Precision M6400 Owner's Lounge

You will like the M6400 much better than the M90 I think. Backlit keyboard, dual hard drive capacity, numeric keypad, and jog/shuttle for video or whatever else you find it useful for. (you can make it insert smilies in chat if you spin your finger clockwise, and frownies if you spin counterclockwise if you like.)

 

OK, they finally changed the status to "Shipped" on Nov. 30th (2 days ago), but no tracking number is given on the website or over the phone status automated system. It just keeps saying "it os on the way to the carrier" for 2 days in a row now. The joke continues, and it's on me. If this were someone from eBay who just sold me something, I would be cancelling the purchase immediately!

 

Bummed -

My covet will finally be delivered today -- but I won't be home till 12/20 to see it.

If only it had shipped on time -- I would have received it last week when I was home.

So close - yet so far.

 

Anyone want to buy two 160GB, 7200RPM drives from me as soon as I get my Covet delivered? I'm swapping them out for a couple of Solid State drives.

 

im returning mine this friday i didn't think it was wort the money.
Have fun with your.

 

don't worry, i'm sure the wife will have fun with it lol

 

Does anyone know if the belkin displayport to dvi cable now being displayed on Dell's site can support 2560x1600 resolution. I want to power my two 30" Dell monitors with my laptop but i need a displayport to dvi dual-link to do that. I contacted my company's small business gold team and they said "According to my Belkin contact, that cable will work."

i'm hoping someone else can answer a little more confidently than that.

thanks
-Mark P.

 

The DisplayPort to DVI cable does not support full resolution on 30" displays. For that you need a DisplayPort to DualLink DVI cable. These will be available soon. If you have the newer 3008 30" display then you can use DP to DP cable for full resolution.
Mano_G@Dell

 

thanx for the info. i really appreciate it. i wonder when mine will be deliverd

 

Did they actually verify that they're shipping you an M6400 as a replacement to your old M90? That's really too good to be true!

Did the guy who sold you your M90 support package have red skin, horns, cloven feet, or appear in a cloud of flames to make the sale?


BTW if you relied a lot on portability, the M6400 does suffer a lower battery life when configured for high performance. (like everything does.) People with the highest power configurations (quad core, Quadro 3700) report one or two hours but never seem to specify what power profile they are using. I haven't had mine on the battery yet, always plugged in.

There's an extended capacity battery that's now finally available for the M6400. Or at least, now finally says it works with the M6400. It adds an additional 9 cells and I will be buying one as soon as I settle the difficulties I'm having with mine. Configured with a Quadro 2700 and a Core-2 duo that isn't the Extreme, the battery life should go way up.

If I remember correctly, under load the different components use:
Core-2 Extreme: 50w or 55w
Quad Core Extreme: 45w
Core-2 Duo: 35w
(See here for Quadro power use)
Quadro 3700m: 75w
Quadro 3600m: 70w
Quadro 2700m: 65w
Quadro 1700m: 50w
Quadro 770m: 35w


Go by percentages and you'll find that a 3700 with quad core uses 20% more power.

Power profiles are important - my old HP 8710 got about 1.5 to 2 hours on "high performance" but got 4 hours when set to a reasonable battery saver profile that allowed me to work almost as efficiently as high performance in Maya, and was unnoticeable in something like a word processor.