Dell Precision M6700 Owners Thread

I am finally getting around to update my win 8 to 8.1 on my 6700. Should I update any drivers before I do the update or after the update install the dell drivers?

thanks for any advice.


mike

 

If you have the fingerprint reader then you will need to update the drivers. You can do it before the upgrade. Grab the latest drivers and firmware (two separate downloads) from Dell. The fingerprint reader won't work on Windows 8.1 with older drivers.

You should grab the updated free-fall sensor driver as well. It can be installed before the upgrade. I see you only have SSDs so technically you don't need it. You'll likely see an error in the device manager if you don't update it, though.

Otherwise... not much to worry about. There are a few other updated drivers from Dell but nothing that will break anything, you can update them at your convenience. Some of us are having trouble with the latest NVIDIA drivers when running on battery power (see previous couple of pages of this thread).

 

Thanks. I upgraded to 8.1 and seemed fine. I then installed the alps, IDT, and dell Nvidia drivers for 8.1 all from the Dell Web Site.

I tied the ST-Micro and it said I had the latest one already so I chose not to re-install.

Nothing in the device manager showed as a driver not loading.

I then decided to update the control vault for the fingerprint reader even though the biometric device was already showing as loaded in the device manager. I fist tied to update the firmware (that is what the readme says) but it could not find the control vault. I tried to update the driver first and it would not work. I wound up having to uninstall the current control vault driver, install the new one, and then i could run the firmware update.

After boot, I now have a device under Ports of Communications Port (Com1) with the yellow exclamation point. Right clicking it the location says on Intel QM77 Express Chipset Controller.

I then ran the ST-Micro freefall driver again and this time said to update anyway. That took a while. They system had to boot a couple of times but luckily it all seemed to work, I am back in windows and there are no yellow exclamation points in the device manager.


thanks,

Mike

 

Found this old post with search but no updates on the results. I tried those same modules on M6800 without success and I would really like to hear if you or somebody else actually tried these? Private messaging does not seem to be possible for phtnt, otherwise I would have tried to contact directly.

 

Anyone pushing 4k out of their Precisions yet? Its been in my plans since I got it and I'm finally about to pull the plug on one of Dells new displays. I was looking to see if there's any issues.

All my research indicates I should be able to get the 4k monitor plus internal display. Can anyone confirm that?

EDIT

Also switching to RAW editing and will be needing to add more storage space. I want to swap out the optical drive for one of these



http://www.amazon.com/Caddy-M6400-M...+Caddy+For+Dell+Precision+M4700+M6700+DV-18SA

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SATA-to-SAT...l-Precision-M4700-M6700-DV-18SA-/271103830774

(still can't find an external enclosure for slot loaded OD yet).

They say they're compatible with 6XXX and fit flush. Any comments or warning before I order would be appreciated.

 

I'm planning to go the same route and I'd be interested, too.

Cheers,
Alex

 

Have you looked at one of these - 2nd HDD /SSD Caddy, DELL M4800, M6800 [OBHD9-SATA-SATA-B] - $42.00 : NewmodeUS, Hard Drive Caddys for Notebooks Works great in my M4800, and they also sell an optical drive enclosure - USB 3.0 External Enclosure for Optical Drive (9.5mm SATA) [slimSATA-USB-C12] - $23.95 : NewmodeUS, Hard Drive Caddys for Notebooks .


EDIT: Just realized your first link looks like the exact same product, but on Amazon. Sorry about that.

 

Hello all I have been reading this thread and im Impressed with the M6700 I wanted to ask is it possible to remove the stock graphics card (Quadro) and put in a New Nvidia Geforce GTX 780m MXM 3.0 graphics card ? Seen it done on a 6600 with a 680m I'm a Simulation person Flight simulation Train Trucks Boats those simulators don't run well with quadro but love the design of this labtop wanted to if its possible ? Instead of getting alienware or Asus I like the the flexablity to upgrade all Parts I appericate so much :hi2:

 

There is no difference in gaming performance between Quadro's and their Geforce equivalents (if they're running at the same clock and using the Geforce drivers).

You haven't specified the card you have, but the top Quadro on M6700 is K5000M with 1344 shader units, so 780M is somewhat superior with 1536 units and higher clock (its Quadro equivalent would be K5100M, albeit with more RAM and somewhat lower clocks). As mentioned in this and several other threads, it can be done, but you'll need to download modded Geforce drivers' inf files separately (as the Precision laptops are whitelisted in the drivers to use Quadro cards only I guess).

 

Hi 6700 owners,

I've a question regarding RAID. I am using a lot of VMs with havy load.

config original:
1 x mSATA original SSD from DELL (No Raid Member!)

I replaced by myself:
2 x Samsung EVO SSD (Raid 0 Member)
1 x Samsung EVO SSD (No Raid Member)

I switched the Dell BIOS from AHCI to RAID to use the build in intel raid.

The Problem is, that I have a significant performance degration.
All Samsung EVO SSDs (raid and non raid) have only the half of possible transfer rate.
That means:
Single Evo: 250GB R/W - possible under AHCI >=500GB R/W
Raid0 Evo: 500GB R/W - possible under AHCI >=950GB R/W

A possible solution would be the deactivation of RAID and the activation of AHCI + the use of Windows Storage Spaces.

Have anyone a better solution? Is the intel raid speed limited?

My OS: Windows 2012 Server; evo 740 ssd with 750GB

Thanks