E6520 Owner's Thread

Does the E6520 use SATA 3, what would be the best SSD drive for it? Thanks.

 

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when you download it, you'll have to replace the .inf file with the modified one that you can find linked on that site.

pm me or ask on the forum if you've got any questions.


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another question for people -- i noticed on the configurations you have to select the nvidia 4200m that is "compatible" with your CPU choice. does anyone know whether one could upgrade to the QM processor later on (dell is replacing my e6510 with an e6520 as we speak, and i don't have the ability to pick my specs)

 

Just had a Dell-authorized technician swap the motherboard in my new E6520, to address the issue of not seeing my Startech ECESATA254 expresscard. It didn't work: the card still isn't recognized.

Because both the ECESATA254 and the CoreStore MV both have disk controllers on them, and neither are recognized, I'm thinking there is definitely either a hardware compatibility or (hopefully) a BIOS issue with additional controllers. I've now got 1 day to decide whether I'm going to keep this and hope Dell comes out with a fix, or return it and get a Precision M4600. Unfortunately, the M4600 doesn't seem to have a modular bay. It only comes with a stationary optical drive and no other option.

If only this worked.. The E6520 would be the best option out there for fast storage and reasonable price.

 

Forgive me for not remembering - but have you tried an mSATA drive yet, such as the Intel 40GB/80GB drives? Or has everything been via the Expresscard slot?

 

...on a separate note, what are people's opinions of the maximum volume for the E6520.

When I first started using it (a couple of days) I thought it was plenty loud, but lately it seems to not be loud enough, even at max volume. Just curious if something happened, or its just me..... (Spring = pollen = allergies = congestion = me)

 

Ah that's an option as well although I haven't seem them available in the Netherlands yet.

 

Re. my post on 26 April "Does anybody know if the miniPCIe and Expresscard slots are bootable? " i.e will the E6520 Boot & Run OS + Apps from a SSD in the miniPCIe slots, your last reply to my post was 'no, but with no joy from Dell, you will ask SuperTalent support'. I followed your post on the SuperTalent forum, from which the post by eddie151 on 6 May said Dell told him there is a problem with the Dell BIOS that prevents booting from PCIe !!! ....also "they also aform me they are looking into now and may release a moddified bios to allow it" - ' Dell MAY allow it' - amazing when as you say, a 'minicard' slot in the E6520 is labelled 'SATA Flash' TimSmall on that thread said Dell's laptops with Phoenix BIOS work ok with CoreStore MV, it's the Dell BIOS that is deficient.

My guess from your input to that thread, is that you made the PCIe slot 1st priority in the boot order, which as it hasn't yet had the Windows driver installed onto the SSD - it just hangs, without the BIOS moving on to try booting from the DVD - hence DVD boot working only after you unplug the SSD. (except I thought BIOS's supposed to time-out if no response and move onto poll the next boot device.)

My suggestion: it may be obvious, but have you followed the SuperTalent CoreStore Installation instructions to the letter ?

-- i.e in BIOS setup make DVD 1st boot priority, PCIe 2nd boot priority, THEN try a fresh Windows Install from DVD - where, according to the SuperTalent Installation Instructions, Windows 'Custom' will prompt you where to install Windows & 'Load Driver'. As the DVD occupied by Windows DVD, I assume you will copy the correct CoreStore MV Driver onto a USB Pendrive for the Windows Installer to copy to the SSD ?

As an aside, I am pretty sure the Dell site Custom Order page gave you an option of the Intel Centrino WiFi 6230 (which uses 450 Mbps 3x3 MIMO) and early photos eg TStraub's, show 3 WiFi antenna wires on the E6x20. A recent visit to Dell's site now has no option for the 6230 WiFi, only a slower Intel 6300 model. Which WiFi do you have, and did you note the price of the WiFi optional cards ?

 

If you check back this thread to his 27 April reply to my post of 26 April, you will see we both are of the opinion E6x20 does NOT have a mSATA slot. Where have you seen Dell state that it has ?

