Aaron44126

I agree, I have found the extra Dell software to be more "unnecessary fluff" than helpful and I always install the minimum that I can get away with. The only things I can think of is Dell Power Manager so that you can change the "thermal mode" without having to go to the BIOS, and Dell Optimizer is unfortunately required to set some settings for the integrated audio Realtek/Maxx setup.

I bought a M5000M and used the x-bracket that it came with, never bothered swapping. If the heatsink screws can attach to it, you’re fine. If the threading is not the same, you’ll have to transfer the bracket from your old card. It will probably take some heat to get it off.

I am doubtful that the palmrests are interchangeable. It seems like it has to line up with the positions of screws that attach to components further down (at least I remember the GPU card position mattering, one of the top mounting screws for the palmrest goes into one of the MXM screws) and also the screws that attach the palmrest would have to line up with the holes for them in the bottom chassis. The problem is, the internal layout is *completely different* between M6700 and M6800. Despite looking similar on the outside, they moved a lot of stuff around on the inside. You can’t even use the same fans (I tried that). Still, if you can find decent photos of both, you can see if it looks like the screws go in the same place.

In a laptop, the GPU’s subsystem ID is derived from the laptop’s motherboard, not from the GPU card itself. That’s why it is reported as a Dell card in some tools, and that’s why you have to do some mucking to get the drivers to install. Nvcleanstall can “fix” this for you (as you have found), but you could also make some manual edits to the driver INF file to get it to install cleanly. You can still flash a different vBIOS on it by passing a command flag to nvflash to ignore the difference in the subsystem ID. There is no “working as intended” setup for this because this GPU+laptop combo was never “intended”. But if it works, it works, and I bet it is a step up in performance.

Modular parts like CPU, RAM, SSD, battery, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth modules will be compatible between the two. Dell was using the same keyboard in many business PCs at the time (Precision 2011-2013 models, and also Latitude E-series from around the same time), if you see one that has the same appearance and layout then it will most likely fit and work fine. (Do note that there is a backlit version and a non-backlit version.) Most other internal parts will not be compatible between the two. (Motherboard, fans / heatsink, pieces of the chassis, etc.)

Tools I have used for this type of thing are Macrium Reflect and Acronis True Image. These products both have an option to do a drive-to-drive clone, or also to create an image of the drive and then write that image back to a different drive. There used to be a free version of Macrium Reflect which you can still find with a simple web search, but it is no longer available right on their site. It should still work fine. If you have some comfort level with Linux, you can just boot a Linux "live" environment and do it from there. Look up using the "dd" command to clone a disk. You can also use "dd" to make a disk image and then write that image back to a different disk. This will leave you with the same partition layout that you currently have (1 TB volume size, with the "extra" 3 TB unallocated) which you can easily fix afterwards using GParted, a straight-forward GUI partition management tool for Linux which is also included in most "live" environments. If your laptop only has room for one NVMe drive, you can get a cheap USB enclosure to attach the other drive to while doing the clone. That will allow you to do a drive-to-drive clone without having to find room on another drive somewhere for an image. I wrote all of this and then realized that Samsung has their own clone tool as well. It is now integrated into Samsung Magician. ...I've never personally used this one before, but it should be "free" if you are migrating to a Samsung drive. https://semiconductor.samsung.com/consumer-storage/support/tools/

What parts are you interested in, specifically? Some parts like the keyboard are shared, but I would say that most are not.

Here's some sad news on Asahi Linux ... https://marcan.st/2025/02/resigning-as-asahi-linux-project-lead/ I use Firefox ESR + uBlock Origin, just like I did on Windows and Linux, and it works great for me. I have no idea what the ad blocking situation is like on Safari.

This happens when you do copy/pasting into your post from somewhere else. The "black text on white background" text styling can get copied in as well ... and it is not obvious unless you are running a dark mode theme.

I mean, that's exactly why I am moving away from Windows... When I have to ask "Whose computer is this, anyway?", I've got to wonder if I am using an OS, or if the OS is using me to make a buck. Apple is guilty of some of the same stuff, but (currently) to a much lesser degree than Microsoft. As a recent example, they're turning "Apple Intelligence" on by default starting with macOS 15.3 / iOS 18.3, and the 15.3.1 / 18.3.1 updates that came out a couple of days ago apparently in some cases turn it back on even if you turned it off. Turning Apple Intelligence on by default makes sense to a degree — they think it is a selling point and they want people to experience it — but it could have used at least a splash screen with some information and an option to opt in or opt out. Turning it back on after the subsequent update is probably a "bug", someone didn't think through the post-upgrade script/actions, and I doubt that it will happen again. Still, I can see why it would rub people the wrong way for sure. On the plus side, Apple Intelligence largely runs on-device (not in the cloud, unless you go out of your way to enable the ChatGPT support, and even then they will ask you if it's OK every time a query is about to be sent to OpenAI). They're being very privacy-conscious with the implementation. Really, the worst thing about it is that it gobbles up several GBs of disk space to store the models. On top of that, the whole bit with not being able to replace or upgrade components in your system... Still, for me, macOS is easily the "least bad" of the three major options for now (Windows / Linux / macOS). Professional applications just aren't there on Linux, Windows is a hot mess, and despite the cost and lack of hardware flexibility, Apple Silicon Macs are actually ... quite nice systems when it comes to the balance between power efficiency (battery life + low heat, noise) and performance potential when you need it.

Your display is plugged into the LVDS connector, and the eDP connector is sitting there unoccupied.

So, it seems like, at the very least, the pinout for the DGFF connectors has changed between Precision 7X50 and 7X60 (with regard to power delivery at least), answering the question posed by @sliderfra and others. Not exactly surprised that Dell would use the same connector with a different pinout between successive generations. I tried to use a Precision M6800 fan in a Precision M6700 once — it physically fit, but they had changed the pinout for the fan connector on the motherboard (using the same physical plug) so the fan would not operate.

Framework has an event to announce new products coming up, February 25 at 10:30am (U.S. pacific time).

The RGBLED panel needs many parts to install. The panel itself The display enclosure (it is slightly thicker to hold the RGBLED panel) Interposer board which goes between the motherboard and the panel Two cables — eDP to interposer, interposer to panel ...Maybe also a metal side-rail thing that is needed to "mount" the panel into the display enclosure Also note, if you install the RGBLED panel then you will not be able to use Optimus. That only works with LVDS panels in this system.

When I did K5000M → M5000M, I just reused all of the pads and it was fine. IIRC, M5000M has one additional VRM at the top that isn't present on the Kepler GPU cards, so you just need to make sure that the pad covers it.