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My new m6400. Congratulate and then answer my questions please.

Poll Results: Should I purchase a 1yr $189 warranty for an $1100 laptop?

Poll expired: May 20, 2009  
  • 57% (4)
    Yes
  • 42% (3)
    No
7 Total Votes  
post #1 of 17
5/7/09 at 9:34pm
Thread Starter 
So I got an almost fully loaded m6400 for a delightfully low price since it was nearly warranty-less. The guy broke his e1705 and this was it's replacement. I've ordered a second HD and 8gb of RAM, but I'm kind of up in the air about what else I ought to do.

First one there is already a thread about... blu-ray drives. All the ones I can find on ebay are 12.5 or 12.7mm, and apparently these machines use 9.5mm. My DVDRW drive is ludicrousy noisy so I'd like to replace it anyway, figured a blu-ray drive would be gnarly but I may have to wait.

Next on the list: is there any way to make the back-lighting on the keyboard stay on all the time?

Third: device manager shows Broadcom USH with a little "!" next to it. What is it? I tried installing the Controlpoint thingy as that's what I found on Google, but it didn't work.

Lastly: feel free to vote on my poll. We have until the 20th of this month.
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post #2 of 17
5/9/09 at 12:05am
Congradulation's on the cheap notebook....thats a deal!

Personally I would buy the warranty,I know it's another 17% on what you paid for the whole thing,but,what will it cost if the motherboard or graphic's card dies's and you have no warranty.

USH is the unified security hub,is needed for smartcard's,fingerprint reader,basically anything security related.

Mine has a bang [!] against this device also,but this is because I purposely didn't install the Dell system software utility,or any of the associated DCP crud......once the dell system software utility is installed,you can't uninstall it,you have to reformat.....none of this stuff is needed unless your using the security measure's available......in my case,I hate useless bloat and prefer a faster booting/shutting down pc......but up to you.

I don't know about the keyboard timeout,haven't looked,but would be surprised if you can't do it some how
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post #3 of 17
5/10/09 at 1:38pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks Gerry. I figured that was what the USH was for and like you I don't use any of that stuff.

So here's another warranty question:
I can buy Dell Completecare for only like $64. I asked a Dell rep what it would cover if I didn't purchase a normal warranty as well, and as suspected they said it only covers accident damage. In that case, could I only buy Completecare and then if my motherboard fries itself I could just work under the assumption that I must've accidentally gotten it wet? I thought you couldn't purchase CC without a normal warranty, but the option is on the site.
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post #4 of 17
5/10/09 at 7:58pm
Just buy the warranty,for your own and every other honest owner's sake,then you won't be in for any nasty surprises.

Dell have apparently become a lot more aware in the last year or so of the amount of completecare fraud that was going on,going by a PM conversation I was having with the dell rep who visit's this site.
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post #5 of 17
5/11/09 at 2:35am
Thread Starter 
Yeah, I believe it. Theres a huge amount of brand new systems on ebay and Craigslist that have only a month or less warranty on them, including the one I bought. Maybe the original owner was legit, maybe not... I do prefer to be legit myself though.
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post #6 of 17
5/11/09 at 3:53am
Congrats

So what are the specs of the System ?
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post #7 of 17
5/11/09 at 3:54am
I may suggest waiting for the Blu Ray, The only price I get get was $ 549.00 USD, perhpas in a few weeks/months when there are more 9.5 mm drives the price will be better.
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post #8 of 17
5/11/09 at 3:54am
Oh yeah, which version of power supply did you get ?

The Big ass one 230 Watt or the new slim 210 Watt ?
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post #9 of 17
5/11/09 at 8:54pm
I tend to go against the general trend on this type of issue. For me a warranty is of little concern, yes complete care is brilliant in effect should your unit fail they will replace it with an equivalent model

For the chap to get a M6400 for an E1705 is actually incredible and that shows the value of the complete care system.

