Dell Precision M6700 Owners Thread

Regarding the color, I am reminded of @Bokeh's M6600 review when he tried to identify it. The images are dead now but I found that they still work when pulling an old version from archive.org.
https://web.archive.org/web/2015021...-warning-large-pics-personal-opinions.597919/
(Ctrl+F search for: "What color is it")

 

Update, this is the final stable frequency I can squeeze out of 3940XM on M6700 with liquid metal:

Single Core: Set as 4.4 GHz, got 4.24-4.38 GHz, temperature at 68C with single 100% thread and fan at 60% load.

Two Cores: Set as 4.4 GHz, got 4.27-4.38 GHz, temperature at 75C with two 100% threads and fan at 70% load.

Three & Four Cores: Set as 4.2 GHz, got 4.19 GHz, temperature maxed at 87C with four 100% threads, maxed at 93C with eight 100% threads, fan at 100% load.

 

As an update to my earlier comments, I started getting weird gpu core and mem spiking when viewing msi afterburner/gpuz on the 970m. Also a 3rd gpu was still detected by passmark homescreen, looks like the duplicates were the hd4000. Optimus is a pain tbh, so I went back into the inf and added an 053F line for NON optimus and also I missed a few of the other lines I needed to change initially. This is a desktop replacement mostly and is always plugged in, my m4600 would be the travel and on site cad engineering work with my tablet and old netbook for camping etc

It was actually the 0685 970m id I replaced and missed a few of lol. Used DDU and tried to get into the F8 screen but it just wouldn't load that for me not sure why. So I just went ahead and reloaded the driver 436.48 and it worked w/o turning off the signed driver thingy, maybe it stuck from the first time? Anyways it's stable now w just the 970m used. I also get over 1000 more points in the passmark gpu test.

 

single and dual core boost are useless, only all core boost matter

 

Really? I do computation, and lots of programs only do single thread. I thought single core boosting is good in this case.

 

Yes, in theory it's better but if you have anything running in the background (including OS) the cpu will run at it's all core boost, the single and dual core boost is only usefull/really working when you disable some core

 

Thanks.

By the way, is it worthwhile to do any GPU overclocking? Can't wait to read your article to squeeze more out of M6700.

 

it depend, you really want to overclock the GPU if you have a kepler card, if you have a maxwell it depend a lot if the mosfet are in good contact with the heatsink and if you are far from hitting power limit or 130W (limit where the M6700 should turn off)

 

Update 2: Current overclocking setting is causing CPU hardware errors that can only be found in system log. No bluescreen though. Looks like I'd better lower the 4.4 GHz down.

Update3: Set single and double cores to 4.3 GHz, no more hardware errors.

 

Question: I got a 980m for a really really good price and I jumped even though my 970m was working fine, had to take the chance as the prev owner said it worked but on some of his games it would crash notably shadow mordor and something with zero in the name not mutant year zero. Sold it as not working so it was way cheap. Seemed like a driver problem to me easy fix. Indeed it does work fine, gets the correct firestrike score ~9300, for some reason passmark is way below but I think that's the optimus junk interfering like it was w my 970m, turned off optimus w970m boom it was within normal range.

---My actual question is that I am NOT able to get the system working with optimus off in the bios, I get a bsod on every bootup unless optimus is enabled. Then I install the modified 436.40 drivers, when I only use the 053F1 or optimus off I CANNOT install the driver, says it's not compatible, when I have the inf with 153F1(and 053F1 in the line below it) it will install the driver.

---Any ideas as to why I get the BSOD when optimus is off in the bios? I used DDU and shut down so there's no interference but I don't want optimus as it leads to too many annoyances like limited resolutions in games settings, odd switching of 980m freq's when viewing in msiab, windows experience(w7) won't list the 980m but ofc it gets the maximum score so it's using the 980m, etc Idk (maybe it's just initial bugs after install doesn't seem to be switching freqs now in msiab). Idles fine at 34. This all worked fine for the 970m. The device Id seems to have only the 153F1 or optimus on available, comes up as a dell card so I'm assuming alienware.