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After Countless Reviews of iXPS/9100/M60, Ordered the M60 - Page 2

post #21 of 34
5/15/04 at 1:25am
can new i8600c do this?
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post #22 of 34
5/15/04 at 5:23am
Quote:
Originally Posted by yichen
can new i8600c do this?
Do what? Flash to the M60 or D800 BIOS? Perhaps, although the board is a little different I think. But there is no real reason to as the i8600 BIOS already supports DDR333 and Dothan...

stu
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post #23 of 34
5/15/04 at 7:59am
The I8600 can only be flashed with the I8600 BIOS and no other. The D800/M60 can be flashed with both the D800 or M60 BIOS outside of windows in DOS using the /forcetype command switch.
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post #24 of 34
5/15/04 at 10:16am
Thought that may be the case. But as I said, even if you could there is really no reason too anyway
stu
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post #25 of 34
5/15/04 at 12:10pm
Just finished flashing both D800s at work with your BIOS swap utility somms...they both display 333MHz in the BIOS now...THANKS bud...now they can take advantage of the PC2700 memory that Dell was kind enough to send them to us with...they seem to stuff our D800s with PC2700.

Now I just lost my justification for getting the M60 last month...oh well, I suppose I can always say the system change was justified anyway because of the Quadro 1000...
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post #26 of 34
5/15/04 at 1:50pm
oh, so my i8600 can already support DDR333 just like the M60???

-Yi Chen
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post #27 of 34
5/15/04 at 5:59pm
Yes.
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post #28 of 34
5/15/04 at 10:07pm
Thread Starter 
Great news! The M60 has shipped 10 days early and is scheduled to arrive on Monday, May 17. Let me know if you have a special request or anything you'd like me to do when it arrives.
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post #29 of 34
5/15/04 at 11:48pm
somms and ofelas:

Your findings on D800 with PC2700 memory are very interesting to me. I am on the brink of ordering D800 with Pentium M 755 2GHz (due to administrative constraints of my research grant, I can't get I8600 or M60). Leaving GPU-s aside, the only worrying factor about D800 is that nominally it still uses PC2100. If indeed D800 with M60's BIOS fully supported PC2700, I might order only 128MB RAM from Dell, and upgrade from another source.

My first question to somms is: If I understood correctly, your D800 has PC2700 RAM; why did you get it (apparently not from Dell) without knowing whether D800 could utilize its extra capabilities relative to PC2100?

A related question to ofelas: Are you sure your D800-s have PC2700? Did you verify this independently of the latest M60's BIOS reports? Were your D800-s ordered with PC2100 but delivered with PC2700? (Apparently D800 can't be ordered with PC2700 via normal channels, but bigger customers may get preferential treatment.)

The next natural question to somms and ofelas is whether you have any idea about D800's performance differences between PC2100 and PC2700 with D800's BIOS, and PC2700 with M60's BIOS. The outcome could depend on motherboard revisions and their 855PM chipsets, so additional info might help, such as when you got your mobos.

Of course, the basic point is whether D800 with PC2100 is significantly slower than M60 (or I8600) with PC2700. The only info I could find on other forums was that the speedup was discernible in synthetic benchmarks (e.g., Sandra's), but barely noticable in more real-life applications where other factors damp the influence of faster RAM. My main applications are number crunching (numerical methods) and sorting/selection (mostly comparisons and swaps).

Thus it would help if you ran some benchmarks or timed your favorite applications using D800's BIOS first, and then M60's BIOS.

It is hard to guess how real-life performance differences between PC2100 and PC2700 on D800 with Banias 1.7GHz will be related to those for Dothan 2.0GHz (its larger cache might help, but a faster CPU needs more frequent memory transmissions).

I would really appreciate at least partial answers. I need to order my D800 on Monday, or Tuesday at the latest, because after the long wait for Dothan, my time is running out (especially in view of possible delivery delays). Up till now I wanted to order PC2100 (2 x 512MB) from Dell, simply to avoid the extra hassle, but your latest findings got me thinking about getting PC2700 elsewhere.
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post #30 of 34
5/16/04 at 12:26am
I did in fact order my D800 back in January configured with the minimum (128MB RAM). In the meantime, I upgraded to crucial RAM ordering the type specified for the I8600 (333MHz). I can't tell you if the 1 stick of 128MB RAM that originally shipped with the notebook was 266 or 333MHz. If I can find it, I'll try to let you know.
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post #31 of 34
5/16/04 at 12:30am
Is it just me, or is the forum spinning?

*falls down*
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post #32 of 34
5/16/04 at 1:29am
somms:

Thanks a lot for answering my first question. Please don't trouble yourself about the original RAM stick, since Dell's strategy might have changed since January. Crucial still thinks that only I8600 needs PC2700.

Do you have any comments on my remaining questions? Running more extensive tests might need too much time, but could you at least verify (e.g., via Sandra) that D800 with M60's BIOS does in fact run PC2700 at the proper speed? Well, being (too) cautious, I wouldn't trust the BIOS report alone.

Broadly speaking, my problem may be rephrased as follows. If switching from PC2100 to PC2700 on D800 did not speed up my main applications by more than 10%, I wouldn't care.
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post #33 of 34
5/16/04 at 3:15pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by KCK
somms:

Thanks a lot for answering my first question. Please don't trouble yourself about the original RAM stick, since Dell's strategy might have changed since January. Crucial still thinks that only I8600 needs PC2700.

