation on a change rather than on boot - or you could disable your windows password.

At the moment, you have 2 passwords in operation (bios & windows) - you just happen to have set them both to be the same (one of your fingers).
You, I guess, could have used a finger for bios another for windows.

 

Hello all,

I quick question about the display port. I've read that Dell sell a Display Port -> HDMI adaptor. Is that correct?

My question is.. Will this pass the audio to the HDMI? Or would I need another cable? I take it the M6400 has a digital audio out if I need to use that?

I wish these guys would just pay up and provide HDMI! It's there flagship laptop and you have to mess around with converters, etc!

Any help here would be great!
Regards,
Simon

 

Simon, I don't believe it passes through audio. I have one of the adapter though, and will try it shortly.

Manic Guitarist, thanks for the answer. The other main problem I have is that the inbuild mic doesn't work UNLESS I quickly plug something into the line-in, at which point it works for a few minutes then stops.... Anyonehave any ideas? I can't seem to find a way to enable the webcam either....

There are quite a few issues on this machine it seems. Another example; I was trying Left 4 Dead to see how it games. It seemed to work very well, apart from the system freezing for a few seconds every so often when it plays a sound....