Dell :: How Can I Get The Best Deal On A New M6400?
Jan 20, 2009
I've been looking at the ThinkPad W700, but I've recently noticed the Dell Precision M6400 as well.
Both machines are pretty pricey, though. I know there aren't usually many sales or other deals offered on the Lenovo workstation-class notebooks, but is it pretty much the same for the Precision line?
Aside from coupons (if they even offer coupons for Precisions), are there any other tips for getting the best deal possible on one of these machines?
When it comes to dropping $3k on a machine, I think it would make me physically ill to do so, only to find out later that I payed more than I really needed to.
It's not just the typical "oooh they're all indian" thing. I'm very tolerable of their accents and they've done well emulating english as best they can.
But sometimes they can't understand me and I have to repeat myself a lot.
But the more important issue is that sometimes they're just plain stupid. I'm not saying they're actually unintelligent I just mean they're programmed to go by scripts and pass the buck CONSTANTLY. They never know what I'm talking about even though it's their own company. They always transfer me to someone new who knows nothing .....
Yup me again, in my hunt to determine if M6400 is right for me as it costs just about as much as a used car, I want to make sure its a good investment before I buy it.
What is the main difference with the M6400 and the M6400 Covet?
I configured both with the same specs and the Covet is about $900 more in price?
Bought a very costly HP laptop around Sep 08 Experienced heating problems from around Dec 08. Dealt with their customer care to get it returned or replaced in Jan – but they simply would do nothing for it. Heating problem as got worse. It turned off due to over heating with just windows and 2 windows of Firefox and a streaming video. Trying to understand the options I have now. So people who have had similar experience with HP customer care, PLEASE tell what can I do now.
Reading the expanded version below will give a lot more insight to my problem.
Laptop config
HP Pavilion DV4T-1000
Vista Home Premium (64-bit) Core(TM)2 Duo T9400 (2.53 GHz) 14.1" WXGA High-Definition HP LED Widescreen 3GB DDR2 RAM 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 9200M GS 250GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive with Hard Drive Protection from Fuji Intel(R) WiFi Link 5100AGN High Capacity 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery..........
Will the 3rd gen Ipod touch be release before the end of free ipod touch deal (w/ mbp purchase) on September 8th? Or will it be released shortly after?
I guess I'm about to get a mobile workstation. I already got an M90 it is great. Only one dead/stuck pixel and the front panel silver button paint came off in a few month of usage.
But I love it. So I am thinking of getting an M6400. Can you back me up on this one..?? Please if you own one tell me the pros and cons.. Have you noticed any Dead/stuck pixels.
What about built quality, feel, comfort, performance, heat, cooling, fan noise, screen quality ( thinking of LEG or RGB LED)..
Any creeking noise while opening the lid or holding or working on the laptop?? Any thing you can tell me about this beast of a machine will be a great help for me indeed
2 Intel X25-M 80GB SSD drives will be replacing those 80GB's.
First - my first thoughts are that this system is Fantastic!
The screen is great - its an LG, fantastic colors, no dead pixels. Typical viewing angles for non LED screen, not great, but not noticeably bad either.
No noticeable bleeding, no graininess - very happy with the screen.
Ran 3Dmark 06 (1280x800, stock drivers) - 11,619
GPU temp was around 80 C - not bad at all.
So far, very happy. Putting the SSD ddrives in now - will post more thoughts as I do more. Will post pics ASAP.
Update 1: 2 80GB SSDs are in place - this has Intel's Matrix Storage which allows the creation of one RAID1 volume (which I will use for valuable data) and a RAID0 volume for the rest of the space - this is very nice - get the benefits of both types of RAID in one system!
Update 2: The power brick is completely absurd. Its HUGE - 210W. The good news is that I plugged in a 130W from a M4400 and although I get the popup about the AC adapter not being at least 150W, it does charge the battery and allow the system to run. To me, this is an acceptable alternative to lugging around the giant brick, at least for most things on the road - Later on, I will test the system with this adapter and see what kind of slowdown is caused.
Pics:
RAID Setup:
Next to a M4400 (that I believe I'll be returning very shortly):
Next to an older E1705 - these are virtually the exact same size - its astounding what new tech can cram into the same space
Whilst working away at my desk, M6400 docked it just powered down.
Pressing the power button causes it (the power button) to light briefly and then go out. Pressing FN+Power (as requested by Dell Tech) does nothing at all.
I've tried it with another PSU (I got 2, one with M6400, other with docking station) - and if you plug the PSU in, and then hit power on the laptop - the blue light on the PSU goes out - and doesn't come back on till the power is cycled. The M6400 does nothing during all of this.
The PSUs work just fine with my D820.
Dell techs are coming tomorrow to fix it. I'll let you know what they say!
I've just bought a refurbished M6400. It comes with no preinstalled OS. I have a dell install disk for Windows XP SP2. Is it ok to install this on my M6400? I will then update to SP3 over the web.
I guess i will also need to install drivers for the graphics card, etc etc.
Please let me know if you have any advice and pitfalls to watch out for.
I'm also considering adding a second hard drive. What drive specification do i need?
I recently noticed that you can not configure a 64bit covet any more, which results in not being able to configure more than 4GB Ram. Also, the covet has only a few specified configurations that are allowed.
Is there an issue with the 64bit? Anyone know why Dell removed the 64bit options?
Heard that ATI FirePro M7740 is coming to M6400 soon (no pricing available yet). This card is already mentioned on dell's official M6400 covet tech spec:
My Intel SSD X25-M will be arriving in a few days. Lets hope it has the latest firmware..
But is there anything i need to know before i put the SSD in the laptop and proceed with the installation. I understand there are a couple of things I need to do in BIOS and one of them is to change the SATA setting to AHCI???? ATA?? instead of RAID. And then after installation i change it back to which one???
I would do a search on the forums, but its the crappy search tool which makes its hard for me to do a specific search.
