Dell Precision M6700 Owners Thread

Okay, finally getting back in here to reply.
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I decided after that posting to just go ahead and do the repaste myself. I had the skills, a new tube of AS5 laying around, and I've pasted all of my other notebooks before without any incident... including my old XPS M1730 I had when it was new. While by no means scientific(that and I didn't want to waste a lot of time doing Prime95 runs), I ran the 3DMarkVantage benchmark three times in a row and recorded temps.

Before pasting, my CPU went up to 94-95C, and the GPU never broke 65C.

After pasting, I got a max of 83C on the CPU, and the GPU(which I decided to leave alone) was still at 65C max.

While that doesn't seem like an incredible drop, I noticed that the CPU fan wasn't kicking on as soon as it was before the paste job, and that the air was significantly warmer than before the pasting. The 'thermal paste pads' they use at the factory just aren't as efficient as I'd like them to be. Idle temps at my typical Internet/Office apps usage scenario(I'll use the power saver profile) are in the high-40C range. Pulling everything apart wasn't that daunting and I applaud Dell for the well-designed layout that made it pretty easy to navigate. Far easier to take apart than my G73.

 

some question about termal pads:
(never changed them so a few questions)

is it required to putsome termal paste on pads ?

what is the best pads to use on gpu?

thank you

 

Hey guys, I was planning on buying a dell m6700. Wanted to clarify if the option i selected in the image below supports nvidia optimus(non-IPS)?

 

Yes it does. The IPS display is only available on the Covet for now.

 

Hello all, I had installed Windows 8 on my M6700 some months ago, but I haven't been able to get my SD card reader to work, does anyone know which drivers I should install?

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Apart from that, I've had an issue come up recently:

A few weeks ago my Raid-1 HDD array had errors during boot, and the Chkdsk was forced to run during startup, (It gave me less than 1 second to cancel, before I realized what was happening,) so it ran for two hours I believe.
'Searching and repairing for errors'
After it was done with the chkdisk, I discovered the majority of all my files were missing and another load of them were corrupt, not quite what I expected!

My operating system (Windows 8) is running fine, as it's installed on the 256GB mSATA SSD.
Windows 7 that was running from the HDDs, is unbootable since the error appeared. (Previously 2x750GB Raid-1, now downgraded to 1x750GB with raid disabled)

(Incidentally my main external backup drive for the computer was temporarily out of use, so I will need to try recover my files from one of the disks.)
I've removed one of the disks from the array and put it in an external enclosure to run my recovery, and I disabled the Raid-1 array on the computer. So the original disk that Dell delivered my computer with is still in the computer.

Since then I've just restored my picture files to the internal HDD (about 40,000 files) from a separate photography backup drive.

But during a reboot after chkdisk was forced to run again, but I lost even more files, and more files have gone corrupt, including a huge load of pictures I had just restored.

The drive is under warranty and I got the Keep-your-harddrive service. So after the discovery of the additional errors I had run the Dell diagnostics tool from the support website, but no errors showed up.
Not quite sure what I should do, I don't quite trust my data on the HDD anymore. It's been 3-4 weeks now since this all happened, should I just call Dell anyway?

Thanks.

 

Didn't need any extra drivers for the SD card to work here.

 

Thanks for letting me know, I had another closer look in Device manager, apparently the following item under "System devices" was disabled:
"Intel(R) 7 Series/C216 Chipset Family SMBus Host Controller - 1E22"

Enabling the item immediately fixed the issue

 

Hi ive been researching for a laptop to use as a primary photo editing rig and Dell Australia have the base model m6700 on special now. If I could get some advice before I drop my money on it please folks..

At $2700 it comes with

3rd Gen Intel® Core™ i7-3540M Processor (3.0GHz, 4M Cache)
Windows® 7 Professional 64-bit (English), No Media
17.3" HD+(1600x900) Anti-Glare LED-backlit
4GB (2x2GB) 1600MHz DDR3L Memory
500GB 7200rpm Hard Drive
AMD FirePro™ M6000 Mobility Pro Graphics with 2GB GDDR5
8X DVD+/-RW Drive, Slot Load
3 Yr Next Business Day Onsite Service
3.52 kg.

And ive upgraded to the premier color screen, the main draw card for me.

I assume ram is upgradeable but would like to know if the cpu and video card would be in the future when prices come down enough to justify it. Id like to be able to play the odd game but for now photoshop editing takes preference in my limited budget. Will this rig run cs6 ok and the like?

Thats about it .

Cheers

 

Yes, the video card is upgradeable, CPUs will be limited to Ivy bridge models. Prices won't really come down though. Be sure not to confound the PremierColor display with the cheaper 1920x1080 TN Ultrasharp panel too, in NA, the IPS is no longer available on the base model.

 

Your rig will handle CS6 fine. The only weak link is your display. I'm taking a class right now in Photoshop and all the screens (similar to the above) look fine until I set up next to them. You can always (and its advisable) get an external display but you'll need a Quadro to drive it. Enjoy your new machine, and good luck.