Dell Precision M6700 Owners Thread

No idea about the part number on the lid, but here's the drive locations on the M6700:

You have two 2.5" SATA 3 ports, one in a quick-eject caddy that is accessed when you remove the battery(note: this caddy is secured with four screws when shipped and another which locks the ejection switch) and another to the right of the battery, one of the screws for that caddy is shared with one that holds the bottom cover on the notebook.

You can, as you mentioned, replace the optical drive with another 2.5" drive caddy, although I think that runs at SATA 2 speeds. If you're running an HDD or a hybrid drive, I don't think you'll hit the cap, but something to keep in mind with an SSD.

Finally, there is a micro-SATA minicard slot(which is clearly marked; if you don't have one installed you can't miss it). While only running at SATA 2 speeds, this slot is meant for a very small form factor SSD; I think capacities are between 16GB all the way up to 480GB. When ordering from Dell you can configure either 128GB or 256GB models; the one that came with mine is a Samsung P830. Pretty quick despite the SATA 2 cap.

 

Thanks. I went ahead and got the 840 500GB. I used Acronis True Image and moved my boot drive data over. No noticeable speed improvement over the Liteon 256GB that came with the system. I ran crystal diskmark on both and the reads are a little faster and the writes are a little slower on the 840 compare to the liteon.

I went ahead and put my 256GB back in and will image again if I want to move to the Samsung 840 as the boot.

I think I might be better off keeping the Liteon 256GB as the boot drive and replace my seagate 750GB with the 500GB SSD. My other option is put the 500GB as the boot and keep the 750GB and then only put data on the 750GB that I do not access much like videos.

Will the system run cooler and better battery life with the 750GB Seagate drive replaced with an SSD?

thanks,

Mike

 

Hello. I have not yet made it through this whole thread, but I did read the entire Owner's Review thread, up through a few days ago, anyhow.

On 24 June, over the phone, I ordered an M6700 Covet, with the i7-3940XM processor, 8GB 1866 MHz RAM ('cause that's what my sales rep put on there (I didn't notice that, before)), AMD FirePro M6000, 128GB (SATA3) Solid State Mini-card Drive, No RAID, 17.3" UltraSharp FHD (1920x1080) PremierColor IPS RGB, Premium Panel Guarantee,USH,MobilePrecisionM6700,Covet, Windows 7 Ultimate with XP mode, Slot Load DVD+/-RW Drive (default), 4 years ProSupport/Accidental damage, and an extra power supply.

I made this order before discovering this forum and the two threads. I will be using this primarily for CAD (Pro/ENGINEER/Creo and SolidWorks). I think I made good choices, nonetheless ;-). I will be upgrading the computer with two 500GB HDD in the empty bays, using one as backup for the other. Eventually, I will be adding more memory, and I may upgrade the slot-load DVD to BluRay, but that's not something I desperately need, at this point.

My original estimated delivery date was 9 July. On 3 July, the website and phone order status system both told me the machine is still in production, so I contacted my sales rep. He said it was scheduled to ship that day, and upgraded me to next business day shipping. It still was not showing as shipped by 7 p.m. that day. On 4 July, both the web and phone systems showed an updated delivery date of 16 July. I e-mailed my rep, and asked him to look into it.

This morning, I received an automated e-mail from Dell stating that my order is delayed, but not giving a reason. I also received a response from my sales rep. I asked him what the delay is, and indicated that my current computer is dying (blue screens galore), and that if I don't get the computer soon, I will be losing income.

His response was that he has no way of finding out what the delay is, but that he'd asked that the order be expedited, and that he had upgraded the shipping, and there's nothing else he can do. He also said it's not very common to experience delays.

Does anyone know if Dell is still experiencing consistent delays with the Covet editions, as I read they were having late 2012? I've read up through page 131 of this thread, which only brings it into February, so I don't know what experiences people have had between then and now.

I'm seriously needing this thing ASAP, as the machine I'm currently working on is a Studio 1537 with 3GB RAM, and was a victim of heavy smoke due to a house fire two years ago. It was out, closed, in the middle of the room with the heaviest smoke concentration. I recently realized the poor thing is capable of running 64-bit Windows 7, and thus more RAM, but it was shipped with 32-bit Vista, upgraded to 32-bit Windows 7 Ultimate, so I'd have to do a clean install if I wanted to take advantage of more memory availability. However, I'm not sure it's worth trying, since the machine is on its last legs, as it is.

