New M6500 Discussion Thread

The Samsung SSD flash does erase the drive. I was not concerned because I imaged the drive with the latest build of Acronis True Image Home 2010. However, restore was a nightmare. If anyone is using it, using the rescue disk (either USB or CD) when you click on the image file to restore, it reboots the machine. Trying to restore using another machine in windows crashes the program.

After research and 4 hours, turns out there is a newer rescue disk iso you need to get from Acronis Support. Too bad the tech did not know and I had to find it on google first and then persuade him to find it. Very frustrating.

Jut an FYI for anyone that wants to flash or anyone using Acronis.

 

can someone comment on the fan noise on the M6500? How is it light work and stressed?

 

Was wondering what my options were as far as Acronis. I've used it in the past, but not with an SSD, which obviously can be a little finicky when it comes to sector alignment. Did you have any issues the image being applied as far as that's concerned? My C300 has a destructive firmware update available, but I've been putting it off until I find that out.

Will be nice when they finally figure out how to get those things applied in an non destructive manner.

 

once they sent me the updated boot disk, all worked fine. I do not think the issue is just to SSD, but it is a known issue with the system rebooting. What was happening is once I clicked on the image to recover and click next (which would take to the page to pick the destination part), the machine just rebooted.

so with the newer boot disk, it worked great.

This is one of the KB i found on the reboot

Acronis True Image Home 2010, Acronis Backup & Recovery 10: An Attempt to Start a Dell Machine from Acronis Bootable Media Results in a Reboot | Knowledge Base

 

I'd say it's pretty good considering the size of it. When idling it is not silent, but has a small audible hum in the background. when it is running full power, however, it will be fairly noisy. I do not have any dB readings though -- someone might?

 

If the ambient temperature is below 20°C and you only do office tasks the fans don't even run (CPU fan kicks in at 50°C). On the lowest level there is some audible humming from the CPU fan, but it's pretty convenient and it can even handle limited CPU usage. On heavy usage the CPU fan gets a bit louder, but it's still ok.
The GPU fan is a bit smaller and therefore creates a sound of a higher frequency, which is more nerving, but still ok if you consider that it's usually only running when you have sound anyway (games) or don't actually care about silence (high performance tasks that require CUDA).

If I put both fans on full speed, they can almost compete with my vacuum cleaner. But I never had this situation in real life. I just wanted to test how loud I can make them.

 

An easy way to hear the fans on full speed is to kill the computer using the on/off button -- in most situations outside early BIOS it will after five seconds start "revving" the fans to full speed and then switch off the computer. Very odd, I find, and first time it did that I was thoroughly freaked out

 

Thanks for the info

 

i use this program to uninstall drivers Guru3D - Driver Sweeper

 

After much deliberation, ordered:

Base Silver Base, Clarksfield, USB3
Microsoft Operating System English Genuine Windows® 7 Professional (64Bit OS) Recovery DVD included
Memory 8GB 1333MHz DDR3 Dual Channel (4x2GB)
Keyboard Internal UK/Irish Qwerty Backlit Keyboard
Video Card 1 GB GDDR5 for ATI FirePro M7820 (with 1GB dedicated memory)
Hard Drive 320GB Serial ATA (7200RPM) (Free fall sensor)
Optical Devices 8X DVD+/-RW Drive Slot Load with Software included
Wireless Networking EMEA Dell Wireless 1510 (802.11a/b/g/n 2X3) Mini Card
Shipping Documents English Shipping Docs
Gedis Bundle Reference W08M6502
Standard Warranty 3Yr Basic Warranty - Next Business Day
Enhanced Service Packs 3 Year Warranty - NBD
PalmRest No Contactless Smart Card
Bluetooth EMEA Dell® Wireless 365 2.1 Bluetooth™
Documents for Graphic cards English Set-Up and Features Doc for Graphic Cards
Order Information Precision Order - United Kingdom
Primary Battery Primary 9-cell 90W/HR Battery for Silver LCD Panel
Carrying Cases No Carry Case
Processor One Intel® Core™ i7-820QM(1.73GHz, 8MB,Quad Core) Memory runs at 1333MHz
Windows Live Windows Live
Dell System Media Kit Mobile Precision M6500 Diagnostics and Drivers
Camera Integrated 3.2 Mega Pixel Camera with Microphone for Silver Base
Color Choice Silver with RGB LED LCD Back Cover
Image Restore Dell Backup and Recovery Manager for Windows® 7
LCD 17in Widescreen WUXGA (1920x1200) Antiglare Silver with RGB Led LCD Panel
Microsoft Application Software Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 ( Excel Starter 2010, Word Starter 2010)
CompleteCare 3Yr CompleteCare Accidental Damage Cover
Raid Connectivity Raid Controller : All SATA Hard Drives, Non-RAID for 1 Hard Drive
Protect your new PC English Trend Micro™ Internet Security(15 month subscription) Antivirus Software
Power Supply UK/Irish 210W Slim AC Adapter with UK/Irish Power Cord
Biometric Identification - Fingerprint Reader No Fingerprint Reader

Total cost inc VAT = £2688.00

Now I've butterflies in my stomach!
Feels like the right choice, hope I'm not mistaken... guess I'll find out when it arrives.