M6600 Owners Thread

[sargent75]

There seems to be another issue if cloning you HDD to an SSD or msata. It is partition alignment.
Has anyone experienced this or is there an alignment tool?

Check out this link.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Solid_State_Drives

Partition alignment is mainly on large RAID on SAN or NAS. I use sysresccd.org an opensource tool you can use.

Do a complete Disk backup even on the Win7 hidden or Dell service partition before you try the above. Make sure you are familiar with the restore process before you try the partition alignment. Best case is your machine is brandnew and free for experiments. Do post the results, as I do have a spare m6500 now but not sure when Dell will come and collect it back for returns.

Alternatively, you can try out these freewares,
EaseUS ToDo backup Free edition
Genie Timeline Free - similar to the Mac Timeline backup. Good for documents backup only.

which I highly recommend it as well over the Dell backup and recovery app - if you are using a Dell.

[Aaron44126]

I can add that Windows 7 aligns the install partition, so there may not be a need to align it again with Acronis.

Yes. In fact, all partitions created with Windows 7's partitioning tools are aligned to 1 MB boundaries, so they should be fine on SSD or RAID configurations with large sector sizes.

[gumojadek]

hey guys, im new here.
at first Id like to apologize for my poor english
I'm happy owner of m6600 with i7-2720qm and m8900 and one issue.
After starting the system the CPU is on 2,2 ghz, after hybernating, or waiting some period of time (20-40 minutes) the cpu clock goes to 1895-1995 mhz :/
I am using Windows 7/ Bios A07 (Turbo boost n hyper threading is on), The laptop is on power suply (210V cord i believe), the power plan is dells ultra high performance , i have installed intel turbo boost monitor(like it would help lol)
for the first 30 minutes of usage, CPU goes to that 2,9-3,2 ghz but than it stays at 1,9
Any solution for that problem?
Paul

[allbald]

Any particular color calibrator you guys recommend?

1) I want my colors to be accurate -- I don't need it for photography or anything?

2) Any trying installing an application completely to a ramdisk? Any experiences with it? I would like to get enough memory to install a game completely in ram and then reload after a reboot from an image file. Is this possible? Or do I have to reinstall the game to ram every time I reboot?

[andregarcia_1]

Any particular color calibrator you guys recommend?

1) I want my colors to be accurate -- I don't need it for photography or anything?

2) Any trying installing an application completely to a ramdisk? Any experiences with it? I would like to get enough memory to install a game completely in ram and then reload after a reboot from an image file. Is this possible? Or do I have to reinstall the game to ram every time I reboot?

What is the hardware ID of your monitor?

[sargent75]

Any particular color calibrator you guys recommend?

1) I want my colors to be accurate -- I don't need it for photography or anything?

2) Any trying installing an application completely to a ramdisk? Any experiences with it? I would like to get enough memory to install a game completely in ram and then reload after a reboot from an image file. Is this possible? Or do I have to reinstall the game to ram every time I reboot?

You are on this m6600 thread, I assumed you are using a Precision. It should come bundled with PremierColor Utility. It will auto calibrate and also you can set profiles.

Ignore RAMdisk, does not help at all. If you are using a SSD. It's only more bloatware in your machine that will cause instability.

[allbald]

You are on this m6600 thread, I assumed you are using a Precision. It should come bundled with PremierColor Utility. It will auto calibrate and also you can set profiles.

Ignore RAMdisk, does not help at all. If you are using a SSD. It's only more bloatware in your machine that will cause instability.

I am getting the m6600 with the IPS display. Premier color will obviate the need for something like Spyder elite if I want accurate colors for movies and gaming then?

I was mainly curious if I loaded an mmo like swtor into 32gb of ram whether it would have better performance than a SSd - mmo's tend to use a fair amount of textures (already got the 5010 nvidia card).

[sargent75]

I am getting the m6600 with the IPS display. Premier color will obviate the need for something like Spyder elite if I want accurate colors for movies and gaming then?

I was mainly curious if I loaded an mmo like swtor into 32gb of ram whether it would have better performance than a SSd - mmo's tend to use a fair amount of textures (already got the 5010 nvidia card).

Assuming what you mean by the following:
1. mmo = massively multiplayer online game
2. swtor = star wars the old republic

Have not tried that on games. Wow. the card costs a bomb. My hands are itching to get that but it's just way over priced. I decided on the 4000m instead. Which is just nice for my work and also some casual gaming even with SC2, Anno 2070 and World in Conflict all from Steam with high or very high game settings. Make sure the machine has good ventilation for the dual fans air intake, below the m6600 and out-flow at the back.

As i know the physical design and the embedded codes in a workstation card and a pro-sumer card like the GTX or the Radeons are very different.

Quadro's, Tesla's (supports ECC RAM up to 6GB DDR5) or FirePro's are built for graphics, physix, and model creation from vectors, polygons etc. Workstation cards go thru a more through testing by independent vendors (e.g. Adobe, AutoCad, Maya etc). IN summary it's a card that is built to create games.

