M6600 Owners Thread

I wanted to upgrade my current notebook as
1. screen was too small (14")
2. 2 buttons was annoying. feel 3 buttons will help a lot.
3. non professional GPU card (and not even a good gaming neither

For some reason I have been buying HP notebooks even though i always have something to complain about. mostly it is because of whitelist.

I almost bought an used 8760W but at the end i bought the M6600 dell for the following reasons

1. No whitelist on Dell.
2. Most used HP 8460W noteboks are dual core. HP has two motherboards: one for dual and one for quad. That is annoying as I'd never have a choice to have 32Gb. I'd have to replace the motherboard.
3. Potentially more GPU compatibility on Dell as there are more options (due to the alienware)
4. 1920x1080 touchscreem option

Reason why i wanted HP at first
1. 8770W shares the same case as 8760W. I could just buy a new 8770W motherboard. well not so simple as id have to replace several other items making it not so cheap upgrade.

So soon i will be a owner of a new used M6600 with 32Gb, Quadro 5010M and i7-2860QM

I will probably only upgrade the GPU when there is a Maxwell Quadro (and at least 4Gb ram) available as maxwell is very good on OpenCL (one of the reasons why i always preferred Radeon over GTX for desktop. For desktop i have now GTX 970 and very happy with it for both gaming and 3d apps.

I ready somewhere here in this forum that the GPU/CPU fan of the M6700 is much better and quieter than the M6600. I wonder if i could replace the ones from M6600 with the M6700/M68000

 

Ive found that the big fan on m6600 is quietest of the lot of m66, m67 and m68. Wouldnt know about small one as it never produced enough noise for me to complain.

Edit: i dont think maxwell cards will work in m66 not sure if someone tried but 780 did not work and maxwells require pure uefi bios. Try to find k5000m (680m). If k5100m works feel free to correct me

 

well, if maxwell wont work then i will be set for a long time. It is not that i need (since i already have maxwell as desktop)

K5000M is an upgrade to the 5010M but not sure if I'd do right now. I guess I could sell mine on Ebay and buy a K5000M for about the same price.

Other than the maxwell ones, I'd love to upgrade for a K5100M but could not find any info on anyone that have done it. That one would be great if works. 8Gb RAM is great. Too much money to spend and find out it doesn't

I read people that tried and failed on the 780M but 680M and 780M (and 880M for that matter) uses the same GK104

Looking at the Nvidia Graphics Processing units wiki
GTX 680M = 100W TDP
GTX 780M = 122W TDP
GTX 880M = 130W TDP
K5000M = 100 TDP
K5100M = 100 TDP

reason cold be that those 780M may require more than 100W that a normal MXM-3b can provide and cause some "issues" unless the vbios is programmed to throttle. That could be a reasonable explanation. and if so, there is some chance the K5100M would work (since they reduce shaders/clocks on quadros).

GTX 780M uses more voltage than 680M and it could be reason for failure.

For someone with some "extra" cash its worth trying the K5100M. For now, I can't

 

My notebook arrived And looks great.
the only problem was the very lose power cable. I opened it up to check the DC plug. it looks in good shape but the power connector will be loose no matter what. wonder if buying a new one will solve the problem.

also i saw pics from the retainer and it looks a bit different. the side "wall" on mine is smaller. retainer would not avoid movement no matter what position i placed it. so i bent a bit the sides and put it back in. it helped and helped by a lot but still i dont think its perfect. but at least it wont fall for no reason now. it was simple free falling and unplugging itself by any small move or by cable weight.

took the opportunity to upgrade the memory to 32gb.

At least from bench-marking, i am not impressed with the 5010M. Specviewperf is giving much lower results than expected.

My first impressions on this dell (i never owned a dell before. only used at work and always thought they were ugly lol)

Negatives
=======
1. Keyboard. I much so prefer HP keyboards. I loved the DV7 and the elitebook 8460p (my last notebook). And until i fix the flex issue (i caused) i will dislike it even more.
2. It is not pretty. still think dell notebooks are ugly.
3. I knew it was going to be heavy but i was like.. people exaggerate sometimes.. i am used to the heavy 8460p so it wont be a big deal. well it is not a big deal but still it is heavy
4. LCD is not firm. it will move/bounce it i touch it. may be by design or cause it is old.
5. I planned to use mostly in the couch in my lap/belly. it is HOT. will require a cooling pad.
6. have to remove screws to access the internal parts. granted it wont have many reasons to go there specially since primary HD can be swapped easily without opening the bottom case.

