M6600 Owners Thread

Tech Support and Service Reps are only as good as their training and their ability to use the information tools.

Our local Service Rep for home systems is based out of Johnson City Tennessee. They have actually called me a day ahead of a repair to schedule the visit and let me know that they had not worked on the system before and were studying it (very early Alienware R17x). He showed up with print outs and a "watch list" that he had made to ensure things went smoothly. If a Rep in semi-rural Johnson City TN can make sure to be prepared, Reps in bigger cities should too. He was well trained and had used his access to information.

 

Actually, ATI and Solidworks partnered up to create optimized drivers for the FirePro that make it work really well. As good as or better than the NVidia Quadro 4000M, and definitely better than the 3000M. I can't remember where I found it, but there was a site talking specifically about the M6600 with FirePro M8900 being a recommended Solidworks machine. I'm pretty sure it was a Solidworks site. For now I can find this: Partner Products | SolidWorks

Also, check out the various benchmarks posted around the web for the cards and you'll see the M8900 slightly edge out the competition on the Solidworks section of the benchmarks.

 

Hello
I have some questions :

- for those who have the m6600 with the firepro m8900 : what is the max gpu fan speed that you can obtain? In heavy load my gpu fan speed maxed out at 400 rpm.... It seems a little low, no?

- have you tried to control the gpu fan speed. I have tried ati tray tool, trixx and i8kfanguy but none of them is working

- is someone have a decent icc profile (color calibration) for the auo matte screen?


Thx by advance!!!

 

same here 400rpm seems to be the limit.

I have the LG display so cant help you with it.

And the only things I'm unsatisfied with are the temps (getting cpu around 75c and gpu around 80-85c average), the keyboard (even my previous acer was better; I just don't like the fell of the keys soft and mushy), and the sound (although at first I thought it was good but after hearing the xps15 which my dad recently bought it seems of mediocre quality, the lack of bass is what's affecting me the most).

The display on the other hand I'm very satisfied with (the xps came with rgbled but is glossy.) No doubt the display on the xps is really good but I'm satisfied with mine.

 

Same here, I m a little unsatisfied with the temp, that's why I want to control the fans. If someone have an idea on this topic I'm very interested.

For the sound I use external sound so I cannot comment.
For the Keyboard do you have the backlit version? I have this one and I'm ok with it. I just find it a little noisy (not too much), but the flex doesn t bother me

 

Yes i have backlit keyboard. Flex isn't an issue for me as well, lets just say this isn't the best of keyboard I have used on a laptop. (which i expect it to be as I have spent 2.5 grands for it).

 

I ordered mine August 2nd and received it August 10. That's with a canceled online order and phone call re-order.

 

Thank you for your response. I went into BIOS and reset everything to the factory default...which was RAID mode. I restarted the laptop. I applied the Microsoft fix file. I went into regedit and confirmed that the proper registry values were there. I then restarted the laptop. I changed from RAID to AHCI mode in the BIOS. I saved the values. I rebooted to the stock drive. I ran regedit and confirmed the values again. I then ran Acronis, and cloned the stock drive to the SSD. I restarted, tried to boot from the SSD...and same error: 0x000000e. I'm at my wits end.

The only thing I haven't done is switch the drive locations inside the computer. Debated doing it...but the SSD wasn't even recognized in the primary bay when I first installed it, so I'm not going to bother.

I guess it's back to a clean install. Hopefully I can download everything I need in the way of drivers and utilities to make this as close to stock as possible.

I wonder why some of you were able to get this to work while I could not...I think that is the most frustrating part of all of this...along with the time wasted trying everything I could to make this work.

Thanks again for your suggestion, Maxh.

 

Dell sent me an email of my chat session where I asked about the FirePro M8900 having switchable graphics via the BIOS.

This is an automated email sent from Dell Chat. The following information is a log of your session. Please save the log for your records.
Your session ID for this incident is 46029917.
Time Details
08/12/2011 08:17:13PM Session Started with Agent (QCSMB_Princess_Jaya)
08/12/2011 08:17:23PM Agent (QCSMB_Princess_Jaya): "Welcome to Dell Small Business Chat! My name is Princess and I will be your Dell.com Sales Chat Expert. I can be reached at [email protected]."
08/12/2011 08:17:26PM Agent (QCSMB_Princess_Jaya): "How may i help you Jon?"
08/12/2011 08:19:06PM Jon Thomas: "I have a question about the Precision M6600 laptop. Since this laptop is running the Intel Sandybridge chipset, can a person switch between the FirePro M8900 dedicated video card and the Intel on-board graphics driver?"
08/12/2011 08:19:53PM Agent (QCSMB_Princess_Jaya): "Thank you for considering Dell. I'd be more than willing to assist you."
08/12/2011 08:21:02PM Agent (QCSMB_Princess_Jaya): "yes, that is correct."
08/12/2011 08:21:05PM Agent (QCSMB_Princess_Jaya): "And that is possible."
08/12/2011 08:23:47PM Jon Thomas: "So do you make the switch from within the BIOS then? I have read on-line from a few different sources that only the Nvidia Quadro equiped M6600's are able to make the switch. The ATI FireGL equipped M6600's have this option disabled from what I have bee"
n able to read about them. So I thought I would ask someone from Dell. I am looking to purchase a Precision M6600 as soon as school starts and am trying to decide on the graphics card I want.
08/12/2011 08:24:27PM Agent (QCSMB_Princess_Jaya): "rest assured it is possible Jon."
08/12/2011 08:26:36PM Jon Thomas: "Ok, that is what I wanted to know. I will have some classes where I would not need the ATI graphics card, just note taking and report writing, and would like to maximize my battery life during class. I look forward to ordering my laptop hopefully in a c"
ouple of weeks. Thank you for your assistance.
08/12/2011 08:26:57PM Agent (QCSMB_Princess_Jaya): "you are most welcome."
08/12/2011 08:26:59PM Agent (QCSMB_Princess_Jaya): "Thank you for the opportunity to help you today!"
08/12/2011 08:26:59PM Agent (QCSMB_Princess_Jaya): "Is there anything else I can help you with?"
08/12/2011 08:27:30PM Jon Thomas: "No, that is all the questions I have. Again, thank you for your time."
08/12/2011 08:27:57PM Agent (QCSMB_Princess_Jaya): "after this conversation, there will be a pop up survey to rate my service with you today. I will appreciate if you take a minute of your time to answer it for me."
08/12/2011 08:27:59PM Agent (QCSMB_Princess_Jaya): "Our Chat team strives to provide the very best levels of customer service. If you have a minute, we would really appreciate your feedback on a quick survey that will appear once the session ends. My manager gets all the feedback and we use it to help our"
customers. Thank you for choosing Dells Sales Chat and have a wonderful day!
08/12/2011 08:28:15PM Jon Thomas: "Sure, that is fine."
08/12/2011 08:28:47PM Session Ended
If you require further assistance, please visit us at support.dell.com
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Kink of funny really.

 

It is as it is, a mistake.
By the way still waiting for my M6600.