i am aware that there is a lengthy thread on the owners of the m6400 and even a shorter thread on the crashes of the m6400 while gaming, namely wow and others...
i've recently purchased an m6400 and i too have become a victim of this issue.
until recently, i've no quarrels with Dell, i've purchased mostly Dell systems for my business, over 20 or so systems to date... and they have been doing well for my uses.
but the frustration with the m6400 is begining to wear down on me.
i make this thread and hope that someone from Dell becomes more aware of the situation.
it seems that the m6400 with the 3700 graphics card has brought many woes to owners who utilizes any program that uses 3D accelerator... in my brief review of the threads here, it seems that the only resolution is like playing a lottery... get the card replaced... and see if it works, if not, repeat... some works after one, some after numerous replacements.
it also seems that this issue is not related only to games such as WoW or FFIX or Guild wars, there's been issues reported with Google Earth, as reported by fellow NBR members, SolidWorks, and by other dell users who have responded to my post on their "support" or rather, "support-less" forums...
now firstly, i am not bashing on dell... as a matter of fact, i have nothing but praise for their service department on the business machines... they've been quite responsive and the quality of service is excellent... just that the resolution of the problem is very disappointing to say the least.
in my experience, the crashes happen most frequently during WoW and also happened while i was installing a program and even in google earth... but it was very random... i'm sure it's basic tech service procedure to have me check external monitor, fine, then they asked me to reseat the LCD cable.. hmm... i'm being asked to go inside my computer?
i've asked them if it will void warranty if i do this... answer is no... but i still felt that ANY customer should not have to disassemble their machines to make it work...
well, they scheduled a repair, replaced the graphics card and now... it's more frequent.
on a side note, i have to say, dell pretty much sucked on the packaging of the replacement card... the fins were pretty dented on 3 locations... seems that the packaging failed to hold the card in place.
well, as i was saying, it fails more frequently... so far, it failed over 10 times... in frustration, i don't even check the machine... and resorted to using my old one.
now i'm scheduled for yet another replacement... i hope for the best as i am really pleased with all of the other aspects of the machine... except, of course, the power brick... who can have any love for such a big ugly thing?
i am contemplating a requesting a full refund or even asking to replace the quador 3700 to the new ATI card...
but in the end... it's definitely not what i have paid good money for...
the resolution is pathetic... try and let's see? now i have to take off another day off work and schedule an appointment with the tech...
wonder if dell is going to reimburse me for my use of personal day? wonder if i can charge dell my regular hourly wage when i perform these tasks...
anyway, next week, new card... new hopes? well... let's see...
and as for those who ask... why did you get a workstation lappy and complain it does not game well?... it's not really just a gaming issue... any machine purchased by the end consumer should come as a full working order for the ENTIRE package... fine, show me the disclaimer that says, you cannot game on this machine... and i'll stay quiet...
what do you guys think? should i request for refund or request for the ATI card?
just got windows 7 BETA 32x today and i have to say:
IT IS SIMPLY AWSOME!!!!
the new looks, the really snappy and smooth interface, the new features, and the fast as hell startup time... WOW!
i was going to add some pictures but my connection is acting up again and i cant seem to upload anything so il just write some outstanding features:
1- the speed, its just so much faster than vista.... as simple as that, and it uses 630 megs of ram when i actually have 4gigs on this comp, while vista used 1.2 gigs, and as i said, the startup time is amazing .....
With my 1730 I can get a 5.1 score. The 5.1 is because of my ram which gets a 5.1, I am upgrading and adding another 2gb so this will not be a bottleneck anymore. My next highest score is a 5.2 for my hd. Is there anyway to get a higher score for my hd? I have a 7200rpm, would adding another hd, and putting them in raid somehow make a difference? I would at least like to figure out how i could make the hd faster, after that my next lowest score is not until 5.4, and if i had a score of 5.4
Can I get folks who have the Studio 15 w/ATI post their WEI numbers? I'm concerned the Studio 15z from Best Buy is actually beating the 1558 and that disappoints me.
Processor - 6.7 RAM - 5.9 Graphics - 4.9 Gaming - 6.2 Hard disk - 5.9
I have been getting really poor hard drive performance since I've got my computer. It's getting a 5.9 on the windows experience index which I think is quite low for an 128GB SSD? Also, when copying and pasting large files it seems to stall for a few seconds during the process.
Has anyone else been having this problem or know a solution? What kind WEI ratings are people getting?
