New M6500 Discussion Thread

http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...-m6500-discussion-thread-336.html#post6146428

5 kilos or about 11 lbs including the adapter

 

do you have the machine hooked up to a monitor with this resolution? I know when I hook up my external then close the lid of my laptop it defaults to my external and everything goes from fitting into a 1920x1200 size to 1920x1080

also you might want to try to do a restore (if applicable) and see if you can't pin point where the problem started

 

Thanks for the insight. However, I don't have an external monitor hooked up at all. The only reason I've messed with the second monitor settings was in hopes of tricking the system into keeping the same resolution. I am hooked into a port replicator, not sure if that matters...

Actually, the machine has behaved this way ever since I got it and it's really getting on my nerves. So I don't have a restore point to go back to to where it works as desired.

One other thing I noticed was that this issue doesn't seem to happen every time. So it seems like some type of timing issue (monitor powering on before the video drivers, or vice versa?). When it does happen I can notice a very quick glitch at the login screen where it looks like some type of window (or possibly the taskbar?) is showing up in the 1024x768 area of the screen.

 

this is kind of a shot in the dark but perhaps try playing with bios settings (i wouldn't know which ones) and if all else fails just go ahead and call dell. you have a pretty sweet warranty to keep your machine truckin'.

 

I just called dell and the lady was amazingly helpful and is sending out a new bluetooth wireless adapter and keyboard to fix my point stick and connectivity problems with bluetooth (plus the insistent bluetooth light that never turns off I hope )

 

Clearly, an aurora boredellis effect.

 

This looks very similar to the video card issues I experienced (post 6283442), with the only exception being the system did not "lockup". If I were you, I would insist they replace the video card. In my case I had the same effect on the laptop screen, but with an external monitor attached, no ill effects were displayed.

 

basketweaver,

I have an easy test you can do to ensure your video card is working properly.

1) Before starting the test, please ensure your laptop is on a flat surface to insure proper cooling.

2) Download and install FurMark.

3) Let FurMark run for about 5 minutes, if the video card or any of its subsystems are not working properly, the abnormal screen color behavior will present itself, so do not be alarmed.





Using this procedure, I was able to determine I had an issue with the video card/subsystem, in fact when I ran FurMark, the laptop screen displayed the same unusual colors for about 15 seconds before going completely black. After blacking out I was unable to view the Dell logo displayed during boot, but the laptop booted fine, and if I attached an external monitor, I could still use the laptop. Good luck, and please let us know your results.

 

Hey there, skypx.

I ran the FurMark benchmark in highest options my screen can run, (see screenshot here below), and when it had run for over six minutes, it ran well as far as I see, and no errors occured. GPU temperature was 58 degrees.



I have had periodic faults with my computer since the day I got it, and the graphics makes errors very often at bootup whether it be Linux or Windows I throw at it. Dell have changed motherboard, RAM, CPU, Graphics card, which means there can't be much left to change. They have no clue, either.. will have to wait and see what they say when they call.

Are you on the ATI M7740 card? I have heard that it has some issues with some users, but I do not know..


Oh, and I saved the log from the test here:

Code:

<->[NORMAL]#00000001#Thu May 27 09:50:15 2010#ATI - CrossFire disabled - GPU: 1
<->[NORMAL]#00000002#Thu May 27 09:50:15 2010#ATI - # of logical adapters: 2
<->[NORMAL]#00000003#Thu May 27 09:50:15 2010#ATI - Logical adapter 0 temperature: 53.000°C
<->[NORMAL]#00000004#Thu May 27 09:50:15 2010#Physical GPU 0 temperature: 53.000°C
<->[NORMAL]#00000005#Thu May 27 09:50:15 2010#Renderer: ATI FirePro M7740 
<->[NORMAL]#00000006#Thu May 27 09:50:15 2010#Graphics drivers: Catalyst  - 8.681-091124a-093052C-Dell (11-24-2009)
<->[NORMAL]#00000007#Thu May 27 09:50:15 2010#CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU       M 520  @ 2.40GHz
<->[NORMAL]#00000008#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#CPU speed: 2394 MHz
<->[NORMAL]#00000009#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#System memory: 4020 MB
<->[NORMAL]#00000010#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#OS: Windows Server 2007 ver.6.1 build 7600 [No Service Pack]
<->[NORMAL]#00000011#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#oZone3D Engine is starting up - kernel build: [v3.2.4 - Jan 12 2010 @ 18:14:50] - codename: Astroboy
<->[NORMAL]#00000012#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#oZone3D initialization in progress...
<->[NORMAL]#00000013#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#oZone3D - O3_RENDERER_OPENGL renderer creation ok.
<->[NORMAL]#00000014#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: OpenGL version: 3.2.9232 FireGL
<->[NORMAL]#00000015#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: Vertex Array max vertices: 2147483647
<->[NORMAL]#00000016#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: Vertex Array max indices: 16777215
<->[NORMAL]#00000017#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: Max Viewport Size: 8192
<->[NORMAL]#00000018#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: Number of ARB texture units: 8
<->[NORMAL]#00000019#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: Max texture 2D size: 8192x8192 pixels
<->[NORMAL]#00000020#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: Number of vertex shader texture samplers: 16
<->[NORMAL]#00000021#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: Number of pixel shader texture samplers: 16
<->[NORMAL]#00000022#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: texture_filter_anisotropic supported - max anisotropic value: 16.00
<->[NORMAL]#00000023#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: Hardware generation of mipmaps supported.
<->[NORMAL]#00000024#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: Cube mapping supported.
<->[NORMAL]#00000025#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: DOT3 Bump mapping supported.
<->[NORMAL]#00000026#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: Separate specular color supported.
<->[NORMAL]#00000027#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: MAX_SHININESS_NV = 0
<->[NORMAL]#00000028#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: MAX_SPOT_EXPONENT_NV = 0
<->[NORMAL]#00000029#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: Vertex Buffer Object supported.
<->[NORMAL]#00000030#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: MAX_VERTEX_UNIFORM_COMPONANTS = 1024
<->[NORMAL]#00000031#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: MAX_FRAGMENT_UNIFORM_COMPONENTS = 1024
<->[NORMAL]#00000032#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: MAX_GEOMETRY_UNIFORM_COMPONENTS = 4096
<->[NORMAL]#00000033#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: MAX_VARYING_FLOATS = 64
<->[NORMAL]#00000034#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: MAX_VERTEX_ATTRIBS = 16
<->[NORMAL]#00000035#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: GLSL GL2 codepath supported. Entry points initialized.
<->[NORMAL]#00000036#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: OpenGL Shading Language (GLSL) 1.50 supported - very very good! welcome to the amazing world of real time shaders!
<->[NORMAL]#00000037#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: Stencil Two Sides NOT supported.
<->[NORMAL]#00000038#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: ATI separate stencil supported.
<->[NORMAL]#00000039#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: Depth Clamping NOT supported.
<->[NORMAL]#00000040#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: point_sprite supported - point_sprite max size = 8192.000000.
<->[NORMAL]#00000041#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: Pixel Buffer Object (PBO) supported
<->[NORMAL]#00000042#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: Frame Buffer Object (FBO) supported
<->[NORMAL]#00000043#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: FBO Max colors attachments: 8
<->[NORMAL]#00000044#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: Texture Compression supported
<->[NORMAL]#00000045#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: S3TC Texture Compression supported
<->[NORMAL]#00000046#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: ATI 3Dc Texture Compression supported
<->[NORMAL]#00000047#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: Regular non-power of two (NPOT) textures supported
<->[NORMAL]#00000048#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: Texture Rectangles supported
<->[NORMAL]#00000049#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: Max texture rectangle size: 8192x8192 pixels