Positives
=======
1. Fan is quiet. much quieter than the elitebook 8460p
2. Even though i have issues with the DC connector, i love that it is a separate plug. i know many people have issues with broken DC plug. it does not require buying a new motherboard to fix it.
3. Optimus - HP wont offer it.
4. can swap HD by simple removing battery and pushing a button. I always wanted something that simple. better if i didnt have to remove the battery, but i dont know of any other notebook with that feature.
5. No whitelist for wireless. Plugged my 2nd wireless into the wwan and have 2 wireless working now.
6. I do actually like the touchpad and although i dont like the keyboard i never had issues with mouse jumping around because of that small bullet mouse (or whatever it is called) in the middle of the keyboard. it happens a lot in the HP.
7. i know some dont like the speakers ... well it is better than the elitebook.
8. not related to dell itself, but i forgot how perfect 1920x1080 is on 17" screens ... it is the perfect pixel size.
9. I like the fact i can program in the bios what things i can disable by using the right side switch.
10. already mentioned, no need to buy a different motherboard to have 32gb if i had initially bought a dual core processor only. I think it is ridiculous HP does that. does it really add much the cost to have 2 extra memory slots? Id have rather pay a bit more to have that than pay a lot more (replace the motherboard) to have a quad core with 32 gb ram.


The things i like about HP is that they list all part number so it is easy to find replacement or optionals. dell is a bit trickier to find the right info.
also i heard people that bought used DELL and unable to use the warranty because it wasnt transferred.
i bought the elitebook used too and the motherboard failed. it was still under warranty. i sent to HP and no questions asked. they replaced it and fixed several other items that were not working properly as webcam. even placed in a new battery.

I think i will be using this notebooks for 3 years and upgrade only when the following happen
combination of ddr4, faster cpu. super fast m.2 pice. and when it is affordable.. i see that happening in 2-3 years.

for now i feel notebook can get new life by upgrading GPU only.

 

You weren't hoping to pick up girls with it, right... that's what Porsches and Ferraris are for and even sometimes they won't help a poor situation. Sorry.... I couldn't help myself.

I think there's a bracket that can be used to stiffen the keyboard. The ram underneath should have helped a little.

Edit: sometimes the keyboards are a little bit convex, upwards bow and pressing down is flattening it. Make sure all the screws are in place too.

 

LOL, but for the price of a brand new one it is like Ferrari compared to other notebooks right? but i mean .. compared to other business notebooks.. HPs are prettier. DV7 was a pretty computer ... Elitebook .. well its business one and isnt very pretty but not too bad. HP Zbook isnt bad looking. Just think HP beats Dell by far in that category. Dell M3800 is not bad.

I was thinking on replacing it for one with backlight and if i read correctly that one, itself, is stiffer. but i am sure i can fix that since it wasn't bad before. My only main complain is the DC plug. I think i will buy a new one to see if that fix. Cable still fall at times. just not all of the time as before (i had to literally hold the cable to prevent it from falling). sometimes dell would not even recognize the charger. no issues with that now.

I wish i would know the product code for that retainer so i could buy a new one too.

 

The manufacturing is just inconsistent for the keyboards, each one has a little more or less of the concaveness. My other system has a flawless flat keyboard and it is just perfect, but the one I'm using now bows up just a tiny bit and I get that flexi feeling from it. I've tried about six different keyboards and this was the best - I didn't want to try anymore. All backlit too.

I'll watch for that DC connector retainer part number. Someone may yet weigh in on how you could fix it.

Yeah, I was cracking up when I wrote that little joke... but because I like the plainness of my Dell. It doesn't need to be aero dynamic or have nice lines - lol. I've never had any women leave a note and phone number on it that said "if you're half as good looking as your computer, give me a call". They only do that for the Harley and the Italian or German sports car. As a matter of fact, even if they did like it - they would start complaining that I spend too much time with it. ++ lol!!!

It just works.

 

maybe because you are too worried about getting a woman lol.

the ugly/pretty is that if i have to work 8+ hours a day Id prefer to look at something nice not ugly. would you like to look at an ugly woman for hours, touch her, take her to the couch .. to your field trips .. probably not.

its not even the exterior that bugs me, it is the black plain interior that i have to look a lot lol.

but anyways, i mentioned its ugliest as "first impression". at the end it does not matter... much...

I dont regret as i was getting tired of HP's whitelist crap. If i am buying this type of notebook it is because of its ability to upgrade without having to through it out and buy a new one when a new gpu is in the market or a better wifi is available.

talking about that, one thing i am disappointed is that K5100M wont work on this one (at least i believe it wont work). That would be the GPU I'd want to upgrade to.

cant stop thinking how ugly it is.. i think i will take the palm rest and paint it metallic. or paint the keyboard bezel frame and make it look more like an HP

 

Some people like plain black and understated rather than colorful and metallic. This is a very qualitative thing.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

WTF... It isn't ugly - you buy a used computer, come to a message board for said computer that the people here love and you keep saying it is ugly.

BTW... my wife complains I spend too much time on the computer and part of that time is trying to help guys who think said computer is ugly.

P.S. Go figure, she owns one of the two systems in my signature and loves the power and understated design - executive she calls it. She said to tell you to get your priorities straight!