My machine is a SXPS 1645, Core i7 720Q, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD.
I decided to upgrade my Vista/Fusion installation to Windows 7/Fusion today on my Alu unibody Mac.
The experience took a couple of hours, and I have to say it was a nervous operation. A few heads up for those making the trek....
The setup program would not run until I uninstalled McAfee completely. Just disabling does not do the trick.
The mouse button stopped working several times at key junctures, when it is asking for input. Pressing the escape key after bringing up the VMware menu bar seems to alleviate the problem.
I could not re-install McAfee after the installation from the VMware menu bar. I'll have to see if I can do it later from the Fusion install disk.
After installation, Windows 7 seems to to function OK, but I did not do any in-depth testing as I'll want to have a working antivirus before I proceed further. If I can't get McAfee back on, maybe I'll install AVG's free AV.
Thought I'd put my experience with the Window 7 Beta on my Acer Aspire 6920G, for those considering it but not sure whether it works etc.
Installation: Installation went smooth, picked up alot of things out of the box, but for the things it doesn't, you can use the backup feature on the vista partition to create a disc with all the drivers etc. on
Drivers: Well there are some you'll have to get yourself, e.g. Graphics Card drivers, I've got the HD3650 flavour of machine and my drivers are found here: [url]
Another driver that didn't work, and the one from the drivers disc doesn't either is the SD Card reader, however you can get the drivers direct from JMicron here: http://www.jmicron.com/Driver.htm go into the ftp ( there's a link towards the end of the text) and get the driver for the JMB38X not 36X, this driver works a charm.
I can't speak for ExpressCard devices as I don't use them myself.
Sound works out of the box.
Even after installing the drivers for it the webcam refuses to work.
With the drivers from the driver disc created in Vista, bluetooth works............
Well my PC came OEM installed with Vista 32 Bit edition and I would like to upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit edition (as i get a student discount).
Looking around the forums and internet in general, I have noticed that on the acer 6920g there seems to always be a problem with drivers such as the CineDash, Realtek, TV tuner, Modem, Card reader, Fingerprint, Webcam, Bluetooth etc.. I have also read that you can fix the launchmanager by running in Vista compatiability mode.
If i do an in-place upgrade (going from vista 32-bit to windows 7 ultimate) will it be fine? Also is there anything I should be cautionous of such as the drivers etc..
I would actually really like to do a clean installation but I'm worried that the keyboard "quick" buttons (such as the internet,bluetooth,mail on the side of keyboard will not work)- can someone please confirm if I did a clean installation, would theese buttons still work?
Also I have two games:GTA IV, Call of Duty 5 , will theese both work on windows 7 (or on compatability).
I have a 490CTO with win7 home premium. I can't remember but I think that I had exactly the same score with vista, only nothing went over 5.9. The HDD score was the same. Did anybody else get a different base score after upgrading to 7?
if anyone is willing to share their WEI result in Win7 with Vaio Z in Speed mode. Would be curious, if it'll show some differences with different CPUs, HDDs, ... You can show the additional specifics by clicking on "View and print detailed performance and system information". (Thanks NHT about the info, didn't know about that ) As the chart doesn't show, what kind of HDD you got,
A friend just showed me his new Dell Vostro lappy. He has 4 GB of DDR2 800mhz memory on it when compared to my 4 GB of DDR2 667mhz memory on my XPS 1530
However, under his windows experience score - he gets 5.9 score for memory operations while I just get a 5.1. I can't believe that a couple of hundred mhz can result in such a drastic difference.
Is there something optimized for his system but not for mine?
I also have an external My Book 500 GB with triple connectivity (Firewire, USB and eSATA).
When I connect this external HD with the eSATA cable on my M6400 while running XP 32-bit it works perfectly.
Attempting to do the same thing while running windows 7 64-bit will typically result in file transfer hanging somewhere in the middle (this also hang windows explorer). I then have to disconnect the eSATA cable to resume windows operation.
The USB mode works fine, but the Firewire seem to have to same issue than the eSATA.
I am wondering if anybody else is having similar issue and / or anybody has any idea(s) as to how to fix this.
I can use the USB, but I frequently have to transfer virtual machine back and forth so I could definitively benefit from the eSATA improve transfer rate.