<->[NORMAL]#00000050#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: Floating Point Textures NOT supported
<->[NORMAL]#00000051#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: G80 class GPU and up: MAX_VERTEX_BINDABLE_UNIFORMS: 15
<->[NORMAL]#00000052#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: G80 class GPU and up: MAX_FRAGMENT_BINDABLE_UNIFORMS: 15
<->[NORMAL]#00000053#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: G80 class GPU and up: MAX_GEOMETRY_BINDABLE_UNIFORMS: 15
<->[NORMAL]#00000054#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: G80 class GPU and up: MAX_BINDABLE_UNIFORM_SIZE: 65536
<->[NORMAL]#00000055#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: G80 class GPU and up: MAX_GEOMETRY_TEXTURE_IMAGE_UNITS: 32
<->[NORMAL]#00000056#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: G80 class GPU and up: MAX_GEOMETRY_OUTPUT_VERTICES: 1024
<->[NORMAL]#00000057#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: G80 class GPU and up: MAX_ARRAY_TEXTURE_LAYERS: 8192
<->[NORMAL]#00000058#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: G80 class GPU and up: MAX_TEXTURE_BUFFER_SIZE: 256 Mb
<->[NORMAL]#00000059#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: G80 class GPU and up: Uniform buffers supported - MAX_UNIFORM_BLOCK_SIZE=65536, VERTEX_UNIFORM_BLOCKS=15, MAX_FRAGMENT_UNIFORM_BLOCKS=15, MAX_GEOMETRY_UNIFORM_BLOCKS=15
<->[NORMAL]#00000060#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: G80 class GPU and up: geometry instancing supported - functions initialized.
<->[NORMAL]#00000061#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: G80 class GPU and up: Shader Model 4.0 supported.
<->[NORMAL]#00000062#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: Multiple render targets: Max draw buffers: 8
<->[NORMAL]#00000063#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: Multiple render targets supported
<->[NORMAL]#00000064#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: Max draw buffers: 8
<->[NORMAL]#00000065#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: Current MSAA: 0X
<->[NORMAL]#00000066#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: Occlusion Queries supported - OpenGL >= 1.5
<->[NORMAL]#00000067#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: Timer Query supported
<->[NORMAL]#00000068#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#o3RendererOpenGL INFO: 8 dynamic lights supported.
<->[NORMAL]#00000069#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#oZone3D initialization ok.
<->[NORMAL]#00000070#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#ScanLocalizationFiles - C:\Program Files (x86)\oZone3D\Benchmarks\FurMark_v1.8.0\localization/01-gui_en.xml found
<->[NORMAL]#00000071#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#ScanLocalizationFiles - C:\Program Files (x86)\oZone3D\Benchmarks\FurMark_v1.8.0\localization/02-gui-fr.xml found
<->[NORMAL]#00000072#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#ScanLocalizationFiles - C:\Program Files (x86)\oZone3D\Benchmarks\FurMark_v1.8.0\localization/03-gui-finnish.xml found
<->[NORMAL]#00000073#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#ScanLocalizationFiles - C:\Program Files (x86)\oZone3D\Benchmarks\FurMark_v1.8.0\localization/04-gui-bulgarian.xml found
<->[NORMAL]#00000074#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#ScanLocalizationFiles - C:\Program Files (x86)\oZone3D\Benchmarks\FurMark_v1.8.0\localization/05-gui-castilian.xml found
<->[NORMAL]#00000075#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#ScanLocalizationFiles - C:\Program Files (x86)\oZone3D\Benchmarks\FurMark_v1.8.0\localization/06-gui-german.xml found
<->[NORMAL]#00000076#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#ScanLocalizationFiles - C:\Program Files (x86)\oZone3D\Benchmarks\FurMark_v1.8.0\localization/07-gui-polish.xml found
<->[NORMAL]#00000077#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#ScanLocalizationFiles - C:\Program Files (x86)\oZone3D\Benchmarks\FurMark_v1.8.0\localization/08-gui-russian.xml found
<->[NORMAL]#00000078#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#ScanLocalizationFiles - C:\Program Files (x86)\oZone3D\Benchmarks\FurMark_v1.8.0\localization/09-gui-simplified-chinese.xml found
<->[NORMAL]#00000079#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#ScanLocalizationFiles - C:\Program Files (x86)\oZone3D\Benchmarks\FurMark_v1.8.0\localization/10-gui-slovak.xml found
<->[NORMAL]#00000080#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#ScanLocalizationFiles - C:\Program Files (x86)\oZone3D\Benchmarks\FurMark_v1.8.0\localization/11-gui-traditional-chinese.xml found
<->[NORMAL]#00000081#Thu May 27 09:50:16 2010#ScanLocalizationFiles - C:\Program Files (x86)\oZone3D\Benchmarks\FurMark_v1.8.0\localization/12-gui-turkish.xml found
<->[NORMAL]#00000082#Thu May 27 09:50:50 2010#Demo init - # of adapters (ATI): 1
<->[NORMAL]#00000083#Thu May 27 09:55:48 2010#Demo init - # of adapters (ATI): 1
<->[NORMAL]#00000084#Thu May 27 09:56:02 2010#Demo init - # of adapters (ATI): 1

It is SUPPOSED to look like it did in your screenshot, right? That is how it looked for me.



Cheers!

 

I used the default settings, but as configured you should have seen the aforementioned effects if the video card/subsystem were not up to par.

That's strange, video related issues only occur during startup? Is this before or after the OS is loaded?

Sorry, I'm using Nvidia's FX 3800M.

During my tests, I did not use the log GPU temperature feature.