New M6500 Discussion Thread

I switched from ahci to raid mode in the bios. Using the default 128kb stripe
size.

 

Using HD Tune Pro 4.01. *Drive Caching Disabled*

Transfer Rates for 2x 500gb 7200.4 Seagate drives in Sata II mode and in Raid 0:
134.1 mb/s max (102 single)
101.4 min (51 single)
119.1 avg (82 single)

Overall Read Rates peaked out around 102 mb/s with a single drive and 200 mb/s in raid 0. 125 mb/s - 175 mb/s is typical in raid 0.

Overall Write Rates peaked out around 80 mb/s with a single drive around 150 mb/s in raid 0. 50 mb/s - 125 mb/s is typical in raid 0.

Looks like a solid 50% increase in performance under most circumstances with peaks to almost 100% increases in some circumstances without caching.

Enabling the Caching on the drives gives much better performance as expected.

Standard File transfer benchmark:
Avg transfer is 151.2 mb/s
Access time is still 17.1ms
Burst rate is 735.8 mb/s

Running a short stoke 40gB file test
Max sustained transfer is 202.7 mb/s
Min 175.4 mb/s
Avg 193.8 mb/s
9.2 access
736 mb/s burst

 

To answer my own question (or at least part of it). I downloaded the Dell video drivers and took a peek inside. The Catalyst Control Center is included, but the Avivo Video Converter is not.

Although the ATI video converter is adertised as being compatible with the ATI Radeon 4800 series cards, I'm anxious to see if it will install on the Firepro M7740 (which is based on the 4860). Several 3rd party software packages for video transcoding rely on the additional drivers included in the video converter to enable GPU transcoding.

I guess I'll have to experiment to see if I can get this working with the ATI Firepro M7740. ATI isn't much help other than to say "check with your notebook manufacturer for updated drivers."

I'm second guessing my decision to save money and go with the ATI.

 

Anyone hear when the 3MP webcam will be available on the Covet? The website just says 'coming soon.'

 

The driver from dell not included Avivo video converter, havent tried to converted any video yet, but it has CCC. I am using sketchup these days, the driver is not satisfied.
Saw a news yesterday, maybe we could use the 10.1 or later driver from ATI offical website directly.

 

Thank you for checking. I'm anxiously awaiting my system so I can experiment with GPU exceleration of video encoding.

 

I have been using my Dell M6500 for 3 days now. I work mostly on Revit/3dsmax and Vue. And I like the speed(820) while working it, graphics(FX3800M) is fast when moving and rotating object on 3d space. But still, its not perfect. One is the "Precision Button" that doesnt work or do anything and this static sound coming out from the speaker even tthough I'm not playing anything. I just press mute to stop the annoying noise. Anybody encountered this noise?

 

I will be getting a m6500 and primarily running it in a VM environment. I run ERP demos around the country and need to run multiple VM's (domain, web/app/db, and exchange server). I also will be using the system as a pure mobile server for 10 or so workstations to connect to an run applications.

Along with a few games for personal use.

I am planning a dual boot Win 7 VMWare Workstation / Windows 2008 R2 Hyper-V setup. I can let you know how this performs when I have the machine in hand.

 

thanks. although its a different contents of the VM's, very similar to my usage. I found out only one thing from dell uk:
secondary battery is just a spare primary. the system has no secondary battery capability.

I couldn't get any sensible answer on some of the other things that I asked, regarding WWAN (Gobi) /WPAN (420) cards that are available in US config but not in EU (other than "that card won't work in UK", which is clearly bumph).

so does anyone know if EU M6500's:
- have a SIM card slot (supposedly underneath the battery somewhere?)
and have a slot where the WWAN (3G/GSM/GPS aka "Gobi") can fit? and so at a later date the mobile broadband capability can be added?

- have anything in the WPAN slot? does the bluetooth (365) card go in there ? Is there scope to add the UWB (420) card later?

ta
Ian

 

The M6500 most likely can make use of Dell's "battery slice" which is a true second battery. It goes under the laptop and connects to the docking station port. It makes the laptop bigger but it will more than double the battery capacity.