M6600 Owners Thread

Good!

Is your FPR a FIPS/non-FIPS FPR?

 

Non-FIPS Standard palm-rest integrated (Dell basic config.)

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EDIT:

Yeah it only took me 10 Mins. to get it DL'd, Copied, and Testing. I was a bit concerned earlier but UNetbootin made it quite simple.

Wondering what this means for you, bad MB or FPR?

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EDIT:

Need to run some errands, if you need any other tests post 'em and I'll see if I can do them.

BTW, FPR is Broadcom Driver. UPEK FIPS uses a different driver I think: http://www.dell.com/support/drivers...leId=2731103758&languageCode=EN&categoryId=SY

 

Your information for me is valuable, and I have a Non-FIPS FPR.
If there is no other combination for non-FIPS (i.e. other than USH+Validity FPR), my M6600 has a issue caused by FPR / FPR cable / FPR port of MB.
I will ask engineer dispatched by DELL to classify.

 

A question about battery voltages...I noticed that the battery voltages as measured by CPUID Hardware monitor varies at log on. I am see voltages vary from a high of 12.97 to a low of 12.68, both when I boot up and during the sessions when the computer is on

Just wondering if that battery voltage variation is normal?

 

I think it is normal.
I log the volatage w/o AC from startng 3D benchmarks to going out of it.

11972000
11853000
11839000
11822000
11769000
11741000
11797000
11874000
11688000
11745000
11650000
11638000
11615000
11613000
11610000
11603000
11597000
11553000
11554000
11559000
11509000
11587000
11549000
11647000
11687000
11686000
11907000

The power consumption varies depending on your boot loading.

FYI

 

OK, so I owe you guys an update: it turns out that I was very unlucky when picking that particular caddy at eBay - it's not compatible with Dell optical bay. So I ordered another one, and it arrived today. Swapping the optical drive with my new HDD was a breeze, and it's now up and running - BUT....

... I was counting on the Intel Rapid Storage Technology application (as opposed to the Option ROM at boot time) to be able to just add my new disk to the existing 2-disk array. This is well documented in the app's Help, and actually I did use the functionality successfully on my desktop where I increased a 2-disk RAID 0 array by adding an additional HDD to it, and without even destroying the data present on the Array (which is the main point of this method). HOWEVER, even though IRST does see both the Array and the newly added HDD, it simply doesn't offer the "Add disk" option. The IRST version is 12.5.0.1066 (the newest one).

Any Suggestions, please? Of course I can add the disk by creating the new array from scratch, but this would require restoring my 1.5 TB backup - plus, some vital OS components (TMP folders, swap files etc.) are on that array. Please help

PS. Should the new drive be initialized and new volume created on it using System Management? I guess not...

PSPS Just noticed my installation of the IRST tool lacks some more options as well - such as ability to change array type, etc.

 

I found the culprit: my RAID 0 volume (drive D) had the swap file on it; after moving it to the system drive the 'Add disk' option appeared in IRST. Just migrating data (going to be a long time process).

I do have another problem - after adding the new HDD (replacing the DVD drive), even though my SSD is at the top of boot sequence in BIOS, the system tries to boot from NIC - what's up?!!

 

I need some input.

Went and setup to reimage the system to run UEFI. But, ran into a problem when I used the USB to boot, after changing the BIOS to UEFI there is still no option to Boot from UEFI.
Upon selecting a target for the OS, it states cannot accept because of being GPT file system condition. Just so you know, since everything seemed right - drive wise, I decided to try the Dell/Windows7 re-installation DVD and sure enough it finds the Boot from device UEFI version whether the BIOS is in Legacy or UEFI Mode and when I select the drive target it has no complaints and finds the OS partition.

What I need to figure out is how to get the USB installer to do the same.

Here's the drives formatting:

DISKPART
LIST DISK
SELECT DISK 0
CLEAN
CONVERT GPT (Only if previously MBR)
CREATE PARTITION EFI SIZE=400
FORMAT FS=FAT32 LABEL="System"
CREATE PARTITION MSR SIZE=128
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY SIZE=171008
FORMAT FS=NTFS LABEL="OS"

SELECT DISK 1
CLEAN
CONVERT GPT (Only if previously MBR)
CREATE PARTITION MSR SIZE=128
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY SIZE=171008
FORMAT FS=NTFS LABEL="DATA"
ASSIGN LETTER=D
EXIT
EXIT

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EDIT:

Obviously there is something on the Dell DVD that enables that, what that something is, unknown to me. Don't think there is any special formatting but maybe an answer script or auto-run or something. Shouldn't be that hard to figure out - I'll get to searching for it later but was hoping someone might have an immediate solution.

 

As you've discovered, Windows will not let use use a GPT disk as the system drive unless you boot the install media via UEFI.

What process are you using to create the USB installation media?

Here are some directions for Windows 7/8. A little more involved than I think it should be, but I've never tried doing this from USB before, always used the DVD media.
Prepare an usb thumb drive, to boot windows 7 or 8... - Lenovo Community
Pretty much, it looks like you have to make sure that your USB drive is formatted FAT32, and put the EFI boot file at the root of the drive. You might have to extract the EFI boot file from the "install.wim" file on your install media, Windows 7 doesn't have it sitting around by default (but Windows 8 does).

 

Holy Crap!

LOL, yeah I remember reading something about this somewhere. I'm going to have a look at the DVD too - to see if I can shortcut the process a little.

I wonder though, is the DVD in FAT32 format? I thought they were a DVD format.

At any rate, think I'll drink some more coffee and have some toast before I get started figuring this out.
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BTW, thanks. Oh and I used the MS USB Burn tool.

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Sevenforums.com might have some easier instructions there.