New M6500 Discussion Thread

The fastest available processor for the M6500 is going to be the 940XM i7 extreme quad core.

 

If I guess your region right from your user name have a look at this:
Intel SSD 310 Series 80GB, mSATA (SSDMAEMC080G2C1) | Geizhals.at Österreich

I can't speak for the rest but I order quite a lot at Alternate and if they say they have something in stock, then they have it.

A faster CPU will not be an adequate replacement for an SSD. They improve performance in totally different situations. I suggest to get the 80GB version, not because of its capacity but because according to benchmarks it's faster.

 

First of all, I realised the SD card problem was because of the clean install I'd done, I had to reinstall the card reader software.

The Dell Engineer came again the next day, but Dell had sent him a dud screen. It was friday so first thing monday he was back and in no time had replaced the rgb screen and aluminium top casing. Everything now is in perfect working order.

Overall I'm okay with Dell's service.

The website is rubbish and I think needs some simplifying.

Their phone service was okay, they don't really offer any solutions but they did appear to want to help.

The engineers were great. I appreciate the first one made a mistake with the screen, but in the end they cleared up the problem and replaced parts where there was any doubt they could be faulty.

 

Thanks for the direction. But I'm not from Austria. That is my real surname. I'm staying in Brunei next to Malaysia. Now that you given me the link, I'm trying to check if they do international shipping.

 

I see. Maybe you should add the location info to your profile since I guess quite a lot of people mistakenly think you're from Austria.
Unfortunately Alternate only ships in Europe. But I'm sure you'll find the SSD somewhere in Japan or China.

 

Thanks, RealJEDI, for the link.

As a new m6500 owner, it made me wonder what else I need to update or configure to get the most out of my new machine. I definitely don't feel like I'm having the expected experience. For example, right now I have a 415GB copy underway from my SSD boot drive to a WD My Passport external USB3 drive. It's estimating 6.5 hours to complete! Yes, it's a big data transfer but not 6 hrs worth. My USB2.0 external drive is just as fast.

So my questions to the gurus:

1. Do you recommend installing the firmware upgrade RealJEDI pointed out? Is there a downside?
2. What other firmware updates or other housekeeping actions should I take as a new m6500 owner to get the most out of my system?
3. Is there a freeware benchmarking tool you would recommend for a novice but avid performance tuner (me)?
3. Is there an online guide to performance tuning or something similar that I should read? I feel like I'm the guy asking really dumb questions in a room full of laptop experts - I'm happy to go educate myself rather that bothering the group with dumb questions, but I need to be pointed in the right direction...

Thanks in advance,

xPat
i7-920XM | 16GB | M4 512GB SSD | WD 750GB | Quatro 3800M

p.s. On the posts about choosing "Better performance", that sounds like it is enabling a write-behind cache, which I would not be comfortable with because of the increased reliability risk. Can anyone confirm whether this option is enabling a write-behind cache and whether it is doing anything else?

p.p.s. In case anyone is wondering, yes, I did know to go into BIOS setup and change RAID to AHCI, but I have no idea how to tell whether Win7 is now sending TRIM commands to the SSD. What should I do to make sure my SSD is configured for optimum performance?

 

Adjusting the color intensity affects the toolbar but does not affect the windows top border on this M6500. I have another Win7 machine, a Dell T3400 precision desktop, and the windows work correctly - the same as you post from your mac, the same as my M6500 did a few months back.

I did try a Dell trouble ticket to no avail, but it might be worth trying again. Cheers, Ralph

 

I have searched around for this but I havnt found anything yet. So I'm hoping you guys here have had some luck in this...

Does any one know of a piece of software to run on my m6500 that will allow me to log into or fill log in forms by using the FIPS finger print reader on my M6500?

Thanks in advance

 

Does anyone know a 'decent' aluminum case for the M6500 that is reasonable in price? The ones I've seen were either too expensive or too cheap

 

My brand new (refurbished from the Outlet) m6500 won't boot. The first failed attempt, the "Testing Memory" progress bar never moved (10+ minutes realtime) from the starting position near the "T" in "Testing". On all subsequent attempts, the progress bar advances quickly to about 15 - 20% (near the "n" in "Testing") then stops there and hangs. The problem persists through several hard shutdown/restart attempts.

Is there anything I should do diagnostically or correctively before calling dell for warranty service, such as removing and reseating the memory DIMMs? Obviously the system is brand new and covered under warranty, but if this is something I can easily fix myself rather than sending back to Dell, I would prefer to fix it myself.

Any insight appreciated. I was just at the point of "fully transitioned over" to the new laptop as my new primary system, then this. I was so enjoying it until now. :-(

xPat