M6600 Owners Thread

[Valm]

Actually this is not a Dell limitation but an Intel Chipset one. All mobile dual core Intel Sandy Bridges can't POST with more than two RAM modules occupying the motherboard. In other words, they can only TAKE two RAM modules as a whole. That being said, the 2720QM has Turbo Boost, which in dual core applications will self-overclock itself to 2.7 GHZ like the 2620M anyways, so I see no point on why you want to give up the fight for a quad core.

Thanks Star Forge, this clarifies things a lot.

[seb87]

how much work the m6600 with the 97whr with the m8900 ?

i must choose beetween m8900 and 3000m

[Athar]

@seb87: With my configuration, with VisualStudio 2010 / MySQL WorkBench (MySQL Client) / MySQL server, Wifi/BT on, some internet navigation, low brightness, I could work on it for about 3H30, up-to 4H00.

With full load, approximatively 1H00.

[Scott_RC-TEK]

Does anyone have experience reflashing the nVidia 485M BIOS? I need to reflash this 485M to a Quadro series (5010M??) to make it play nice in the M6600. It seems the Dell BIOS does not recognize non-workstation cards so although the card functions in the BIOS (unknown video card) and Windows (standard VGA), it cannot be identified by anything other than HWiNFO64 and no support/reference drivers work.

I believe the key is to flash the GPU BIOS so the M6600 sees it as a workstation card and then all should be OK.

Any help is appreciated. I am a hardware guy and not so much a software guy.

Scott

[Bokeh]

Does anyone have experience reflashing the nVidia 485M BIOS? I need to reflash this 485M to a Quadro series (5010M??) to make it play nice in the M6600. It seems the Dell BIOS does not recognize non-workstation cards so although the card functions in the BIOS (unknown video card) and Windows (standard VGA), it cannot be identified by anything other than HWiNFO64 and no support/reference drivers work.

I believe the key is to flash the GPU BIOS so the M6600 sees it as a workstation card and then all should be OK.

Any help is appreciated. I am a hardware guy and not so much a software guy.
Scott

Good luck. Nvidia puts a f*ckton of time and effort into making Quadro something you have to pay for. They don't care about what gaming video card you have. They want you to pay to do real work with their video cards. You will o not be able to flash a 485m into a 5010m - they will lose money. Get back to paying Nvidia a premium for their relationships.

[Scott_RC-TEK]

Good luck. Nvidia puts a f*ckton of time and effort into making Quadro something you have to pay for. They don't care about what gaming video card you have. They want you to pay to do real work with their video cards. You will o not be able to flash a 485m into a 5010m - they will lose money. Get back to paying Nvidia a premium for their relationships.

I figured as much, but it doesn't hurt to try. I do think it is stupid these companies produce the same hardware with slightly different firmware and then expect people to pay business class prices. Other than ISV certification and 4GB of DDR5, I believe the 485M will out produce the 5010M any day of the week so it is a shame we do not have the ability to use the cards that work best for our specific needs - gaming or business wise. In the end, nVidia still gets the business...and Dell would probably sell more high-end M6600.

The GTX-485M is now up for sale or trade in the NBR marketplace.

Scott-

[Bokeh]

I figured as much, but it doesn't hurt to try. I do think it is stupid these companies produce the same hardware with slightly different firmware and then expect people to pay business class prices. Other than ISV certification and 4GB of DDR5, I believe the 485M will out produce the 5010M any day of the week so it is a shame we do not have the ability to use the cards that work best for our specific needs - gaming or business wise. In the end, nVidia still gets the business...and Dell would probably sell more high-end M6600.

The GTX-485M is now up for sale or trade in the NBR marketplace.

Scott-

I agree with you. Companies know how much the software costs. I personally run software that costs more than the hardware. Nvidia has cornered the market on the concept of "it will work" and in addition "it will work faster". Whether the hardware is different, we won't know. What we do know is that Nvidia and Dell make sure that with the Precision line, it will work. They get the certs. They jump through the hoops. But at the end of the day it works. That is why nvidia's cash cow keeps producing - because they work.

[MoldCAD]

Guys, may I repost my rather basic question about which you think is better to install on my mission-critical machine with both CAD-related rendering and CAE-related CUDA computing, as well as video editing:

- the newest original nVidia driver, or the Dell version which is always lagging behind?

Any opinion welcome!

[Scott_RC-TEK]

Guys, may I repost my rather basic question about which you think is better to install on my mission-critical machine with both CAD-related rendering and CAE-related CUDA computing, as well as video editing:

- the newest original nVidia driver, or the Dell version which is always lagging behind?

Any opinion welcome!

Play it safe and use the certified Dell drivers, which will be the most stable for your mission critical needs.

Scott-

[jcims]

Is anyone having issues with 1866MHz memory in an M6600? I'm running Kingston HyperX DDR3 and am getting memory errors in memtest86+. Doesn't matter which stick is in the slot, i get faults at '9080MB', which i'm assuming is in slot C? Getting random BSOD's and shutdowns in Windows (which caused me to run the test).