New M6500 Discussion Thread

ohh okay thanks. Its the first time i'm buying a laptop, people are like get mobile workstations so I thought maybe dell is good . Or is it better to get a consumer line laptop? Also I hear some laptops have security protocols built into them.

 

Is there any way to keep keyboard backlighting on permanently without it timing out? I know you can set to 5 mins with Control point System manager but I would like it on permanently.

 

Dell is good, at least the business laptops are (I can't judge the rest). It just has its price.
One thing you should have in mind is that a laptop always has its downsides (even top-level machines like the M6500). The ergonomics are not as good as a desktop PC. You are very limited in adjusting screen and keyboard. Sure you can add external periphery, but all that separates your laptop from a portable shuttle PC then is the ability to work while you're on your way. And as I said, that is not the strenght of the M6500.
Another disadvantage comes from the highly integrated design compared to a desktop PC. You're very limited with replacing hardware which might become complicated and/or expensive one day.

If you need a new stationary workstation and a laptop, then get a stationary workstation and a laptop. Don't try to mix it! You'll get a workstation that easily outperforms the M6500 and a laptop that is more mobile than the M6500 for the same price.
If, for some reason, you need both in the same machine (e.g. you work in different places and need the full power or the same environment everywhere without relying on local periphery), then get something like the M6500.

This question is always hard to answer. The business branch is significantly more expensive which is mostly due to the better service. If you need this service you'll be lucky to have it. But most likely you'll never need it. Another factor is the product quality. It's not like all consumer devices have a bad quality. Most of them are ok or good. But you'll get some extra quality with a business machine. Usually the design is more sophisticated. One example is the cooling system, which in many consumer laptops is sufficient but not optimal. I never made it to get the CPU of my M6500 higher than 66°C, even under full load. And I currently have 29°C in my flat. The CPU of my (also not so bad) consumer Fujitsu Siemens notebook easily reaches 75°C under the same circumstances (which is still ok).

Frankly, I'm not sure what you mean.
If you're talking about theft prevention techniques, I consider them all to be useless. I'll clip your kensington cable with a simple tong, I'll fool your fingerprint reader with a strip of tape, I'll by-pass your BIOS lock by taking out your hard drive and so on. Just make sure to encrypt your HDD with a secure(!) key and you'll be as possible as you can get - without any extra "features" of your machine. And, of course, keep an eye on it.

I'm not sure if you should buy a M6500 by now. It's quite a lot of money and you don't even know yet if you can work effectively with a laptop. And the M6500 is one of the best on the market. So if you'll switch to the next one after it (it will happen some day ), you'll have very high expectations, which might be frustrating. I was in this situation when looking for a replacement for my Fujitsu Siemens until I stumbled upon the M6500.

 

Thanks really much man. I'm a student going into aerospace engineering, so I'm looking for a perfect laptop that will fit my multimedia needs, personal explicit research, school research and just regular note taking and labs. I thought maybe a Viao would do, but know people say that you must have a mobile workstation..IMO Im confused

 

All,

I recently received a new M6500 and am in the process of preparing to rebuild/reload the operating system. Have any of you performed a secure delete on the SSD drives of the M6500? If so, were you able to perform the delete while the SSD drives were in the system without any BIOS issues?

My system is configured with (3) SSD drives (Samsung). I’m planning on using the following utility in order to erase and properly prepare the drive prior to loading the OS:

CMRR - Secure Erase - HDDErase

From what I’ve read, one can bring an SSD drive back to factory performance by properly erasing the drive prior to loading a fresh OS.

Thanks

 

Bios A04 is ready for download.

No issues so far ;-)

 

Something I just noticed when I was poking about... you can apparently no longer order the ATI FirePro M7740 with the M6500. It's currently NVidia or nothing...

 

If they want you to have a mobile workstation they surely have their reasons.
I guess as an aerospace engineer you'll have to deal a lot with CAM or number crunching in general. In this case the M6500 is a good choice. But since they want you to have it mobile, I think the M4500 would be a better choice. You can get the same computing power out of it (unless you use the graphics card for computing).
The three points where the M6500 is superior to the M4500:
1. 2 RAM slots more, therefore 16GB maximum instead of 8GB
2. 1 HDD more, therefore twice the storage
3. stronger graphics cards which will give you an advantage in vector processing scenarios.

I guess 1.and 2. are irrelevant to your work or will be outweighed my the increased mobility due to the smaller size. So if I were you, I'd ask if your applications can benefit a lot from the vector processing capabilities of a strong graphics card. If so, then the M6500 might be the better choice, but only with the NVIDIA FX 3800M. Otherwise the M4500 will be the better choice.

Do you know what exactly this tool does? What you need for a performance boost is to nullify your SSDs. "Secure Erase" might mean that, but it could also mean that it will overwrite the whole drive not with zeros but with random numbers. This would even be counterproductive in your case.

 

Yeah so I mean I imagine all the data im gonna crunch about planes, physics and even for explicit research on the unknown . But mostly for uni CFC, FD, FEA and all that stuff, including physics sim. Also I mean I might use Apparatus that can be used to analyze pics, videos, sound and all that stuff. I don't think I'l be processing data sets of only one-dimension. I'll probably be processing many dimensions. SO i don't think vector process will help. I'd need something along a Super-scalar processing.

NOTE* Yes I know what these mean. I have programmed before and I do my research during my off time :GEEK:

 

Thanks for the heads up SvenC. Seems the slow SSD issue has been resolved with this update. My WEI score for the primary hard disk went from 7.4 to 7.7 with the vertex 2.