Dell Precision m6700 upgrade-ability?

So I am a proud owner of a m6700 and I am wondering what kind of upgrades I can do with it. I know you can upgrade the following:

• CPU (3rd gen mobile)
• GPU (MXM, don't know what kind)
• RAM (Don't know max amount, nor frequency)
• SSD
• Panel: (I think it is a 40 pin connector. Don't know if any 40 pin 17.3 inch panel will work)

The main purpose of why I got this laptop was:
1. Gaming. Cheap alternative to a gaming laptop.
2. Power for portability.

Some things I would like to know:

• Will there be any BIOS modding? I have never done it before and I am worried on how it might go.
• How difficult is it to do a tear down of the laptop?
• Should I be concerned for breaking parts, or having something go wrong when modding?

 

There is a lot of information in this forum on these topics, you should peruse some of the old threads.

You can put in any third-gen / Ivy Bridge mobile CPU
GPU, it can take a Quadro M5000M or GeForce 980M easily. Some Pascal Quadros but they require a vBIOS flash and you won't be able to do it in this system. GeForce 1000-series is a no-go.
RAM can go up to 32GB (if you have quad-core CPU).
Any SATA SSD will work. I have a 4 TB SSD in mine.
Panel is LVDS so you are stuck at 1080p 60Hz. There is an eDP port on the board, you need to source the M6700 "3D" cable in order to make use of it. With that you can get 1080p 120Hz or 4K 60Hz. Only works if you have an NVIDIA GPU. Newer eDP panels don't fit properly so it will take some finagling to get it mounted.

There are no BIOS mods available for this system as far as I am aware.
Tear-down is easy (as far as laptops go). Go to support.dell.com and find the manual. It has all of the steps for all of the components.

 

Thanks a lot! Just wondering what frequency?

 

If you are talking about the RAM speed, that is dependent just on the CPU.
https://ark.intel.com/content/www/u...3740qm-processor-6m-cache-up-to-3-70-ghz.html

 

Oh, about the 3d cable. How would that work? Is it difficult to install it?

 

If you ask me, the standard 1080p screen is just fine, good colors, contrast and viewing angles. I would only look into upgrading the screen if you got stuck with the 1600x900 screen (This screen is awful).

When I owned one of these, I upgraded the GPU to an Alienware GTX 980M 8GB card.
This machine will take any socket G3 core i5 or core i7 CPU. I recommend the Core i7 3840QM because ut is only 45W and max boost is only 100MHz shy of the 55W 3940XM.
With a quad core i7 installed you can install 4x8GB DDR3 1600MHz (You can install faster RAM but it will clock down to 1600MHz)
You can install 1x MSATA SSD, and 2x SATA HDD up to 9mm thickness (currently 2TB max for 9mm magnetic drives)
If your machine does not have Bluetooth, it can be added, part #3YX8R

As stated above teardown is easy with the service manual that dell has available for free download. Cleaning dust out of the heatsinks is very easy, the cooling fans are held in place by 2 screws accessible after removing the bottom access panel.

 

Dell M6700 maximum upgrade Msata port with Bios A20 ? 256Gb or 512Gb ?

 

Any mSATA drive will work. I have 1TB installed.

 

The only thing you need to watch out for are double sided MSATA drives. (There was at least one manufacturer (I think it was ACER if I remember correctly) who had double sided MSATA drives in a few laptop models. Instead of the mini PCI-e port being wired for a single SATA connection it was wired for 2 SATA ports. The compatible laptop would see the double sided drive as 2 SATA drives and the Laptop would effectively have Raid in half the space.

If you plug one of these drives into a standard MSATA slot the computer will only see 1/2 of the listed capacity because it can only read the top side of the circuit board.

 

You can run a AMD GPU with a eDP screen, for some reason only Alienwares have that weird restriction. As well, you can technically overclock your CPU with some fun BIOS modding.
As for upgrades:
-Up to 32GB 1600Mhz, 1866Mhz should work at 32GB, would take a good CPU for 32GB 2133Mhz.
-980M is your best safe bet, the R9 M390X, W7170M, and SX7100 should also work in theory, and maybe the RX 480/WX7100.
You can have a total of 4 internal storage devices
-dual 97WH batteries
-dell E port dock
-Up to 4 external monitors afaik