Dell Precision M6700 Owners Thread

Call up Dell Spare Parts. Of course, check out the heatsink thread for more info.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...ision/710800-m6700-heatsink-swap-repaste.html

 

Thanks, I appreciate it!
Mikhail

 

Hi Guys,

is it possible to build in a M6700 the following mSata SSD from Crucial CT512M550SSD3?
The Homepage from Crucial says that it is full compatible with the M6700, but Dell Says only up to 256GB possible for the mSata-Port.
Have anybody in idea whats right?

Thanks.
Jürgen

 

I don't see any reason why this should not be possible.

However, you will not benefit from the 6 GB/s speed of the Crucial M550, because the mSata port of the M6700 is limited to 3 GB/s (limitation of the chipset used in the M6700).

The fact that Dell doesn't offer mSata SSD's that are larger than 256 GB on their website, doesn't mean that you can't buy one somewhere else and install it in the M6700.

All mSata SSD's have the same physical dimensions, so if one fits, all fit.

 

Hi Michiko,

Thanks for your info.
The limitation about the 3GB i knew.
I thought there are perhaps another limitation in BIOS.
I think I will try the Crucial.

Jürgen

 

[size=+2]Stronger, Faster, Better?[/size]

Well its been a year now and I'm wondering what others have done to keep their 6700 is peak operation condition. Is it time for a fresh install? To tell you the truth I've had relatively sound performance from my Precision up to this point. Which is not to say that there haven't been any glitches, There have, but nothing a simple restart wasn't able to fix.

The biggest problem (although more of an annoyance) was/is it hanging on maintenance/updating that never gets completed i.e. Please do not turn off your machine... which I eventually am forced to do to get it to work again.

Anyway, I'm wondering what upgrades have you done? So far I've upgraded all of the drives and was finally forced to swap out my OD for another HDD since I needed more storage and couldn't afford all SSDs (a waste anyway just for storage). Of course I also went form W7 to W8 and eventually W8.1.

Other than that, my system is stock and no BIOS tweaks whatsoever. I'd like to know what have you done to maintain and/or improve the efficiency, performance, speed of your machine? And do you think a fresh install would be beneficial at this point?

 

Something similar happened to me twice this month. A certain update keeps popping up and gets installed over and over again. Even though I'm running a 64-bit version of Windows, Windows Update installs an update that is related to 32-bit Windows. I had to hide the update to stop Windows Update from detecting it again. Once I did, the same update for 64-bit Windows (with a different KB number) was detected and installed. This second update also kept popping up, and I also had to hide this to get past it.

Inspection of the update history shows that both updates have been installed succesfully, but 3 or 4 times in a row. Somehow, Windows Update gets confused about the 32-bit and 64-bit version of the update.

Next update Tuesday, the same thing happened again. Not sure why, but definitely annoying...

 

If your current install is stable, and clean of bloatware, or any malware/viruses...then there really isn't any reason, unless you just like spending numerous hours re-installing your OS and programs because maximized computer performance is your hobby. Re-installing won't increase your performance very much, if you practice regular Disk maintenance and proper file management (i.e. keep all your programs on your OS disk, and all files on your secondary drive).

I've had my refurbished 6700 for about 2.5 months. It is running fine for the most part, but I've experienced some hiccups. My specs are: i7-3740qm, 16gb 1866 RAM, Quadro K3000m. It came with a 750gb 7200rpm Seagate HDD with Win 7 pro. I've updated to an Intel 520 Series SSD, with a clean install of Win 8. Then updated to 8.1, and am now running 8.1.1.

It runs good for the most part....but not perfect. I have it docked most of the time on an older pro2x dock. When I swapped the HDD for the SSD and installed Win 8, my BIOS settings were: BIOS v.12, AHCI, UEFI, secure boot enabled, and disabled legacy option roms. The install went good, and is stable, but when I boot it up (not docked) next to my XPS 17 L702x with an i7-2720qm and a 7200rpm Seagate HDD, the XPS boots about 3 or 4 seconds quicker. Not sure why. The XPS is running Win 8.1.1. as well, and all start-up parameters are the same. I have all start-up progs disabled in Task manager on both machines.

When it is docked, the boot time is horrible. The Dell splash screen won't display, and total boot time to login screen is around 50-60 seconds. My old Dimension 5100 desktop with a dual core Pentium 945 boots faster. The only way I can get the splash screen to display on start-up so I can get to the BIOS when it is docked, is to disable Secure Boot, and enable legacy option roms. The boot time is still the same. The splash screen displays fine in either BIOS config when it is off the dock, but it is still slow to boot. Kind of disappointing considering it has an SSD and IVY processor.

I've also experienced some issues with start-up after having it off the dock, then putting back and hitting the power button. It powers on, then shuts down immediately. I have to remove it, start it up off the dock, then re-dock it while it is running before it properly recognizes the parallel port on the dock. But this is only happening randomly, so I don't believe it's a driver issue. My Latitude e4300 works flawlessly on the dock, and this only happens occasionally with the 67000, so not sure what causes it.

Other than the slow boot times, it is a great machine.

 

Windows updates? ... The first thing I do when installing Windows is to disable them and the update service, together with a bunch of other "crucial" services and programs.

That said I never even considered Windows 8, isnt it just for mobile touch devices? :hi2:

My Windows 7 felt like slowing down after 7 months so I did a fresh install last week. It now takes 45 seconds to boot, 20 of which are Dell splash screen. HDD = 750 @ 7200rpm + UEFI boot/GPT.

I have the feeling splash screen time went considerably higher after moving Win HDD to Bay 2 and adding an SSD at primary. I boot usually with SATA 0 disabled, nevertheless Dell Splash screen is kind of slow.

On the brighter side I need 12 seconds to boot Arch Linux from a Samsung 840 Pro...who needs Windows anyways

The only upgrade I've done has been this SSD and it was well worth it. Even without this my base configuration is an overkill for my need and I have never used the 3840QM/8GB@1600MHz/k3000m fully - they tend to sleep most of the time.

The most significant upgrade for me has been to move to Linux. Happy to report that our m6700 work quite well there, except the famous Switchable Graphics issues on which I gave up after trying everything and just unchecked Optimus in BIOS.

Stronger,Faster,Better? On that note I moved Firefox to work from RAM, since I have so much to spare and more programs will follow shortly. A great way to feel a slave to Europe's chronically slow internet...

 

I have this workstation for my job. Recently I had an unfortunate accident with it and broke the Corning Gorilla Glass 2 that was providing the "edge-to-edge protection" over the LCD screen. The good news is it worked as advertised and saved my LCD screen from damage. The bad news is Dell doesn't sell just the Gorilla Glass overlay with the plastic bezel. They told me that I have to purchase the entire screen, which is around $700. Does anyone know a workaround for this or know where I can find the part I need? Any help is appreciated.