GTX's or Radeon's are built to render pre-defined graphics e.g. in Games, DVD movies etc. In summary it's a card built to run ready games.

The performance on a GTX or a Radeon's will perform much better than the workstation card.

You might get BSOD or sometimes black screen lockup/hang when gaming with RAM. It's just how windows is designed. And you are just putting in another driver or program which will fool Windows to think that your 32GB of RAM is a physical hard-disk on C:\. It's adding another layer of controls in front of the OS.

By itself the Quadro 5010m should perform faily well on these two games. You just need a low latency network ping or routing to the mmo servers.

My 2 cents advice, you will do much better if its a Alienware m18x or EuroComp with dual GTX GPUs for Gaming. I wouldn't mess around on a work machine too much.

[allbald]

Assuming what you mean by the following:
1. mmo = massively multiplayer online game
2. swtor = star wars the old republic

Have not tried that on games. Wow. the card costs a bomb. My hands are itching to get that but it's just way over priced. I decided on the 4000m instead. Which is just nice for my work and also some casual gaming even with SC2, Anno 2070 and World in Conflict all from Steam with high or very high game settings. Make sure the machine has good ventilation for the dual fans air intake, below the m6600 and out-flow at the back.

As i know the physical design and the embedded codes in a workstation card and a pro-sumer card like the GTX or the Radeons are very different.

Quadro's, Tesla's (supports ECC RAM up to 6GB DDR5) or FirePro's are built for graphics, physix, and model creation from vectors, polygons etc. Workstation cards go thru a more through testing by independent vendors (e.g. Adobe, AutoCad, Maya etc). IN summary it's a card that is built to create games.

GTX's or Radeon's are built to render pre-defined graphics e.g. in Games, DVD movies etc. In summary it's a card built to run ready games.

The performance on a GTX or a Radeon's will perform much better than the workstation card.

You might get BSOD or sometimes black screen lockup/hang when gaming with RAM. It's just how windows is designed. And you are just putting in another driver or program which will fool Windows to think that your 32GB of RAM is a physical hard-disk on C:\. It's adding another layer of controls in front of the OS.

By itself the Quadro 5010m should perform faily well on these two games. You just need a low latency network ping or routing to the mmo servers.

My 2 cents advice, you will do much better if its a Alienware m18x or EuroComp with dual GTX GPUs for Gaming. I wouldn't mess around on a work machine too much.

1) Well I travel every week and I did not want to carry 2 machines. The alienware with an inferior screen and good business machine (thinkpad w520, 8560w, dell precision m4600) would have cost at least $3500 pretax.
2) Needed it to look like a business machine and have its build quality.
3) Dislike the keyboards on the clevo's
4) Wanted an IPS screen
5) I paid about $3200 + tax for the IPS screen and the 5010 card. So with the m8900 and regular screen it would have been $2000. Figure if theoretically I could have gotten the IPS screen (with the m8900) then it still would have cost 2400. Realistically, I have to get the quadro 3000. This brings the price up to about 2600 (with a 30% discount) or about $2900 the 4000m. Basically I am paying $300 to $400 over the 4000m -- not too bad a deal. Granted spending $3200 plus tax for machine and $1200 premium to get better gaming does give me pause. But the whole reason for going this direction was to get an IPS screen and there is only a few ways to do that.

[sargent75]

1) Well I travel every week and I did not want to carry 2 machines. The alienware with an inferior screen and good business machine (thinkpad w520, 8560w, dell precision m4600) would have cost at least $3500 pretax.
2) Needed it to look like a business machine and have its build quality.
3) Dislike the keyboards on the clevo's
4) Wanted an IPS screen
5) I paid about $3200 + tax for the IPS screen and the 5010 card. So with the m8900 and regular screen it would have been $2000. Figure if theoretically I could have gotten the IPS screen (with the m8900) then it still would have cost 2400. Realistically, I have to get the quadro 3000. This brings the price up to about 2600 (with a 30% discount) or about $2900 the 4000m. Basically I am paying $300 to $400 over the 4000m -- not too bad a deal. Granted spending $3200 plus tax for machine and $1200 premium to get better gaming does give me pause. But the whole reason for going this direction was to get an IPS screen and there is only a few ways to do that.

As long as it's within your budget. Had to use a trolley backpack everyday else my spine will crack in a week. Avoid the Quadro 3000m, not worth the money. 4000m and 5010m is recommended. Similar to the Quadro NVS, it's just not worth it at all for paying the higher premium.

Dell is very tactical in locking in for us to pay more for just one simple item. Initially I got the m6500 silver, then the colors are important but not that critical. So I paid a little more to get a 2nd unit m6500 covet with the nicer screen.

I am happy with the hardware, and only negative comments on the dell software. Although they provide less bloatware than they used to. Toshiba is an extrmemist in bloatware and excessive power saving nut.