I run the HD Controller in AHCI mode
---------- Dell M6400 Intel Core 2 Quad - 2530 4 GB Memory 2 HD (1 Patriot TorqX 128 GB and one Seagate Momentus 320GB) BIOS: A07
Ran win7 on my M6300 for quite a while with no problems... M6400 just showed up and I can't seem to work it out. seemingly random BSODs that hit at any time. Analysis shows that the first one was caused by csrss.exe, most after that were caused by ntkrnlmp.exe,
Has anybody else had this happen and figured out which driver is causing the problem? Maybe I should ask "has anybody else installed win7 build 7100 64-bit on a M6400 and *not* had problems like this? If so, what drivers did you install beyond what windows update does for you?"
System config is: Q9300 quad-core proc 4gb RAM on 2 DIMMs 3700M video RGB-LED screen (if that matters) 64GB samsung SSD, 500gb WD 5400RPM HD (aftermarket) as secondary drive verizon rev-a evdo mini-pci card intel 5300 a/b/g card fingerprint scanner
i think that's all the important parts... the first bsod happened before i had installed just about anything at all, other than windows updates. i've been throwing just about every other driver i can find at it to see if i can narrow it down (with the intent of reinstalling from scratch once i figure it out). every time I think I have it figured out, I'll look over at it and notice that it is BSOD'ed or post-bsod rebooting.
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?
I bought yesterday the 640GB WD HDD and I tried to install it but Windows will not load. It will get stuk in the "loading screen" and will not advance to ask my password.
To complicate things, Windows actually loaded once, the driver setup programm was launched, the HDD was not visible and when I tried to restart it got stuck again.
Once I removed the drive everything loaded as usually.
I am running a RAID0 array on fast hard disks (ok, so they ain't SSDs, but still!)..
it came out at 6.3 which was the lowest score - lower than the FX2700m for gaming - which suprised me given that in Vista the hard disk got max marks and the FX2700m didn't..
I executed the performance index and everything was over 7.0 but the Hard Drive was 3.0, I have installed the Intel Chipset and SATA drivers, what else I should do ?, in Vista x64 I got around 6.0 for the disk,
M6400, Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit RTM, FX3700M, E2E RGB LED
Everything appears to be working fine in my win 7 installation with the exception of the video. If I install any video driver then the LCD display dim's down to <50% of its normal brightness compared to just vanilla VGA drivers. External monitor works fine.
I initially went with the official NVIDIA 186.03 driver, and this exhibited the dimming effect. I have since tried all manner of other video driver versions including laptop2go, etc and none of them work. Even had my first win7 BSOD when I installed Dell's latest Vista x64 driver .....
So I decided I would stick with Dell for my next purchase since my family and I have owned a couple of their models in the past. Our old inspiron and latitudes have held up for at least 4-5 years each so this a fairly easy choice for me to make.
10/28/09 - Ordering a new Studio XPS 1340 I was on the phone with Dell EPP and configured my setup for a fully loaded SXPS 1340 after about 2 hours of back and forth with the representative and manager (I am a bargain hunter). Blah blah blah the manager finally agrees on $1350 shipped (roughly a $200 discount after EPP)......................
To date, I have had X4 Motherboard replacements, X2 Screen replacements and X2 batteries, and I'm fed up with Dell. My computer is running all latest drivers and software etc, but is running really hot. The palmrest gets really hot, even if the CPU is idle. I have to retract my hand from the computer base after a few seconds because it is so **** warm. I'm not sure what is causing the heat - it was never this warm before the latest motherboard replacement, which was due to a fried GPU.
Is it really worth getting a new motherboard and going through all that hassle, if it will just happen again? My graphics in Flight Simulator and all games have become terrible (i mean, terrible) - with few other processes running, since I bought it a year ago. This is a concern that I can no longer play games on this Nvidia Chip.
Do you guys think I am right in thinking that my GPU is just messed up and chucking out crazy amounts of heat? (It is 65 degrees celcius idle)
Well, I think it's more usual for people to leave comments over bad experiences than good experiences, so I think it would be good to do it.
Few days ago I had a problem with a XPS 1330 which suddenly stopped working. Something related with a shortcircuit with the power supply.
I checked guarantee and happily found that I bought the 3 year extended guarantee with the laptop and it was on the third year so i called customer support and after some small checks they decided it had to do with the motherboard so they ordered a replacement for me for the next day.
I even messed with the asking to come later as I wanted to backup data (just for security). Did the backup and called them again few days later. Again I had no problem, next day a technician came to my home and changed the motherboard. In matter of minutes i had the laptop working again.
