Dell Precision M6700 Owners Thread

Thank you for your reply!
Now I will put the SSD in the two main slots and leave the dvd bay for the HDD

 

Hi, everyone, I've got a freshly installed win7 on m6700
Here's my specs:
CPU Intel Core i7-3720QM, 900 MHz (9 x 100)
System Memory 8133 MB (DDR3-1600 DDR3 SDRAM)
DIMM2: Samsung M471B5273CH0-CK0 4 GB DDR3-1600 DDR3
DIMM4: Samsung M471B5273CH0-CK0 4 GB DDR3-1600 DDR
BIOS AMI (08/19/2015)
Video NVIDIA Quadro K5000M (4095 MB)
The problem is that both win7 index scores for graphics and cpu as well as 3d mark 11 are very low.
win index is: 5.1 for cpu 5.5 graphics, 6.7 gaming, 3d mark: p1283. The one possible reason is Power. I've got a 130W dell adapter as well as hp 200w which also works. I've tried both with battery on and off, and still the same. Any suggestions ? Thanks in advance

 

You need a 240W adapter. The system throttles heavily on anything less. You will probably find that it is faster on battery power than with the 130W.

 

Thanks for reply. It seems you're right. It gave me a message the first time turned it on, which I immediately disabled. It reads " Alert! A 130W AC power adapter has been detected, which is less than the recommended 210w adapter originally shipped. The system will adjust the performance to match the power available" and with the 200w it says "The AC power adapter wattage and type cannot be determined. The system will adjust the performance to match the power available" How does it recognize it's own charger in the 1st place? I don't want to buy another high power AC as I already have 2 200w units from my previous elitebooks. How do I trick it into thinking the 200w ac is good? Should I install new bios?

 

Dell adapters have a third pin for this identification. Because all your HP units lack this, the notebook assumes the worst and limits performance. AFAIK you have no option but to find a legit Dell adapter with sufficient wattage.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Agreed. There are no BIOS mods available for the M6700. The model power supply you are looking for is PA-9E. You can find them on eBay in the $40-$60 range... make sure to get a genuine one.

 

Me again. I want to upgrade the RAM to 32gb ( I have an i7 with 16GB)
My actual ram is DDR3-700 (around this value I can't remember right now), can I mix this two with other two at DDR3-1600? Or do I need to buy the same Dell model that I have now? (if they are still around)

I prefer to avoid to buy a new 36GB set because is too expensive considering that I might take another workstation.

 

You will get best results if you purchase new RAM with the same timings as the RAM that you already have. If you buy RAM with different timings, you may get locked into a slower speed, or worst case it might totally fail to boot.

Note that when I say "timings" I am not just referring to the RAM speed. You also need to look at the CAS latency rating (also called "CL"). If you buy sticks that match on speed and CAS latency, they will probably match on everything else and you will be fine.

I don't know what DDR3-700 is, "700" is way too low for DDR3.

Use the tool "CPU-Z" to find out what kind of memory you have. Look at the "memory" tab. Double the reported DRAM frequency to get the "marketing" version of the RAM speed. (i.e. My M6700 reports 798 MHz DRAM frequency, that is DDR3-1600.) CAS latency is also listed right there.

The CAS latency for any module you purchase should be listed in the specs at whatever site you are using to buy. As an example, here's a decent module for the M6700 with CAS latency 9.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231704

 

Hello!

I came here for an opinion and some help from more experienced users ot the m6700. My specs are as follows:
CPU - i7 3940XM
GPU - Nvidia GTX880m 8GB
RAM - 16GB Samsung memory
Storage - 2x 1TB ADATA DP910 SSDs in a RAID 1 array + Samsung 1TB mSATA SSD
Other - updated with the latest BIOS from Dell

I have three separate things to solve and will post them listed below.

1. Is it possible to upgrade an m6700 with GTX970m?
I was told that it is impossible to put there anything else than the cards whitelisted by Dell in BIOS, which leaves me with some Quadro cards and some AMD Firepro models I believe. However, I was able to run a GTX880m - it required modding some drivers and experimenting, but it works (unknown video card in BIOS, but installed in Windows properly and running great with Optimus ON). The card I have is a Kepler-based card. Can I upgrade the laptop with a GTX970m GPU? Any luck with putting Maxwell-based cards in it (for example the Quadro M4000m series)?

2. mSATA not recognized by BIOS
I have had a power shortage problem and one of my drives got broken - the system was set to AHCI mode and since I had no backup I decided to re-image it with a RAID1 array for backup reasons. Ever since I have created that RAID array the mSATA drive stopped being recognized in BIOS. It does not appear there despite of resetting it to defaults and fiddling with the settings. However, the drive is working when plugged into a regular SATA slot via an adapter. What might have happened there?

3. Is it possible to unlock the BIOS?
Has anyone tried unlocking the BIOS yet? I am looking into the topic for GPU upgrade reasons.

 

1. The M6700 does not have a GPU whitelist that blocks cards. The only thing that happens is that unknown cards are listed as "unknown" in the BIOS. 900-series GeForce cards work (you might have to play with drivers as you discovered with the 880m) and Maxwell-based Quadro cards work as well. If you get a Maxwell Quadro card from a Dell system, it should work in the M6700 without any driver mucking necessary. Pascal cards will not work, they require eDP.

3. There are currently no BIOS mods available for the M6700. You shouldn't have to mess with the BIOS to upgrade the GPU.