Dell Precision M6700 Owners Thread

My boss's m6700 core i7, Intel HD 4000, Windows 8.1 64-bit laptop, is all of a sudden having a problem with the display not showing. Hooking up to an external monitor is hit or miss. Most times it displays, but the laptop's display remains blank (lit but no image). Other times the external monitor won't respond, goes into sleep mode.

It seems that booting up with the a/c adapter unplugged sometimes works, although he had told me he had tried that while troubleshooting with Dell support and the display didn't come up. Dell simply told him to pull out the battery and let the laptop sit for 2 hours. Of course this did absolutely nothing to fix the problem. He initially thought the laptop wasn't booting at all, but that was not the case. The HDD activity indicators and other indicators are working and I believe it get all the way to the Windows login screen. I've had mixed success both trying to boot on battery and on ac with inconsistent results. I have updated all drivers and BIOS to the latest available on Dell's support site, but it still appears to be a problem.

A quick Google search seems to indicate this is somewhat endemic. Totally ridiculous that there is no solution that I've been able to find anyway, for such a high-end laptop. Unfortunately the laptop is out of warranty. Is there anyone who's found a solution? I may have to quit Dell. This is the second Dell laptop I've worked on today with seemingly unsolved, rampant and manufacturer defect-related problems. My other issue is with a XPS 13 that has had sporadic issues with "Limited Connectivity" problems when using wireless only.

 

It seems strange that the laptop is out of warranty, these all came with a 3 years warranty as far as I know, so it should technically still be covered since it was launched somewhere in 2012. Have you checked with the service tag to make sure it is really out of warranty?

The issue could be something as simple as a loose cable, broken display cable or it could be a failing GPU. Given that it sometimes work, I'd bet on a cable problem.

 

The M6700 was an under warranty replacement (refurb) for his M6500, so the warranty just transferred to the replacement which expired in 2013. I'm not sure if it was this forum thread or another, but I had read about someone having 4 onsite Dell techs come out and replace everything only to make matters worse. That was the case with his M6500, which was experiencing a problem with the graphics card also, although I can't remember what the problem was specifically. All I can say is that I'm really disappointed that Dell's flagship mobile workstation has so many problems. I've had less issues with budget laptops at the $300 mark.

 

You're not clear on this description., You need to describe step by step the procedure you take under which the display does not come on. As well as which display you are referring to.

Generally speaking, once you are connected to an external display (via DP) you need to power off (shut down) your system before disconnecting the external monitor. In order to connect the laptop display plus an external display the laptop must be powered on before connecting it to the external display.

If you disconnect (or close the laptop) before shutting down no internal display will be shown upon start-up. You will have to unplug and remover the battery to reset. This is w/o a dock. I don't use one, so the procedure may be different if you do.

The monitor going to sleep seems like a Windows issue. Check screen saver and/or when monitor sleeps/turns off.

 

I have no issues connecting and disconnecting additional screens (via dock or directly) while my M4800 is on (or off or closed).


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

My apologies if I was not clear. Yes the power to the external monitor is on. The laptop connects via D-SUB not HDMI or display port output. This is without a dock, just a USB hub connecting a keyboard and mouse. While I have been troubleshooting the problem, I have successfully booted the laptop with its built-in display working properly, while on battery power only most of the time, however I did have a couple of boots with AC adapter not present where there was no image displaying, only the back light could be seen. My boss claims that he was unsuccessful with this during his attempts both with and without AC adapter. My steps:

1.) Powered up the laptop with no peripherals attached, on battery power - boots fine with display working properly. Shut down the laptop

2.) Placed laptop back at boss's desk, connected to USB Hub and External monitor, running off of battery at this point. Boots fine

3.) I download any driver updates that apply via support.dell.com, notably the Intel HD4000 drivers and the BIOS version A14

4.) Knowing already that the system won't let you flash the BIOS without the AC adapter present, I plug in the AC and attempt the BIOS flash. At this point I have already updated the graphics drivers.

5.) The system reboots to start the flashing procedure, it's at this point where the display is back-lit, but no image appears, HDD, wireless and other indicators light, there is hard drive activity. Typically you are presented with the Dell logo, the spinning Windows 8 wheel during POST and in this case I should have seen text/progress bar indicating the BIOS flash procedure was ongoing. I wait for about 15 minutes to see if it ever gets to the login screen, it doesn't. I reboot with the AC adapter present again, same result.

6.) unplug AC from the back of the laptop and reboot, same result - external monitor goes into sleep mode while I'm waiting to see if I can reach the login screen - built-in display is still not producing an image. I unplug the D-SUB connection and plug it back in to see if maybe there is some interruption to the signal, it still goes into sleep mode after a few seconds. I give up and force a shut down and restart.

7.) Restart the laptop on battery power and everything is normal again. However the BIOS flash never did its thing and still needs to be flashed. This time I wait until I get the login screen and sign in, then plug in AC adapter and everything is fine. I restart the flashing procedure where again, it restarts with no image, I wait a good amount of time to make sure the laptop has a chance to get to the login screen, then I force a power down since nothing is displaying, unplug AC from the back, restart with battery only, boots fine this time. plug AC back in and restart flash.

8.) This time the flash procedure actually takes and the built-in display is producing an image, still on AC power at this point. Flash is successful and boot to Windows login screen. This is where I have left it. I ran video diagnostics and checked DXDIAG to make sure drivers were signed and everything came back OK.

The boss is actively using the laptop now, so it will be a while before I can get my hands on it again for further testing. He typically does not take the laptop home or on trips - only occasionally does it leave his office, so my fear is, the next time he does take it, the problem will reoccur, in fact I'm nearly certain it will after reading similar problems that others have been experiencing. It almost seems as though this is a power-related issue. I've gone through Windows power settings and checked the BIOS for anything that might be set incorrectly, but there is nothing I can see that would interfere with the display or graphics card at all. I'm using the OEM adapter and there doesn't appear to be any problems with it.

 

Well that certainly was a detailed explanation. Since you are having issues flashing your BIOS it sounds like your problem is more difficult than what I first though (although these are separate issues, the may or may not be connected).

Unfortunately, I can't offer any other solution since I've never had a BIOS issue. However, maybe Dell's diagnostic might shed some light on the subject? Have you linked with it to see if any problem shows up? Its pretty thorough, and gives you an awful lot of data should you need to take it in for further service.

 

The only Dell diagnostic I have run so far was the graphics portion, but I will run the full gamut of diagnostics as soon as I can get several uninterrupted hours with the laptop. My boss has the tendency to think that asking me, "Is it done? When will it be done?" makes the process go faster, so I'd like to avoid that. I feel that the BIOS update issue is unrelated, but you never know.

 

The website has developed a pretty comprehensive diagnostic program. You really should look into taking advantage of it.

It also would give you a very good starting point for future reference. Even if you don't presently have any issues.

 

Out Of Band Management Option Number wanted

Please, can someone take a look inside the battery bay?
There is a small yellow sticker inside with a black single number.

If Out Of Band Management is disabled, the number is: 3

I am looking for the number where

Out Of Band Management is ENABLED.

Thanks