Dell Precision M6700 Owners Thread

No issues here in general. I have the system set to run all apps on the iGPU and I individually whitelist apps for the dGPU. (You can manage this in the NVIDIA control panel.) I use it for gaming and there are a handful of games that I have found that do not play well with Optimus, which usually can be worked around with some degree of tweaking, but by and large it works just fine. I've done benchmarks between Optimus on and off (Unigine and 3DMark) and they come back with a negligible difference in performance.

 

So I have decided to enable Optimus and the software support seems to be intact for the Nvidia Control Panel but not for the Intel integrated gfx control panel. I can't seem to be able to change the hue or saturation (which I like to have with this screen). Is this an intel driver thing or an Nvidia thing? I installed the latest intel driver after Optimus was autoconfigured.

 

The Intel GPU is driving the display so the NVIDIA control panel will not be able to manage settings like this. I am seeing the settings that you requested in the Intel graphics control panel, under Display → Color → Advanced.

 

Yeah I eventually figured out that I had to tweak the gamma and digital brightness in the iGPU dashboard. I was able to get pretty close to the digital vibrance settings I had in Nvidia control panel. However, I decided to switch out of Optimus due to the HD 4000 graphics struggling on battery life. It worked flawlessly when plugged in: I could switch between tabs no problem, tweaking application-specific graphics settings was a sinch, and when running 4k playback the laptop ran cooler and quieter with nearly no lost frames, lag, etc. But battery power basically crippled the system, regardless if I set the power settings to maximum performance or not. Thanks for the Optimus input but I don't know if it's right for me, as I am someone who runs off of battery power about as often as I am plugged in. If I upgrade my GPU I will have to enable it so it's good to see that it still is usable but, for now, I'll keep my current setup.

 

I found out that you can draw more than 100W from the Mxm slot. I have a modified GTX 970m that allows for overclocking.
Only ran this for a few seconds, I don't recommend someone do something as stupid as I did tho. (Tested with furmark) (Very bad idea) (Don't try.)

 

That temp reading at the die is hilarious for just 12% of the max TDP available.

Interesting that you were able to push it so far. I would have expected a solid power limit at 115W but that is cool nonetheless...Did you use a vBIOS mod tool to unlock the available wattage or did overclocking just push it past the stock max TDP? And did Furmark crash out (if not the entire system)?

 

When I tried the Quadro P5000, it would pull almost 120W. I found that when pulling that much power, the max CPU speed would be throttled down a good bit.

Following up on this issue from 5 months ago. I determined that the freezes that I was experiencing were from the NVIDIA GPU somehow. (I also started getting them on Windows 10, version 1909.) They only happen if I have Optimus disabled. The system is stable with Optimus enabled. This is with the Quadro M5000M. I tried two different vBIOS versions. So it's either something wrong with my card or a compatibility issue, I think.

Anyway I'm going to step back down to the K5000M for now, I think... I'd rather have a stable system and I haven't been doing that much intense gaming. Planning to replace the entire system in about 15 months anyway.

 

I didn't have any of the other ones set to show maximum, Not sure what the TDP % was at the time. I'll redo it to see what it was.

Edit: I re-tested, only used 70% TDP, didn't want to run it for too long to see if would go higher lol.

 

anyone ever had a dell 980m 8gb that simply refuses to work with any of the fancy unlocked vbioses?
It works totally fine at stock, and better undervolted with manual edits done myself, but crashes on anything 3d on an undervolt vbios intended for an alienware, or the dell/alienware unlocked/non-throttling vbios floating around on techinferno, is this a problem with the default windows 10 drivers since I can't be bothered constantly screwing with inf files only for windows to then force the 399 old driver back on me again.
Starting to think the m6700 is better off on a nice linux distro like manjaro lol.

 

M6700 with "turn-key" M5000M installation and signed drivers

I didn't even know this was possible. I didn't think M5000M install was "turn-key". I upgraded M6700 with M5000M today following directions from another thread regarding card's hardware id and modifying inf file after disabling driver signature enforcement. Not difficult due to detail in past post but I prefer not having to muddle through and change inf file.

Thing is - this is one of a pair of kitchen counter laptops used by kids and part of that use is for Valorant game .... that has an anti-cheat behind it. And game will not run if card is using unsigned drivers - arghhh I didn't know this.

I was simply able to download latest quadro drivers directly from Nvidia (less than a month old) and install them manually (had to choose M5000M from list) blowing past Windows "soft" warning of something like we don't recommend you doing this. When extracting Nvidia drivers, you need to copy extracted folder before closing out NVidia application window that tries to auto configure video card and states something like hardware not supported; original extracted folder is deleted when extraction application is closed.

inf file not modified in any way. Video Card drivers are now all signed, and not even a month old. I turned driver signature enforcement back on due to fiasco in first and second paragraph, rebooted, and Vanguard anti-cheat now happy.