New M6500 Discussion Thread

Did you look at the link which you have been given?

Turn your m6500 upside down and follow this to remove the bottom panel: Documentation

Then look at number 4 and 5 of this link: Documentation

The place for the second HD is (roughly) under the number pad. If you turn the laptop upside down with battery towards you then you see the space for the HD on the left side between the battery space and a fan.

Maybe you have some placeholder in that space which needs to be removed? I seem to remember that some m6500 owners wrote that they needed to remove some foam where they found the screws under to adjust their disk in the disk frame.

 

I haven't read the whole thread so please forgive the rehash if this has already been asked.

My company bought the wrong 6500, I ordered the one with the QC i7 with 4 DIMM slots and they got the DC with 2 DIMM slots and it doesnt look like there's anything I can do.

I speced the QC because I had already purchased the 940XM and I was going to put it in this laptop which has the following:

General Information :
NorthBridge : Intel Core i7 Arrandale
SouthBridge : Intel PM55

NorthBridge Information :
Architecture : QPI
Memory Controller : Integrated
Manufacturer : Intel (Dell Computer)
Revision : 02
Bus Speed : 117.9 MHz
QPI Link : 2121.6 MHz

Memory Information :
Type : DDR3-SDRAM PC3-17100
Frequency : 1066.7 MHz
DRAM/FSB Ratio : 16/4
Supported Channels : Dual
Mode : Symmetric
Activated Channels : Symmetric
ECC Diagnostic : Yes - Disabled
CAS Latency (tCL) : 7 clocks
RAS to CAS (tRCD) : 7 clocks
RAS Precharge (tRP) : 7 clocks
Cycle Time (tRAS) : 20 clocks
Row Refresh Cycle Time (tRF... 86 clocks
Command Rate : 1 T

APIC Information :
Version : 2.00
Maximum Interrupts : 24
IRQ Handler enabled : No

Functionality :
SATA AHCI Enabled : No
RAID 0/1/10 Enabled : No
RAID 5 Enabled : No
PCI Express x1 Enabled : No
Intel AMT : No
Intel QST : No
Intel IPT : No
SPI Interface : Yes
USB Ports 6, 7 : No
PCI Express Ports 7, 8 : No
SATA Ports 2, 3 : No
Multiplex : No

Device Capabilities (PCI) :
I/O Access : No
Memory Access : Yes
Bus Master Capable : Yes
Special Cycle Recognition : No
Memory Write & Invalidate : No
VGA Palette Snoop : No
Parity Error Response : No
Cycle Wait : No
System Error Line : No
Fast Back-to-Back : No
Detects Parity Errors : No
User Defined Format : No
PCI 66Mhz Bus Support : No
New Capability List : Yes
PCI Support : Vendor-Dependant

Advices :
The symbol indicate : Approximate Information
The symbol indicate : Information may be inaccurate

My question is, can I put the 940XM in this laptop?

Thanks,

David

 

1. The 1st HD can be accessed by simply removing the battery, it's about 1/3 visible and points tword the lid release mechanism.

2. The 2nd HD can be access by removing the bottom. To remove the bottom you must have the battery out. With the batter out you should see two small screws along the top, long edge of the battery slot. Once these screws are removed simply slide the entire elevated bottom down about 1/4 inch, then up and out. The 2nd HD slot is along the left edge and while it's not really near the 1st HD it is oriented perpendicular to it.

I would consider getting to the two HD's extremely easy while getting to and replacing the processor quite hard unless your very good at this kinda stuff.

Good luck

 

Thanks for the information. If someone has already installed the second Harddisk, please post some picture. I opened the cover yesterday, but could not really figure out. I remember the place to fit hdd, you are talking about. But I am not sure why pin to connect hard disk was kept in a plastic cover. In the place of hard disk. I did not understand anything, so I put the pins connector back. I will post some picture when I go to home after work.

 

But I remember, outside the slot of that space, EC was written, I thought it is something related to express card slot. I am just telling just to clear, we are talking about the same spot.

 

Perfect! yes I am talking about the same location. I followed the document only. But I saw some foam wrapped in plastic with some pins inside it. I did not understand what was that so I put that back. But thanks.. now I got to know the place to install the second hard drive. Anyone knows the use if that foam and pin connector inside the plastic warp?

 

Did your company order the wrong one or did Dell insert the wrong main board?
I ordered mine without having some man in the middle and I got the two-slot-version too. Actually the 4 slots were one of the main reasons why I chose the M6500. I made this clear to the support, sent some pictures to prove that I only got two slots and threatened them to cancel the whole order if they wouldn't fix it.
They sent me three(!) technicians to replace my board but the first two also had the wrong replacement board with only two slots. It turned out, that the two-slot-boards are for Arrandale CPUs while the four-slot-boards are for Clarkdales. I have no idea who at Dell thought that my 820QM is an Arrandale. But that was what they had in their DB: "debguy has an Arrandale system" Until then nobody from Dell even knew that there were different versions of the main boards. None of the technicians and none of the guys in the service center had ever seen or heard of a two-slot-board until then.
Finally the 3rd technician had the correct board which now runs fine for me.

 

By the way for m6500 owners with the 920xm cpu's you can install an application called throttlestop which will automatically raise the multiplier for the 920xm from 15 to 16. You can also adjust the TDP and multipliers on each core if you wish as well.

Install throttlestop, tick the set multiplier option then save and you'll turn your 920xm into a 940xm with a base cpu speed of 2.13ghz. Add a short cut to your startup folder and you'll get a nice 6% cpu boost for nothing.

 

Sheesh. I had a similar experience. Used to be companies would give training sessions to technicians before letting them loose on their systems, then follow through with service bulletins when things changed. Surely there must be some people at Dell, somewhere, who know how their systems are built ?

 

I guess there are none. There are surely a lot of specialists for certain subsystems and some people who have a rough overview over everything but without deeper insight. But there is nobody who joins both in one person. It's just the way things go in big companies. In fact, none of my phone reps had actually ever seen an M6500 in real life. But at least they know them from photos. I know other Laptop vendors where the phone-center-staff doesn't even have a clue how their products look like.

I'd love to hear someone from Dell to give a clear statement on the slot issue and frankly much more would I like to have a statement on the RHEL issue, but there seems to be some non-disclosure agreement on both of them that is strictly followed unless it turns out that it would prevent a deal.