Upgrades on an M6600 or M6700...looking to purchase but need a bit of advice please...

Hello Everyone,

I have posted previously on "what laptop should I get" here and got some great responses.

After some soul searching and really understanding what I want/need I have come down to the choice of getting the M6600 or the M6700. Screen real estate, high def screens, past experience with Dell.....

Couple of questions....

1. Whether I order new or used, I have found the prices for RAM and for SSD's to be WAY cheaper than the Dell site. I would most likely get the best screen/processor combo I could afford and then upgrade myself.... Are there any con's to doing this?

2. Both computers have multiple choices for multiple drive configurations. I may elect to get a SSD to be the primary drive that contains the OS or even go for two SSD's if I needed.
--- How hard is it to purchase the system and then put the OS (clean install) on the SSD if the purchased configuration did not have the SSD? I have read that Win8 is locked into the BIOS? I would be ordering the recovery media disks.

I need to save as much as I can so if this is a logical route to take (or if I am nuts....) please let me know....

Really looking forward to getting this in the next couple of weeks!!!

The information and folks here are top-notch!!!

mike

 

Definitely buy your ram, hard drives and upgrade it yourself - Dell charges way more than what you could buy it yourself
The only draw back is those parts will not be covered under warranty. which is not an issue for most folks.

Using a SSD as a boot drive, is also the way to go - re-installing Windows is not a problem you should be able to get restore disks from Dell and install it on you new drive(s) my only suggestion is to get a 256GB or more SSD drive if you can afford it. but 128GB is the smallest I would want to go. Typically the Dell OS disks do look at the BIOS and look for a signature that will activate windows automatically. You can still use a legally downloaded copy of windows and use the Key on the bottom of the laptop to activate it - Dells disks are simply easier to deal with.

 

1. Go for it. This is easy and saves you a lot of money. I think you'll find many people at this site go this route, it doesn't make any sense how much Dell wants to charge you for RAM.

2. A clean install is not a big deal. Yes, new Windows 8 machines have the product key stored in the BIOS somehow but that doesn't prevent you from doing a clean install. I've done a clean install on such a machine with a standard Windows 8 disc and it just selected the edition and automatically grabbed the product key without asking (sort of convenient I guess), and activated without issue. (You could also use a tool like Acronis TrueImage to move your OS from a different drive.) Drivers are not a big deal, they're all on Windows Update or support.dell.com, if you've done this sort of thing before you won't have any trouble.

 

Hello all, new to the forum and have been reading through the M6600 thread and didn't find the answers I was looking for. Please excuse me if the questions had been posted somewhere in the site that I might had missed. I ordered a M6600 from Dell and expect to be delivered next week. The basic specs are as follow: i7-2760QM; 4.0GB (2x2GB)1333mhz 2DIMM; NVIDA Quadro 4000M 2GB GDDR5; 750GB 7200rpm HHD; 17.3"FHD (1920x1080) WideView Anit-Glare LED-backlit; Win 7Pro 64-bit... I would like to add an Samsung 840PRO 256GB as the primary disk for OS bootable drive and replace the original 4gb 1333mhz ram to HyperX 16GB (2x8gb) 1666mhz ram.
My question is since I am going to use the SSD as the boot drive,
1. Should I install it in the slot where the drive can be ejected (not necessary I plan to eject to drive, it just simply the way I described the drive location) or in the slot between the DVD Rom and the Battery.
2. Since the M6600 has 4 DIMM slots for the RAM but I am going to place only 2 sticks of 8gb for a total of 16GB 1666mhz for now; Should I place them in the DIMM slots under the back cover (I guess it's slot called Module A and Module B) or should I placed them in the DIMM slots underneath the keyboard.

Your advise is greatly appreciated.

 

Both of these are up to your personal preference, the machine will work either way and there won't be a performance hit or anything.

For (1), the "ejectable" drive is the "primary" drive, that is to say, it shows up as SATA-0 and will be the default boot drive. If you want to use the drive in a different location, you will need to make sure you set the proper boot device in the BIOS, and also you should disable or remove any other drives when installing Windows to make sure it puts the bootloader files in the right place. But once that is set up there won't be a problem.

I recommend using the "ejectable" drive as the primary boot drive just to keep things simple with regards to this, unless you have another drive that you'd like to be able to remove quickly.

 

Thanks Aaron, I will put the ssd in the ejectable slot and place the original Dell 750gb HDD to the other.

 

Don't blame Dell, its not unique to them. Rather, ALL OEMs and this extends way past just laptop makers to virtually all other industry as well.