Precision M6400 Owner's Lounge

This question is mostly for UK users:

M6400 costs at outlet uk 1200pounds with (t9400, no screen as it appears, 4GB ram, 1 gb card)
ebay.co.uk, outlet stores have it for 1000pounds, with a better config, t9600
Can i trust them, 20000+feedback 99.5 positive
but they also have a p8600 processor(this is the only difference ) also for 999 pounds

They answered my email, that the have 1 year return to base warranty

Can i trust them?

Anybody bought from "asmdirect1"

 

Turned on the M6400 yesterday and got nothing but black screen. Called Dell and the test tones showed a 413 code. They said it was either a dead screen or a bad video cable. Sending parts and set up service call for Monday.

I plugged in an external monitor to see if the video card was bad, this morning. Display on the external was fine, so I guess the 3700 is OK.

Anyone else have a failure like this, or is this a one time random failure? Hope they get it fixed right and the screen is perfect (no dead pixels) like the original. Repairs scare me, as they often cascade into other problems.

 

All this problems make me give up this idea
This is a business notebook
I has to be as reliable as it gets
And this from the biggest comp company in the world?

 

Dell sent me a replacement E6400 because of overheating issues. It had a stuck pixel (the original had none), so I asked them to replace it and they did. Be polite and they might do it (they are not obliged to).

Remember that people post in these forums mostly to complain about problems they have. There are many many people out there which have this laptop working perfectly. Those don't join forums. For the record, my E6400 came faulty, but Dell promptly fixed it and now it's perfect

 

Still there are many problems

Any ideas?

 

Thanks!

 

M*Max

Don't let my problem with our M6400 put you off. It is a very good business machine and, at least here in the US, the support from Dell Business is excellent. On this problem, Dell Support answered my phone call in about 30 seconds, the tech knew exactly how to test and then he immediately went to discuss the solution with the Senior Technician on duty. The repair was set up in about 10 minutes and will be done at my office, at my convenience.

The laptop I have came from the US outlet and has worked perfectly for 6 months, despite my ham handed upgrade of the single 320Gb to dual 500Gb drives. The 3 year Dell warranty really gives me peace of mind.

About the only problem I found with the M6400 is really with the wide gamut LED screens. They do require very careful calibration with a good photospectrometer, if you are going to use them for Photoshop or the like.

My recommendation is to buy the thing. However, I can't tell you the best place or price in the UK.

Carl

 

Im going to use the laptop mostly in Eastern Europe and the support is not like yours
I have no doubt they care about the customers , but why dont they make the laptop that doesnt require this service?
I m looking now at Alienware M17 (also dell but less problems as i see)

 

I'd advise you to look up the market share of Dell, HP, Lenovo etc in the business sector and compare those shares with the number of users reporting problems. They are probably quite similar. Dell sells a lot to the business sector (it's the vast majority of their income, like Lenovo and unlike Acer, ASUS, HP, etc), therefore many people complain about Dell business laptops.

I remember a while ago an NBR user found a German IT firm's report on business laptops malfunctions. Dell had the lowest rate of serious failures (requiring sending a tech home), and the second lowest on non-serious failures (fixed over the phone/chat).

Lastly, if you will use this machine for work, I would STRONGLY recommend the M6400 (or the W700) over any Alienware. Business class laptops are simply better built than consumer counterparts, apart from many other advantages (16 GB max memory vs. 8 GB, much more professional looks, less bulky and heavy, etc).

 

Were you able to get RHEL installed on your m6400?