So why may you ask do I not agree with the concept of paying for a warranty - I look at it this way. You have a few things that can fail over time like mobo, video card being the two most likely candidates. In my experience the cost of the warranty and the risk of these key components failing is all about weighing up the options. I don't believe the FX 3700 or FX 2700 are inherently flawed like the 79xx series and as I always run a temp monitering program I know when to clean out my fins. Currently the video card is idling at 50deg C which is reasonably normal, the hotest I have seen this go to was around 74 deg C when gaming for around 3 hours.

So I figure the chance of this failing is fairly low, if it is stolen well I'm covered by normal household insurance so I'm happy to work on the theroy that this unit will last at least two years. In which case I shall sell it and get a newer model (always secondhand with possibly no warrenty). If it fails in that time I would normally just buy the parts and do the replacement myself.

Anyway congradulations on your new unit - I have found the M6400 to be a brilliant laptop well powered for the size.

I guess it just depends on your personal level of comfort.
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post #10 of 17
5/12/09 at 11:53pm
Thread Starter 
I'm going to guess 210w power supply, but it doesnt seem to say on the label. Model da210pe1-00 is where I get my guess.

T9400, CCFL LCD (I think), 2gb upgraded to 8gb, 80gb 7200rpm HD and added a 320/7200, 2700m

I think I'd be more comfortable with the warranty, but I'm still debating; already spent pretty much my whole budget. Only thing that worries me is the cost of repairing it if something does go wrong. Could be cheaper to replace the whole system if the motherboard or GPU dies.



EDIT in retrospect, this thread title was supposed to kinda be a jest or sarcasm but it really seems to make me look like an a-hole instead... lol. My bad.
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post #11 of 17
5/13/09 at 12:37am
you can always extend your warranty at any time as long as it is done before it expires.
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post #12 of 17
5/14/09 at 8:32am
WARRANTY IS ALWAYS THE BEST INVESTMENT

regardless of what anyone has to say, it only takes one failure of a part to be worth it in most cases. although the m6400 is more robust than other models, they have the same parts inside, so you know something will fail eventually. i will always keep my warranty maxed out on my m1730 because the cost to replace it is so high.
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post #13 of 17
5/18/09 at 8:35pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by kevineugenius View Post
So I got an almost fully loaded m6400 for a delightfully low price since it was nearly warranty-less. The guy broke his e1705 and this was it's replacement. I've ordered a second HD and 8gb of RAM, but I'm kind of up in the air about what else I ought to do.

First one there is already a thread about... blu-ray drives. All the ones I can find on ebay are 12.5 or 12.7mm, and apparently these machines use 9.5mm. My DVDRW drive is ludicrousy noisy so I'd like to replace it anyway, figured a blu-ray drive would be gnarly but I may have to wait.

Next on the list: is there any way to make the back-lighting on the keyboard stay on all the time?

Third: device manager shows Broadcom USH with a little "!" next to it. What is it? I tried installing the Controlpoint thingy as that's what I found on Google, but it didn't work.

Lastly: feel free to vote on my poll. We have until the 20th of this month.

$1100 for an m6400? wow! hook me up if you have another deal... I want to buy this laptop but $4000+ is just wayyy out of what I can afford as a student
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post #14 of 17
6/12/09 at 10:21pm
good deal.
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post #15 of 17
6/17/09 at 5:16am
To the best of my knowledge you can't buy CompleteCare without a warranty. You can have a warranty without completecare.
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post #16 of 17
6/17/09 at 10:53pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrEvil View Post
To the best of my knowledge you can't buy CompleteCare without a warranty. You can have a warranty without completecare.

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post #17 of 17
6/30/09 at 9:37pm
I'm happy for you OP.

I'm in the same situation as the guy you bought your M6400 from. The graphics card on my E1705 broke (again) and this time Dell said they had to replace my whole laptop. They tried giving me 2 other systems that weren't up to par. And today, I finally received my M6400.

I'm looking to sell it. So you guys, what would be a reasonable price for me to ask? It has 2.26ghz core 2 duo, 2gb ddr3, and quadro 2700.
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