M6800 Owners' Thread

HX321LS11IB2K2/16

After my mainboard was changed+the GPU still no output on the DP. Was determined to be as a HW compatibility issue.

 

Guys, need some info. I have Dell original slim 240W adapter, but it overloads on 185W+... Could it be adapter issue or it's just M6800?

 

Hope some of you notebook deities can provide some enlightened guidance for me! Sorry for the long post but I’m trying to be thorough.

I have a Dell M6800 with i7-4910MQ, running Windows 7 Pro. I purchased this machine about a year ago from Dell Outlet as either Refurb or Scratch/Dent, can't remember which. The machine came with the OS pre-installed on a 256GB SSD. I cloned the SSD to an mSATA drive, and then added two HDDs (1 GB and 2 GB) for storage, and have been running fine for about a year, until a few weeks ago.

That day, a Sunday, I turned the computer on in the morning and then shut down about mid-day. I didn't think I'd need to turn it on again right away but something came up and I had to re-start. On re-start, I got an Invalid Partition Table! (IPT) phrase at startup. I can't recall specifics for each instance, but the computer has, on occasion, since then, either a) eventually found the Win 7 OS, or b) not found the OS ("check cable" message) and then rebooted. I can't remember how I eventually got the computer back up that first day of the troubles, but I did remove the two storage HDDs, which seemed to help for awhile.

Since then, thinking the issue was the mSATA SSD, I purchased a new mSATA SSD and girded my loins for a reinstall of the OS, programs, etc. The computer was behaving itself a bit better however, and I wondered if the issue was really some sort of thermal event with the mSATA (e.g. - computer will boot after computer sits overnight and cools, has trouble booting after being on and running awhile, but exhibits no issues while running). (I’ve more or less eliminated the “thermal issue” possibility as the computer does sometimes issue an IPT on startup even after sitting idle overnight.) I got confident enough that I reinstalled the two storage HDDs.

I'm still having intermittent problems, though. I've been through the BIOS too many times to count. In the beginning of this problem, the BIOS sometimes could not even see the mSATA SSD. Generally, I've had best luck changing the boot order to have the mSATA SSD at the top of the list with the two storage HDDs following. I've tried deleting the storage HDDs from the boot list and that has sometimes resulted in the BIOS not recognizing the mSATA SSD at all. What's really weird is that in some cases, the BIOS boot settings seem to change without me doing anything. For example, I went into the BIOS, changed boot order to have mSATA at top, CD drive 2nd, and the storage HDDs after that. Got an IPT notice, rebooted into BIOS, and the boot order was changed, with the mSATA drive near the bottom of the list. After resetting the boot order, IIRC, in that case I still got an IPT notice, but was able to hit "enter" and eventually the BIOS found Win 7 and gave me the option to boot up (that seems to be occurring more frequently).

I am wondering if this might be some sort of hardware problem - but I don't know how to check to make sure hardware is operating properly.

I have done a disk check on the mSATA and it appears to be OK. I have booted into the Windows Repair environment but it can find nothing wrong with the Windows 7 installation on the mSATA.

Last week, the computer seemed to be behaving itself and I thought that the kind notebook fairies had magically fixed the computer. Then this weekend the troubles started again. I managed to temporarily fix the problem by eliminating the USB in the boot setup, but then the computer started giving IPT messages at startup again.

So far I’ve been fortunate that I’ve not been “locked out,” but I’m getting more than concerned about this behavior. Any ideas or suggestions? Thanks!

 

I wonder if you would have more luck using UEFI boot instead, if only because using UEFI you no longer have a "boot order" in the sense that you are used to it with legacy boot that you are currently using. In a regular UEFI setup the only option on the boot order list will be "Windows boot manager". Unfortunately switching from a legacy boot to a UEFI boot setup is doable, but less than straight-forward. When first installing Windows, if you boot your Windows install media using legacy boot you will get a legacy install, and if you boot it using UEFI boot you will get a UEFI install (partition structure is different).

Anyway, this certainly isn't normal behavior, and since you have already swapped out the mSATA drive, it seems like it must be a motherboard issue to me.

 

Or it's possible to convert from MBR to GPT and manually create EFI partition and fill it with all files needed using Windows Recovery.

 

What amd hd drivers do you use for amd firepro m6100 for alienware m15x

 

Thanks all for the helpful ideas. They say life is live and learn and I believe I've learned...

I finally got around to cloning the new drive, using the same Ease US software I used the last time. Sure enough, that operation brought the same problem, came up with the IPT message. I decided to go the old-fashioned route and reimage the new mSATA HDD using the backup Win 7 Pro disk that came with the computer. So far, the new mSATA drive imaged using the backup disk seems to be working fine (cross fingers, knock wood).

I believe the problem was with the way that the original drive was formatted and how the software handled the clone/backup. It appears that the cloned drive worked OK for awhile, but evidently something caused a problem, not sure what.

The lesson I’ve learned is that if your OS doesn’t come installed on the drive you want to use, the best option is to use your backup disk to freshly image the drive you do want to use. It’s tempting to clone the existing disk, but the experience I’ve had indicates it’s not worth it, especially when starting out.

 

I got the same rams as you and I can now confirm it works at 2133MHz!

Just that with four sticks some of the timing have been slightly increased, but just by 1 or 2 clock cycles!

I'm happy with that!

I'll post my screen capture later.

 

Oh, good to know! Was tempted to purchase another batch and experiment with a quad channel.

Thanks for sharing!

 

As promised, here's my screen capture!