Dell Precision M6700 Owner's Review

Interested forums members might notice that I asked a more detailed version of this question and received absolutely no informative replies in the M6700 Owner's Thread on 09-08-12 at 8:31 PM. (One response in that thread on 09-09-12 at 07:49 AM contained no info not already provided in my detailed question.) Please, any informative responses are very welcome/appreciated!

Also, in case anyone missed it, I am looking for reports (anecdotal, reviews, etc.) of the most reliable 750 GB 2.5 internal hard drive to use as secondary storage along with a 256 GB SSD 2.5 Samsung 830 for primary storage. I currently have the Seagate Momentus. Can anyone comment on it - good or bad? I have heard good and bad stories about both the Seagate Momentus 750 GB and the Western Digital Black 750 GB (both 2.5 internal hard drives for second data storage, with an SSD as primary storage for OS and intensive programs). Does anyone urge me to replace the Seagate Momentus 750 GB with something else? Does anyone have experience or knowledge suggesting I should be okay with it?

 

This time i don't see 3G modem as an option in Mx700 during configuration, has it become obsolete?

Is it normal Momentus or Momentus XT? if it is XT then your system will be good enough.

In my case, i won't use traditional HDD because of the noise, heat and vibration (especially 7200rpm drive). I use Intel 320 600Gb as secondary drive to keep rubbish, backup files and other nonsence. This is personal preference.

I have both SG and WD 750Gb 7200rpm drive as external HDD. I prefer WD more, but that could be because of influence of other WD HDD i hv used in the past like VelociRaptor.

 

I can't answer everything on that, i don't have my M6700 yet, makes it harder to check things, but you could always use RWEverything to change the right register on the EC manually to bump the fan speed to max. Be warned, RWEverything has the potential to seriously mess up your system if you don't know what you're doing. I have no idea which register is the one for the fan speed though, so i can't give you a procedure, sorry.

I also suggest that next time, you actually link to the post. Since you gave the date and time, you definitely dug it up when you posted, going through multiple pages of the owners thread just to find a single post is rather inefficient and annoying early in the morning. I'm sure not everyone might feel like doing it so you run the risk of loosing potential replies. Here is the link to the post for those interested: http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...ision-m6700-owners-thread-24.html#post8832562.

As for the HDD, the seagate is fine as a data drive. Is is 7200RPM ot 5400RPM?

Was still there monday on Dell Canada.

 

Many thanks (tijo) for providing the link to my question about a way always (automatically) to have the M6700 force the fans to high speed (and the purely positive effects this has had on older mobile precisions that I have had running this way nonstop for years to this day). I8kfangui worked perfectly and never caused any problems on any of my systems. Too bad no one rewrote the code for newer OS's.

Thanks also for saying that Seagate (internal, 2.5 750 GB) is fine as a data drive. The one I have is 7200 (model ST9750420AS)

I am looking for any and all reports good or bad about the Seagate Momentus 750 GB 7200 as secondary storage for data files along with a Samsung 830 256 GB SSD for primary storage.

Anyone else with experiences/data/reports on the Seagate Momentus 7200? (Also, am I the only one who misses I8kfangui?)

 

I don't have first hand experience with the 750GB, but i've used Momentus 500GB ones without any problems in the past. Whether you use it with a SSD or not has no impact on the reliability or compatibility of the drive. I use a hitachi 7K750 as a data drive in my G73 and i have not encountered any problems. I had to set the libraries the way i wanted them during the initial setup, but that's it.

You can look at the user experiences on newegg: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148599. 4 eggs with over 100 user reviews is usually considered pretty good. NBR review of the drive: http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=5970.

 

In that case, it sounds like you got a lemon after all. How is the W8 treating you? Any likes/dislikes?

Goodness. You make them sound like something from the horse and buggy days? My Hitachis continue to spin whisper quiet unless you place your ear to the keyboard.

 

lol... i use them naked with data cable connected as external HDD drive so i noticed the noise clearer. Even if there is minimal noise in the laptop, there will still be very slight vibration that the palm can feel it i think when it spins.

 

No,

I use it on my precision M90, my lat 630, and one of my clients with a 6500?? (maybe 6400?) has it installed as well

while it was never re written it works with windows 7 x32 and x64 (all versions)

I have not tested on windows vista or 8.

I will say that it needs some tweaking to get it to work right because of the unsigned drivers it uses to interface with the main-board's fan controls.


If you send me a M4500-M4700 or m6500-m6700 to test and tweak with I'll gladly install it on your machine

 

Bokeh,
Thank you so much for all the effort you have put into this review. It is by far the most comprehensive of any information found out there on the M6700. I am paitently awaiting the arrival of my new M6700 Covet i7-3920 exchange system to replace my M6600 (bought it back in April) that has been troublesome from the start. Is there any information available on the implementation of LTE on the M6700?

 

Bokeh, I saw that you have the same setup that I have with 3 Dell U2410 monitors and the M6700 with K5000M. But, I cannot get all 3 of my U2410 monitors to work at the same time. I can select two of them, but when I try and select the third one of the others deselect themselves. How did you get it to work? Is there a specific way to qire them up to get them to work? I am using the newest version of the docking station also. your help would be greatly appreciated.