New M6500 Discussion Thread

Debguy,

I appreciate the response and heads-up. I’ve been reading on the net about how to properly restore SSDs to factory defaults prior to loading a fresh installation from the following URLs:

PC Perspective - Long-term performance analysis of Intel Mainstream SSDs

SSD Tweaks and Optimizations in Windows 7 - Windows 7 Forums

CMRR - Secure Erase - HDDErase

It seems as though the Secure Erase command is sent to the SSD drive controller which in turn performs the action. I’m a bit of a novice at this with SSDs and am interested if anyone on this thread has performed the appropriate procedures to return their M6500 Samsung SSDs to factory specifications or if they ran into any issues with the BIOS versions.

In the interim, I sent an e-mail out to our Dell company support contact and will provide their official feedback and/or Samsung procedures to the thread.

Thanks in advance for all advice provided.

 

I tried updating from A03 and my computer goes domant with a black screen and nothing... fans running but nothing happens. Have to hold the power button down till it shuts off and then repower... A03 boots up

Any idea's anyone??

 

If I were you I'd rather go for the M4500 than for the M6500. It seems to me that you'll need a lot of scalar computing power combined with a certain amount of mobility, while memory and storage capacities are not that important.
I just had a look at the configurator for the M4500 and would most likely change the default setup in the following way if I were you:
CPU: i7-720/820QM (depending on your budget)
OS: Win7 64bit (maybe with XP mode - not my department)
RAM: 2 or 4GB (depending on if you're lazy or price conscious - you can get 2x2GB cheaper by buying them on the free market and only getting 2x1GB from Dell)
LCD: 1920x1080
DVD: DVD+/-RW
Battery: 90Wh
WLAN: one of the Intel modules (not sure which one)

I'd stay with the default graphics card since most likely you won't need the better one and I'd keep the 250GB HDD since you can get a bigger one much cheaper elsewhere. Order it with an external housing, swap the drives and you'll have an additional 250GB external drive for almost the same price as if you'd order the laptop with a 500GB HDD.

Thanks for your links! I had a look at them and Secure Erase seems to be a reasonable method to reset SSDs.
Since you have 3 SSDs I guess you intend to run them in a RAID. Afaik this would not be a good idea because I've read earlier in this thread that the RAID controller doesn't support TRIM (but is supported by Win7). But without TRIM your attempt to reset the SSDs will become worthless after a short time.

 

Which SATA driver version?

 

Anybody know ?

 

So here's a new one.... Been holding off on posting about it for awhile. Googled it to no avail, and seems that postings on Dell's own forums, Intel's own, etc have yielded no real results.

Per the System Windows Logs in the event viewer (Win7 64 Ultimate), I've seen sporadic things like the following:
---------------
The description for Event ID 5010 from source NETw5s64 cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install or repair the component on the local computer.

If the event originated on another computer, the display information had to be saved with the event.

The following information was included with the event:

\Device\NDMP20
Intel(R) Centrino(R) Ultimate-N 6300 AGN

The specified resource type cannot be found in the image file
-------------

Eventually the system portion of the log will have quite a number of these entries. Updated the driver to the latest from Dell's site last night, and saw that Intel offers the same version of the driver as well. Anyone have any idea what this could be attributed to? Everything works, as I've not dropped a connection once since I've been using the machine, so it's not a show stopper. I'm OCD about undiagnosed log generation, I suppose....

 

yeah yeah. I agree, the M6500 is really heavy. I wonder if the 4500 has usb 3.0. Also why is the m6500 so expensive.?

 

I don't know if the M4500 has USB 3.0. I'd call the Dell support and ask for it. In any case I'd order via telephone since you can configure the laptop more precisely this way and will most likely get a better price.

Why the M6500 is so expensive? Well, the M4500 is not cheap either. Both are business class laptops, not something you get in the next discounter.
The difference between them comes mostly from some different components: The graphics cards in the M6500 are much more expensive than the ones in the M4500. Currently you have to order the M6500 with USB3 support which (at least online) is not possible for the M4500. Together I'd suspect to make this $600 alone.
Then there are still $600 difference left. Some of it comes from the bigger dimensions (display, case) and the better interfaces (2nd HDD, 4 RAM slots, 6-pin Firewire). I'd estimate this to be roughly $300.
The rest is just pushing the price. There are not many alternatives if you have good reasons to chose the M6500. It's simple supply and demand. There is just more competition for the M4500 than for the M6500. And finally you usually don't care for $200 more or less if the M6500 is within your budget.

 

oh okay.. I'll see what I can configure I hope M6500 or M4500 have no problems like the 8740w or W510

 

I can attest that I'm having zero problems....been very pleased with the machine. I wish you the same