Precision M6700 owner's thread

[martin778]

Weird, after installing the M5000M and 3940XM, my machine refuses to even POST if I connect the ribbon left on the palmrest labelled "media".

It goes into some kind of failstate with the CPU fan going to 100% and then the machine reboots.

 

 

+

OK, found out the problem, one of the contact pads in the ribbon was bent backwards, fixed.

Runs like a champ now with the 3940XM / M5000M combo. Installed the latest driver using NVcleaninstall and adding the device ID:

 

https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/126318780

 

This is with +135MHz on the core clock, can't go any higher in Afterburner. The temps are amazing too, card is running inthe 60*C range under full load.

I repadded it using 1.5mm Arctic thermal pads and also repadded the CPU VRM part and added some thermal putty between the PCH and the heatsink. No idea what they were trying to achieve by having a bare bit of aluminum hanging above the PCH without a thermal pad inbetween.

I've seen it on both of my 6700's already.

 

I was also looking at swapping the screen bezel for a one with the webcam and it looks like there must be some interconnect board in the lid itself as the webcam model doesn't have any extra cables going to the mainboard.

[martin778]

Okay, I reinstalled the OS and now for the love of all that's holy I can't reinstall the driver. Getting a black screen + reboot during install of the modded driver, weird.

 

+

Ok, so its quite specific to drivers. I found out that 55x release still works, 57x causes a crash and reboot.

[martin778]

Not sure if it's just me but M5000M doesn't support Optimus??

[Aaron44126]

16 minutes ago, martin778 said:

Not sure if it's just me but M5000M doesn't support Optimus??

 

It definitely does, I used it for years in my M6700.

I had issues with it not working when I first put the card in and it was because the driver INF mod was done wrong. I have notes about doing the mod manually (properly) over here — https://www.nbrchive.net/forum.notebookreview.com/threads/precision-7530-precision-7730-owners-thread.820539/page-253.html#post-10937563

You have to pay attention to different subsystem ID depending on whether Optimus is enabled or disabled in the system. If the driver is installed off of the wrong one then the flags for Optimus will not get set and it will not work.

(I would assume that NVcleanstall can handle this, but I never used that.)

[martin778]

I used NVcleaninstall, picked the first M5000M template from the list, added 13F8 HW ID but no cigar, I don't even see the Intel GPU in device manager.

[Aaron44126]

8 minutes ago, martin778 said:

I used NVcleaninstall, picked the first M5000M template from the list, added 13F8 HW ID but no cigar, I don't even see the Intel GPU in device manager.

 

If Intel GPU is not in Device Manager, and the laptop display is showing attached to the NVIDIA GPU directly, that is another problem. It doesn't look like the system is running in Optimus mode.

First thing to check — Is Optimus still enabled in BIOS setup? Is it even showing as an option there?

[martin778]

Could it be Windows is the problem? I have an AMD firepro model of the 6700 as well but that one doesn't show the Intel iGPU either in W11.

 

+

Ok, got Optimus working. It must've disabled itself in the BIOS after swapping the cards.

Now I just need a WinXP driver for that M5000M and everything is golden...

 

Done so far:

- Replace CPU with 3940XM

- Upgrade RAM to 1866MHz 32GB

- Upgrade GPU from K4000M 4GB to M5000M 8GB

- Replaced all thermal pads with Arctic TP, TIM with PTM7950

- Upgraded storage to 860PRO 2TB for all OS'es, 870EVO 1TB for general data, ISO's etc

- Added Intel AX210 WiFi 6 card from Aliexpress, moves the N6235 to other slot, that way I can have normal WiFi in XP and WiFi6 in W10/11 (AX have no XP/7 driver).

 

Things left to do for my M6700:

- Find the upgraded palmrest with fingerprint and NFC reader

- Find an undamaged screen bezel w. webcam

- Upgrade screen to eDP IPS, keep 1080p but with higher Hz to match or exceed the Covet panel. Or maybe there are better panels that are a drop-in replacement on LVDS?

 

Option:

- Find 4x8GB 2133MHz RAM

 

++++

Ok, I got the M5000M working in Windows XP!

I downloaded this driver:

https://www.philscomputerlab.com/modified-nvidia-drivers.html

Added ID 13F8 and it installed perfectly. Under XP the card is being seen as having 4GB VRAM but that's probably an XP limitation. Optimus remains a mystery, after using XP and rebooting to W11 the Optimus was disabled again and Intel HD graphics not visible in device manager.

The GPU performance in XP is a bit worse than in later OS'es, tested in 3DM06.

[alectrona6400]

hello, i am another m6700 owner here. just got my m6700 working with 3 1TB SSDs and a GTX 980M with 32GB of memory and a 3720QM (would like to upgrade eventually to the 3940XM or 3840QM).

 

now the screen i would like to upgrade for sure, from this TN 1080p panel to an IPS 1440p panel. i know the m6700 has EDP and LVDS ports, but i wonder how this could be doable. or if i could install a better FHD screen through eDP. however it seems like all of the newer screens are mounted differently and i have no idea if or how others can get the slimmer 'chinned' screens to fit, because thats how the industry moved forward from the older panels.

 

any help is much appreciated. by the way here's my vista desktop. i have freeDOS, XP, vista, 10, and debian multibooted on here.