Do you have any comments on my remaining questions? Running more extensive tests might need too much time, but could you at least verify (e.g., via Sandra) that D800 with M60's BIOS does in fact run PC2700 at the proper speed? Well, being (too) cautious, I wouldn't trust the BIOS report alone.

Broadly speaking, my problem may be rephrased as follows. If switching from PC2100 to PC2700 on D800 did not speed up my main applications by more than 10%, I wouldn't care.
I don't have benchmarks, but the following is detected in windows:



The former is running the A09 D800 BIOS and the latter w/the A05 M60 BIOS.

Edit: Memory Write/Read benchmarks...

HTML Code:
--------[ EVEREST Home Edition (c) 2003, 2004 Lavalys, Inc. ]-----------------------------------------------------------

    Version                                           EVEREST v1.10.106
    Homepage                                          http://www.lavalys.com/
    Report Type                                       Quick Report
    Computer                                          D800
    Generator                                         Administrator
    Operating System                                  Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition 5.2.3790 (Win2003 Retail)
    Date                                              2004-05-16
    Time                                              12:52


--------[ Memory Read ]-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    This Computer         Dell Latitude D800                                                                                                     2012 MB/s
    

--------[ Memory Write ]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    This Computer         Dell Latitude D800                                                                                                      455 MB/s
    

--------[ Debug - Video BIOS ]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    C000:0000  U.............................IBMe.............. 761295520......
    C000:0040  ??......0.......2004/02/13 16:33..........".....DR(7..(.. ......
    C000:0080  ..M10/M11P A237 LINDBERG Hynix BIOS - P/N 113-A23705-103 ...(C) 
    C000:00C0  1988-2003, ATI Technologies Inc. BK-ATI VER008.011.029.026. paa2
    C000:0100  37-5.985 v611 .P10 AGP DGD1UN..OEM VR.001.002.h.......h.)#._0...
    C000:0140  ............(.. PN...........{e...........$TVS..................
    C000:0180  .........i..............PCIR..PN................ATI MOBILITY RAD
    C000:01C0  EON 9600   .Kq......h"......................Kq......h"..........
    C000:0200  ............@.@.D...H............'......)........A........A...
    C000:0240  .....A.......0 ..3Q0`..........OD..P ....P`........X ..........
    C000:0280  | ..........X`........hA.......0....@.A.....=..x..B..|.........
    C000:02C0  .................................. ...........+.......f.........
    C000:0300  .`............................!.....I............W...........W..
    C000:0340  ..&.........../.....m.....%......."".......M.......[..u..`......
    C000:0380  8A.....................A...........@.).... ............".....OU.
    C000:03C0  .L.. .'H...........T........?.?D...%....=...A........X.B.B1.....


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
HTML Code:
--------[ EVEREST Home Edition (c) 2003, 2004 Lavalys, Inc. ]-----------------------------------------------------------

    Version                                           EVEREST v1.10.106
    Homepage                                          http://www.lavalys.com/
    Report Type                                       Quick Report
    Computer                                          D800
    Generator                                         Administrator
    Operating System                                  Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition 5.2.3790 (Win2003 Retail)
    Date                                              2004-05-16
    Time                                              12:48


--------[ Memory Read ]-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    This Computer         Dell Precision M60                                                                                                     2385 MB/s
    

--------[ Memory Write ]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    This Computer         Dell Precision M60                                                                                                      521 MB/s


--------[ Debug - Video BIOS ]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    C000:0000  U.............................IBMe.............. 761295520......
    C000:0040  ??......0.......2004/02/13 16:33..........".....DR(7..(.. ......
    C000:0080  ..M10/M11P A237 LINDBERG Hynix BIOS - P/N 113-A23705-103 ...(C) 
    C000:00C0  1988-2003, ATI Technologies Inc. BK-ATI VER008.011.029.026. paa2
    C000:0100  37-5.985 v611 .P10 AGP DGD1UN..OEM VR.001.002.h.......h.)#._0...
    C000:0140  ............(.. PN...........{e...........$TVS..................
    C000:0180  .........i..............PCIR..PN................ATI MOBILITY RAD
    C000:01C0  EON 9600   .Kq......h"......................Kq......h"..........
    C000:0200  ............@.@.D...H............'......)........A........A...
    C000:0240  .....A.......0 ..3Q0`..........OD..P ....P`........X ..........
    C000:0280  | ..........X`........hA.......0....@.A.....=..x..B..|.........
    C000:02C0  .................................. ...........+.......f.........
    C000:0300  .`............................!.....I............W...........W..
    C000:0340  ..&.........../.....m.....%......."".......M.......[..u..`......
    C000:0380  8A.....................A...........@.).... ............".....OU.
    C000:03C0  .L.. .'H...........T........?.?D...%....=...A........X.B.B1.....


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
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post #34 of 34
5/16/04 at 10:49pm
somms:

That's great info!

Your D800 with M60's BIOS definitely supports PC2700.

So now we know that there are no technical reasons for Dell's restricting D800 to PC2100. I guess the only reason is corporate marketing, i.e., Dell's trying to maintain a stable model.

Let's hope your D800's mobo from January is representative, and Dell hasn't crippled them in the meantime.

I guess your speedups of 18.5%/14.5% in the memory read/write tests could lead to speedups of about 10% in some of my applications. Under normal circumstances, I would certainly opt for PC2700, since it is not much more expensive than PC2100. Well, I'll ask Dell tomorrow if I could get PC2700 with D800, and at what price. Having Dell's warranty on RAM could be convenient. For me, getting RAM from other vendors means extra administrative hops, so I'll have to decide whether it's worth it.

Again, thanks a lot for your help!
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