New M6500 Discussion Thread

Sounds good. The m6500 is still awesome. We have two m6500. One my sister now uses as her daily driver. The other I have setup running vmware workstation similar to how you described for triple boot, except I have VMs. I tried setting up esxi on the m6500 but ran into driver issues so that is why I'm using vmware workstation in win10 as the host. I may consider changing host OS to linux, that would save me a win10 license for something else. The only thing bugs me is that when the host (win10) has an update sometimes it shutsdown and I have to restart my VMs. Which is why I'm interesting moving to linux as host.

 

I believe in my two m6500 the BT module is in the display bezel because it's not in the UWB and it's not in my wifi module. I don't know where in the bezel though but probably obvious once you get it apart. Else you could try easier install of newer wifi module with added BT or try the UWB like you said.

 

http://downloads.dell.com/published/pages/precision-m6500.html

Hopefully that helps?

 

Most of the basic stuff should work from a clean Win7 base install. You will need to download the drivers for other stuff that don't have default drivers in Win7. Use @alexhawker link to get them.

 

Ahh, good old 16:10 display Replacing the HDD with an SSD should be a good booster.

 

Go from 14GB RAM to 16?

 

I have the 940XM CPU which is the absolute max you can go on this laptop. Since you already have the 920XM, the difference between it and the 940XM is very small.

Spot on for the GFX card. It is just as powerful as the Quadro 5000M (Dell Precision M6500 Nvidia Quadro 5000M Video Graphics Card - D73P8) but uses less power (thus less hot) and also cheaper. IIRC the M7820 is a 65W card versus the 5000M which is a 100W (?) card. Don't bother looking for the 5000M, they do show up once in a while on eBay but they are bloody expensive for such an old card. They cost just about as much as a K3100M or K4100M, go figure.

How do you get 14GB RAM? I don't quite get it. The max you can go is 32GB RAM on the M6500. However, the RAM needs to be a very specific make and model. I have it on my M6500 and I can have a look later today for you. Alternatively, you can dig through this thread as I got the info from the thread as well.

Use the mSATA SSD for the OS and the HDD for all other stuff. mSATA SSD maxes out at 1TB and HDD maxes out at 2TB at 5400rpm. Technically, you can install an mSATA SSD and three HDDs (one in an optical HDD caddy).

Get the Intel 7260AC WLAN + Bluetooth card. It can replace your Intel 6300 (802.11n WiFi speeds) and the existing bluetooth (v2.1). The existing bluetooth (v2.1) needs special drivers in order to get it working in Win10 and Dell does not provide them. This upgrade will give you 802.11ac WiFi speeds and Bluetooth v4.0; another bonus is Win10 has default drivers for both WiFi card and Blueotooth functions.

The Dell DW5500 WWAN card seems a bit dated. I have the Dell DW5630 in my M6500 and I have instructions on this forum showing you how to mod the drivers and dialer to use on unsupported systems. I'm still trying to get the Huawei LTE WWAN card (ME909u-521) working on the system but their drivers are horrible.

Don't get the UWB card, it is useless without another UWB card to communicate with. It will just turn into a white elephant.

Fingerprint Reader is useful if you intend to secure your laptop, if not it will just sit there looking pretty (which I don't mind!). Its firmware can only be upgraded till a specific version and can't be updated any further. Not sure whether it is a Broadcom imposed limitation or a Dell imposed limitation. Let me know if you want to find out which firmware version it is to save you the trouble.

 

I don't use color profiles, so I can't help you on that one mate.

 

If you need help finding the drivers for the factory default BT to work in Win10, let me know. I'll point you to the right direction. DW5550 isn't too bad at all! I'm in a different region so DW5630 fits my WWAN needs better.

Thermi GrillForce! HAHAHAHAHAA.... I can't stop laughing! HAHAHAAHA....

Why not have the main SSD as a 500GB and get a 1/2TB HDD? Mine has a 512GB main SSD (860 Pro, got it cheap!) drive with 2 x 1TB HDDs. Works like a charm.

Just be aware that laptop SSDs and HDDs might come in 7mm height instead of the 9mm height required in the M6500.

 

I just ordered a 500GB SSD for one of our M6500 that only had a 250GB single platter HDD. The ssd says it comes with 7.5 to 9mm spacer that sticks to the drive. I'm guessing the spacer's only purpose is to keep it from moving around?

I was thinking though, if someone didn't have a spacer, just putting a little soft foam piece jammed in there would serve it's purpose?