I posted on Dell's vague specification standards here on10 May:
"As Tomshardware's review of the mSATA Intel 310 SSD on 14 Feb points out, buyers can get confused by makers and sellers sloppy descriptions of internal slots - sometimes incorrectly describing mSATA as miniPCIe. Toms review also warns of many incompatible "PCIe" SSDs due to makers like ASUS, Dell and others 'customising' the PCIe spec such that their effectively proprietary SSD 'solutions' only work in THEIR laptops - no interoperability.
SuperTalent spec states CoreStore MV line requires laptops to be miniPCIe Rev 2.0 compliant - but nowhere on Dell's specs can I see that statement. Dell's spec just says "minicard". To avoid a wrong choice, the Dell spec needs to state their laptops are :
1) miniPCIe Rev 2.0 compliant,
2) will reliably boot and run Windows 7 from a miniPCIe SSD
3) won't throttle the 350MByte/s performance of SSDs like Super Talent's CoreStore MV.

Keen to know if the above is true."

BTW, thanks re. your last reply on the 1600x900 lcdpanel. If my only use was for multimedia/photo-editing, its a no-brainer, of course I would choose the well-reviewed FHD (providing it was same make as in the NBcheck review). However, as you pointed out earlier, for office/document use also, you choose a more optimal 1600x900 resolution in a 15" for less eye-strain on text; hence my seeking a HD+ of same make & quality as in the NBcheck.net review

 

No, I haven't tried an mSATA drive. As far as I can tell, the mini-PCIe slot is not an mSATA slot, it's a normal mini-PCIe slot. I believe it's Gen2 because when I have a Super Talent CoreStore MV card installed in it (which is a standard mini-PCIe card, not mSATA) the card's BIOS reports the slot has a speed of 5Gbps. The Gen2 spec is 5Gbps, so if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

AFA the express card slot, I am unable to boot from it with the hardware I have, which is the Startech ECESATA254 card. The E6520 will not boot into Windows at all with that card installed in the slot. See my previous post for my experience with that.

AFA whether I've tried (whatever) combination of moving items around in the boot menu, booting from different devices, disabling the onboard SATA controller, disabling different SATA ports, disabling different devices (e.g. microphone, camera, USB ports, booting from USB, other ports, network cards, whatever) trust me, I've spent probably 12 hours fiddling with this thing and trying every single combination I could possibly think of. The computer simply WILL NOT BOOT with the CoreStore MV installed in the mini-PCIe slot. I don't remember if the post of my experience is on this site or Super Talent's, but look in forums and you will find it.

I have some new information - I have a USB 3.0 express card, and when I pop that in the slot, Windows 7 recognizes it just fine. I can read/write to a USB 3.0 flash drive just fine. So once again, I'm back to my theory that there is a BIOS and/or general hardware incompatibility between the E6520 and other bootable add-in devices (and I bet it's just limited to SATA devices, although I have yet to test that), whether they be express card or mini-PCIe.

I've also decided to keep this computer, even with this major deficiency. I plan to install 2 256GB SSD drives, create a 64GB partition on the first drive, then software RAID0 the remaining space on the first drive with the equivalent space on the 2nd drive. It's definitely not an optimal solution, but for what I plan to use it for, storing and running multiple virtual machines, it should give me the performance I'm looking for. Doing this will not allow me to use the media bay for anything else (e.g. optical drive) but the configuration I'd really like to have (software RAID0 between the two drive bays + bootable mini-PCIe SSD) already precludes me from using the media bay. I rarely use an optical drive anyway, and if I really need it I'll use an external USB drive. I'll also get a flush-mount USB 3.0 express card from StarTech (when they're released) to give me USB 3.0 capability, and possibly a flush-mount eSATA card too (although I doubt it will work sans a BIOS update) if I need more than just the single built-in eSATA port.

From there I'll hope and pray (but not hold my breath) that someday Dell comes out with a BIOS update that allows booting the CoreStore MV from the mini-PCIe slot. If they ever do, this E6520 would be the ultimate setup for me - backlit keyboard with numeric keypad, independent SSD boot drive, independent 512GB RAID0 storage, 2 USB 3.0 ports, eSATA, and 4 USB 2.0 ports, 8GB RAM, Quad-core CPU, and 1920x1080 display!

 

is the bottom of the laptop still the single screw slide off cover?