New M6500 Discussion Thread

yep...I have a vostro 12 incher thats easy....my cooler is a ThermalTake...it's has one very large fan in the center and is USB Powered. Got it at CompUSA. Fits right into the bag even though it sits high, no problem...

 

What I like about the m6500 is that you get 4 memory slots (with the clarkdale CPUs at least) so you can go for cheap 8GB (4*2GB) with the potential to upgrade to 12 or 16GB when you need it.

And the potential for two or three internal disks is nice as well, of course.

 

how does it work for 3 drives?? Is there space for 3 now??

 

I've only got 2 HDD bays, and one hook up for a mini SSD....I think that's what they mean.

 

Anyone tried Pakuma bags, if they're any good do you know if the M6500 is well seated in the Akara k1, or is the k3 required? In all the shops I see them they look identitcal, but the k3 is supposed to be larger...

 

Is it the 1.8 drive???

 

Besides the mini SSD card option theZoid was referring to I had an exchange of the optical drive in mind. So we seem to be at potentially 4 internal disks ;-)

See this post from debguy at page 455: http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-latitude-vostro-precision/439109-new-m6500-discussion-thread-455.html#post6622754

debguy describes a few gotchas with that caddy but got it working.

You can search the web for "m6500 caddy hard disk" and should find a few sellers, mostly ebay and the shop debguy linked.

Reading back in this thread it seems that Dell only allows the mini SSD card when the two other disks are used in RAID mode. Not everybody might be pleased with that restriction as it ties those two disks together and makes only sense when you have two identical disks according to size and speed.

The optical bay caddy seems to give an extra internal disk without the need to switch from AHCI to RAID. And you can use an ordinary 2.5" disk instead of a slower or more expensive mini card.

And when I look at how often I used the DVD drive then I can imagine to get along without it 99% of the time. Even the installation of Windows 7 was done from my external USB drive, my dev an office stuff comes as downloads from MSDN.

I am not in need for more disk space right now, but I will keep that option in mind

 

I'm not quite sure why Dell went this route and just isn't offering both the dual and quad with the 4 memory slot option. When I was test driving a M6500 last month (i7-720qm), I swapped in a 620M and it worked just fine (and pretty much crushed the 720qm in performance outside of extreme 4+ thread situations).

I wonder if the dual core model will allow you to swap in a quad core. I wonder what exactly is the difference between the two systems outside of memory support. They share a common BIOS file and drivers. Ah well.

 

I use a large Targus backpack and take my M6500 home every night. It also goes on every trip I take. Since early January the m6500 has done well to not show any real signs of wear. Much better than the M90 and M6300 did.

I take an E4310 with me to use on planes, conferences, and when I need to leave the m6500 docked. The E4310 is light and does well on battery life. The i5-540m is not too shabby either.

 

maybe some one wants to overclock the M6500 to 3.0ghz. to gain extra performance you guys can do it with throttlestop thanks to uncleweb


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