Does anyone have any recent information on how long it took to get your Covet after you ordered it, and whether you had to endure any delays? Also, if you have any ideas about how I can extend the life of this current laptop until I get my Covet, that would be great. I've already broken it down and cleaned it thoroughly, and reinstalled Windows 7 on it a few months ago, but I don't think that took care of the whole problem.

Thanks,

Tracy

 

New drives are extremely efficient nowadays, so there may not be little if any operating benefit form switching to SSD. That said, you will undoubtedly experience faster performance so a potentially lower use time can certainly increase battery life overall.

Yes, I ordered mine in mid January and didn't receive it unit late February. Over a 3 weeks delay.

 

Thanks.

I finally got a hold of someone (not my sales rep) who told me that the chassis is the hold-up on my order. I hope they get a shipment in soon. I was told this new person will keep me in the loop, but that she was told that the production team doesn't have an ETA for the chassis.

Tracy

 

A question on data drives: I bought two 500GB Seagate HDDs to put in the 2.5" bays when I get my Covet. I am thinking that while I anxiously await the arrival of my new laptop, I might as well go ahead and start copying data files to one of the new drives. This will both serve to hasten the setting-up of my machine when it gets here, and to act as a third backup of my current computer.

When I put the drive in an enclosure and hooked it up to my Studio, it didn't show up in Computer, so I started Disk Managment. A pop-up popped up asking me whether I wanted to initialize with MBR or GUID. Does it matter which I choose for a data disk? I will have Windows 7 Ultimate on the Covet (and have that on this laptop). From my brief interaction with Windows 8, I know that GUID is preferable for that, but I don't see changing OS for the Covet any time in the near future. Would it still be wise for me to initialize with GUID for the data disks, or am I ok going with MBR? I don't anticipate needing to partition these drives endlessly, and may not partition them at all.

Thanks,

Tracy

 

You will be fine with MBR as well.

 

GUID can be used fine in Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 (and XP x64 edition). I'd say use it unless you have a reason not to, it's newer than MBR and has a few advantages, like:

- Redundant partition table to protect against corruption
- Able to partition volumes larger than 2 TB
- Able to partition more than four primary volumes

Yeah, maybe none of that stuff really matters in your situation. Still, it's the new standard, no reason to choose MBR instead unless you need to use it on an old OS.

The only other consideration is that boot drives can only be used with GPT if you set the machine up to boot with UEFI (also supported since Vista).

 

Congrats on your new purchase! I just got a new M6700 Covet delivered ... only problem is that I am now in Korea and the computer was shipped to my address in the States because there was a 10-day delay in Dell's prep and sending of it.

A couple of quick questions, since you have two identical issues that I will face when I finally get my hands on my new baby:

1. Can you post a step-by-step description of how you transferred your OS install from your HDD to your new SSD? My machine shipped with a 750 GB HDD, but I've got a nice shiny new Samsung 840 Pro 256 GB that I want to use as the boot drive, and I want to transfer all the OS, etc, that comes on the factory prepared drive onto the SSD. I want to use my Samsung as the primary C: drive, and I'd like it to have exactly what was on the HDD that Dell sent out. (I will then wipe the HDD and use it as a secondary drive, for storage.)

2. I, too, am a Thinkpad lover (been using only Thinkpads for the past 12 years) and I love the point-stick, too. I know the Dell point-sticks are recessed and thus painful to use, by comparison. So, where did you find the Thinkpad-type nubs, and did you have any trouble fitting them to the M6700 stick??

OOTM

Same problem I had about a month ago. At that time the *only* way to get an IPS screen in *any* new Precision was to get the M6700 Covet edition. If you call Dell and talk with a sales rep you can offer what you feel is right and they will listen. I got a Covet for $2300. With the 3740QM processor. Good luck!!!

 

Chiming in since I just did this two or so weeks ago.

Your Samsung drive should have come with a CD that you can use to transfer the OS to the new drive. That's one choice.

Instead of the software that came with the drive, I used Acronis True Image to clone the drive because I've always had good success with it in the past. No need to install the software on your machine, just download the bootable ISO and use that. Yeah, you've gotta pay for it, so it might not be worth it if this is the only time you're ever going to clone a drive.

If you're going to use the 750 GB drive for data, make sure it is detached or disabled (in the BIOS) before you boot from the SSD for the first time. (I've had a couple of issues in the past when Windows got confused about which drive was which, after a clone when the old drive was still present. After you boot it up once you can reattach the old drive.)