Dell Precision M6700 Owners Thread

Yes it does come with the xbracket, the seller says it's from some odd laptop name "xidax" in sli configuration. Looks like the same as the alienware with the higher standoffs. I planned on just using a hair dryer to get it off, I have an old quadro 1000m from my m4600 I replaced with an m4000 so I got the xbracket off of that to use. He's also sending an sli connector and I think some sort of heatsink which I'm guessing is the copper one on the back of the card I've seen on google pics of the card. I'd definitely not want to take the one off my k4000m bc I plan on reselling it once I get the 980m working, pay for some of this new card.

 

With M6800, there are two different NVIDIA heatsinks, and one of them has a protrusion in a location that hits one of the VRMs in the Maxwell card... So you'd either have to source the other heatsink or mod it in order for it to work. I don't think that this is an issue in the M6700. I was able to install my M5000M in place of the K5000M without messing with the heatsink.

 

Oh nice, yeah it was I think on a thread on this site and I probably just forgot it was about the m6800 not the m6700, so many threads read prepping for this they all get jumbled up in my head by now lol, even better so I won't have to bother, awesome. Looks like this is going to come together nicely then thanks! The card's from a xidax xm-11 17.3" and was in sli.

 

BTW to update this, the 980m was dead. I installed it and the computer would not turn on. At first it had blinking amber light I think it was wifi(had my kb bezel off) 3 times then solid white hdd light and my oem 240w charger blue light went off.

-Then I tried it again and got a consistent constant blinking volume buttons lights, power button and the caps lock button with a clicking to go along with that, note that these are NOT the diagnostic lights aka hdd, power and wifi lights. Pulled the CMOS battery, battery etc tried again, same thing. Not even with Optimus enabled through the CMOS reset did it even turn on.

-Put my k4000m back in, boom worked fine.

It was 100 bucks for the 980m and a long shot, seller described it as used, meaning working but it's one of those too good to be true deals. Will be sending it back. I guess the good that came out of it is that at least I did a repaste with as7 instead of some very cheap thermal grease that was there lol. I'll keep looking for a 970m that's below 200, they do come up on eb now and then.

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-One question though, the BIOS was reset obv and now I don't have the cpu max/min states in the power plans. My cpu is stuck at 2890, whereas I figured out how to get those options before in the power plan and adjusted it up to the ~3ghz(3070/89). My latest gpu benchmark is down almost that exact ~200 points now!

-None of the solutions online help in getting those settings back incl regedit, cmd prompt stuff etc I have no CsEnabled setting in my regedit to tinker with. I don't think it was a too complicated fix the last time just can't remember, any ideas? I'm on win7x64 btw.

Oh nvm on the lower graphics score it's the same, get confused between passmark and firestrike. passmark 4330, firestrike graphics 4600. But the boost cpu freq is stuck at 2890 according to firestrike and the msi/ab on screen stuff, never budges. I disable speedstep usually. 3940xm should be 3ghz to boost of I think 3.9ghz, see above for details on my question.

 

Ok I'll answer my own question. I think it was the speedstep disabling that was causing the cpu power management settings to not be in the power settings menu. I had read an article here: https://blog.crsw.com/2013/02/08/dell-m4600-performance-improvement/
that had some readings about how speedstep limits performance. This was when I was using my m4600 as my primary computer, still have it as a backup but don't use it primarily now. Idk I enabled it again in bios and it seemed to work the settings are there and I get the full cpu freq's now. Didn't change my gpu benchmarks or performance but my passmark cpu went from 7300/8000@2890 to 9300@3700 as it should be with a 3940xm.

-As a side note the 980m seller just refunded me and let me keep the 980m, he included the sli cable and the clevo sli heatsinks and both fans at no extra cost, not needed but I guess when I get the time I could sell them. Eventually I'll put the dead 980m up for sale on eb I guess, I also have a dead 860m too, man it's been an odyssey trying to upgrade gpu's on this thing. Not too successful but I learned how to OC my k4000m up to 680m/870m synthetic benchmark ratings lol I got a sweet deal on this though for a total of 330 bucks I got 3940xm, 16gb ram, k4000m, 1x125gb samsung msata, 1x125gb samsung ssd, 3940xm, 1080p, backlit kb, oem 240w charger, no dents or warping to the chassis like most have on eb. Anyways that's it thx

 

That's a nice price you got for your M6700, also I'm interested by the "dead" GTX980M if your are looking to sell it.
You can overclock your CPU inside the M6700, 4.2GHz should be alright without hitting thermal throttle with good thermal paste, I'm also writing a thread about all the "max out" upgrade that can be made on the M6700 but I don't have a lot of free time lately.

 

I have another question about graphics cards for the m6700. I have a k4000m OC'd from firestrike 2820 to 4644. Would it be worth it to upgrade to the k4100m? Is it even compatible with my computer? Anybody have any information about unlocked vbios on that for oc work? Only if I can oc it like I did to my k4000m would I consider it. UL score is 4083 average on their "review" of the card so I'm assuming I could get like a 5900 score oc settings same as my k4000m. That'd be pretty much the same as the 880m firestrike ul graphics average score. Card would be around 75 bucks so I could sell my k4000m and get about half that back.

 

How did you overclock your 3940XM to 4.2GHz (all core)? Thanks!

 

I have also some questions regarding CPU speed/clock stability.

It's hard for my 3740QM in the M6700 to hold the maximum clock boost for all cores due to the powerlimit of 45W (Temperatures are fine and far below 80°C). How is it possible to reach much higher (I guess stable) clock speeds with XM CPUs? So far I realized it's hard or nearly immpossible to undervolt the CPU in the M6700. So then the usual way to reach higher clocks is with a higher power target and/or of course a very good binning of the CPU. But the power target sounds more reasonable to me. So what is the reported power target of 3920XM or 3940XM in your machines? Thanks.

 

(this is what I said on a youtube comment, I will make a guide soon to upgrade nearly everything in the M6700)
"Even with "QM" cpu you can overclock it by 400MHz, just look here : https://www.techinferno.com/index.php?/forums/topic/6438-guide-dell-e6530-cpu-tdpmulti-unlocking/ In summary you need to download the M6700A14 IFR.txt ( https://egpu.io/nando4-shared/Dell_IFR/ ), you need to find the value for "core ratio limit" (which are 0x25 0x26 0x27 and 0x28) and you need to modify these by the multipler you want in hex (like 40x is 28, 42x is 2A etc), follow the step 3 to know how to modify these core ratio limit, since you have the XM I advise you to try 4.0GHz on all core (so replace the core ratio limit of each core by the value 0x28) and test the processor in charge (like cinebench or heavy load), also check if you are below 85°C, if it work you can try 0x29 for 4.1GHz, 0x2A for 4.2GHz, 0x2B for 4.3GHz etc. If I did not work (no boot etc) you need to remove all the battery and the cmos battery for about 1min. I also recommand using liquid metal in order to have good cpu temp. And for "QM" cpu you can overclock them pushing the multiplier by 4 on each turbo ratio (look on cpu world to know them)"

So far I'm hitting 60W on prime95 load, with fan to 100% it is below 80°c (liquid metal), there is some value to edit in the bios in order to increase the power limit/turbo limit etc