M6800 Owners' Thread

i HAVE edp TOUCH SCREEN AND EDP BOARD. iD LOVE AN EDP ips TOUCH... Anyone ever seen one?

 

Has anyone ever tried putting a Radeon M290X in the M6800? I'm wondering if the fan works with this card and if the laptop can handle the heat generated by it.

 

Just wondering whether anybody has ever gotten a 4K (or even QHD+) screen to work with the M6800. I'm looking for a replacement for my M6500 (no problem except that the CPU is sluggish by contemporary standards), and the M6800 would be perfect -- except for that lower resolution screen!

I really need multiple 2.5" bays and I want that 17" screen to go along with a fast CPU and high resolution. I do a lot of image and some video editing, and the i7-920XM bogs down. The i7-49xx CPUs are basically as fast as any of the Skylake/Kaby Lake puppies.

I have yet to find a machine that can meet all of those specs, particularly at a reasonable price. The 7710 is an abomination, with one of the 2.5" bays and the optical bay kaput. Everything looks like it's going to be a compromise. Why on earth Dell put a QHD+ screen in the M4800 (which only has one 2.5" bay) and not in the M6800 is completely beyond my comprehension.

 

The M6800 would be the perfect replacement for my M6500...but no high resolution screen!!!

 

I'm not sure about WQHD but the motherboard probably doesn't have enough eDP lanes for 4K. There's also the issue of finding a hi res screen that would fit - almost all new screens (WQHD/4K ones included) use a different panel mounting style than what the m6800 uses.

 

At the time that the M6800 was released in 2013, no display manufacturers were producing high-DPI 17" screens... That's the whole reason.

 

I see.

Which leads to a really bizarre question: whether the 15.6" panel from the M4800 could somehow be mounted in the M6800. That might take a bit more metal/plastic fabrication than I have experience with...

 

Hmm. Never thought of that. I suspect that this would work (getting it mounted "properly" would be the trick). The M4800 and M6800 have pretty much the same BIOS and other internal hardware, and I'm pretty sure the high-DPI panels for the M4800 are eDP, and the M6800 has an eDP port on the motherboard even if your display is LVDS (I believe).

You could just get an M4800. If you are OK without the optical drive (or just use an external one when needed), you can still have two 2.5" drives + mSATA.

 

I actually upgraded from an M6800 to a 7710 because I was having a few issues with my 6800 that dell apparently couldn't solve. I was a little bummed that the 2.5 bay count was reduced by one, and the lack of an optical drive for me was a minor annoyance. Honestly though, I got an external bluray drive, and I have a 512gb NVMe ssd and a 1tb 2.5 hdd and I'm good to go. The laptop is just such a solidly build machine otherwise it even puts the 6800 to shame IMO. And that 4k screen is just unbelievable.

https://www.parts-people.com/index.php?action=item&id=21070

That's the link for the motherboard. They appear to not have the screen listed right now, but they did last time I was there and looking. It's definitely a think. At some point dell just started selling them with IPS screens, right before they were discontinued I believe. If I see it pop back up, I'll post a number. Otherwise, if you contact parts-people they can probably give you a part number at least.

 

My problem is I need a lot of storage. I currently have 5 TB in my M6500 and am not that thrilled that I can't do that in a newer machine without spending a thoroughly exorbitant sum (or going through the inconvenience of an external drive).

I'm currently leaning toward an M7710 or possibly an M7510 when the right machine comes up for the right price (I wouldn't pass on an M7720 or M7520 either, but the price is less likely to be right) and living with the inconvenience. It looks like getting everything I otherwise want means either an inferior screen (Clevo P650, Dell M6800) or desktop processor, with all the hassles that entails (Clevo 870) or iffy brand (Gigabyte). Plus, used 7710's can be had for quite a bit less money.