The Dell Precision m4600/m6600 thread

[vladeta]

Hello,

I have a problem in ubuntu 12.04 with my Dell M4600: nVidia quadro 2000M, i7-2860 16GB ram, 128GB SSD Dell/Samsung, 750GB HDD and IPS RGB laptop display. When it is connected via DP++ to external Dell U2311H monitor it hangs on boot or at wake from suspend. If I detached DP cable it boots normally.
I have tried all combinations that I have found, as adding to grub "no splash" "boot=pci" "acpi=off" etc. I have also changed in nvidia X settings that external monitor is the primary one and also tried to delete monitor.xml file. There is no change it hangs each time.
It starts to load deamons then both screens are blank and then completely hangs with beep sound.

What I discovered is if I detach cable wait 2 sec after grub starts booting and then physically connect DP cable while the ubuntu still booting everything works normally and I have picture on my external screen while the laptop screen is off, just as I wanted.
Do you maybe know how to solve this issue. Thank You.

[Askel]

Hello

I'm planning on buying a Dell m4600 in the near future. I'd like to have some tips on how well it performs with ubuntu. Here I read about problems people have, but are there owners who use it without any issues at all? If you own one, please write here about how it works with linux. What works and what doesn't and how you solved problems.

//Askel

[pvandoren]

You should be good to go with the M4600.

Problem area would be graphics. We have a M6600 running ubuntu 12.04. With the latest bios update all the remaining issues went away. (Main issue was it would hang on shutdown/restart)

It has the AMD graphics card, and is using the standard ubuntu drivers with no problem. (in a triple head solution)

NVidia you'll need to use the proprietary drivers. and will only be able to have 2 displays. (twin-view)

I also have a M6700 that I'm using. Right now It's running but the graphic support is still lacking, and a bit buggy. Again we have the AMD graphics option, but I have to use a hacked version of the proprietary drivers. This only supports a dual head system, instead of the triple head, and currently has some artifacts that occurs.

Areas I suggest upgrades on (not necessarily though dell), is RAM and a SSD hard drive. They make a big difference in performance.

Hope this helps.

Pete

[Askel]

Thought I'd share my experience after I bought the Dell Precision M4600 in October.

The specs are:
CPU: i7 quadcore 2,4 GHz
Ram: 16 GB 1333MHz
GPU: Nvidia Quadro K2000M 2GB
HDD: 320 GB
Screen: FullHD

I did mess up my first install by trying Bumblebee. It only messed up the OS and I couldn't get it back to workingcondition. I had no HDMI or Displayport with it, so I reinstalled the system.

Now I run Ubuntu 12.04 LTS with proprietary Nvidia-drivers and everything (almost) works great. Displayport, HDMI has video but no sound, other than that I havn't encountered any problems. I have a port-replicator and it works great with that to. All mediabuttons and Fn-keys work out of the box. Both USB2 and USB3 works. I havn't tried the eSata and the Firewire-ports yet. Suspend & resume works without any issue.

I love the computer, and I still havn't regreted the switch from Apple, even though some things takes a little more readning and learning to get done than with the mac. But the computer is big. Enormously big for a 15". My Swissgear-backpack is made for a 15,6" but the computer hardly fits there.

BTW if anyone has a tip for a good sleeve for the M4600 I'd be glad to know it.

[am17torres]

I know this thread has gotten a bit stale, but I am trying to figure out if I can all three of my screens working. I have the dell precision m4600 i7 plus an nvidia gpu (not sure which one) in a docking station. I have already disabled the optimius option from the bios. I also followed the steps for install jockey, going to software sources -> additional drivers -> using nvidia binary xorg driver, kernel module and VDPAU library from nvidia-current (Proprietary, tested) but made my display much worse. I've tried all the nvidia options listed. Using the X.Org X server gave me the best result which is two external monitors at the correct 1080 resolution. However my laptop screen is blank.

When I go into the displays option and turn on the laptop screen i get the following error:
The selected configuration for displays could not be applied
could not assign CRTCs to outputs:
Trying modes for CRTC 96
CRTC 96: trying mode 640x480@59Hz with output at 640x480@0Hz (pass 0)
CRTC 96: trying mode 640x480@59Hz with output at 640x480@0Hz (pass 1)
could not assign CRTCs to outputs:
Trying modes for CRTC 96
CRTC 96: trying mode 1920x1080@60Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 0)
output DP-1 does not have the same parameters as another cloned output:
existing mode = 104, new mode = 105
existing coordinates = (3840, 18), new coordinates = (1920, 18)
existing rotation = normal, new rotation = normal
CRTC 96: trying mode 1280x1024@75Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 0)
CRTC 96: trying mode 1280x1024@60Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 0)
CRTC 96: trying mode 1152x864@75Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 0)
CRTC 96: trying mode 1024x768@75Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 0)
CRTC 96: trying mode 1024x768@60Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 0)
CRTC 96: trying mode 800x600@75Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 0)
CRTC 96: trying mode 800x600@60Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 0)
CRTC 96: trying mode 640x480@75Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 0)
CRTC 96: trying mode 640x480@60Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 0)
CRTC 96: trying mode 720x400@70Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 0)
CRTC 96: trying mode 1920x1080@60Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 1)
output DP-1 does not have the same parameters as another cloned output:
existing mode = 104, new mode = 105
existing coordinates = (3840, 18), new coordinates = (1920, 18)
existing rotation = normal, new rotation = normal
CRTC 96: trying mode 1280x1024@75Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 1)
CRTC 96: trying mode 1280x1024@60Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 1)
CRTC 96: trying mode 1152x864@75Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 1)
CRTC 96: trying mode 1024x768@75Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 1)
CRTC 96: trying mode 1024x768@60Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 1)
CRTC 96: trying mode 800x600@75Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 1)
CRTC 96: trying mode 800x600@60Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 1)
CRTC 96: trying mode 640x480@75Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 1)
CRTC 96: trying mode 640x480@60Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 1)
CRTC 96: trying mode 720x400@70Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 1)
Trying modes for CRTC 95
CRTC 95: trying mode 1920x1080@60Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 0)
could not assign CRTCs to outputs:
Trying modes for CRTC 96
CRTC 96: trying mode 1920x1080@60Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 0)
output DP-3 does not have the same parameters as another cloned output:
existing mode = 104, new mode = 105
existing coordinates = (3840, 18), new coordinates = (0, 0)
existing rotation = normal, new rotation = normal
CRTC 96: trying mode 1280x1024@75Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 0)
CRTC 96: trying mode 1280x1024@60Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 0)
CRTC 96: trying mode 1152x864@75Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 0)
CRTC 96: trying mode 1024x768@75Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 0)
CRTC 96: trying mode 1024x768@60Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 0)
CRTC 96: trying mode 800x600@75Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 0)
CRTC 96: trying mode 800x600@60Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 0)
CRTC 96: trying mode 640x480@75Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 0)
CRTC 96: trying mode 640x480@60Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 0)
CRTC 96: trying mode 720x400@70Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 0)
CRTC 96: trying mode 1920x1080@60Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 1)
output DP-3 does not have the same parameters as another cloned output:
existing mode = 104, new mode = 105


I also know when I'm using windows if I do a dxdiag, it shows that my laptop screen is using the integrated intel chip while the two external displays are using nvidia.

Any tips or ideas would be very helpful.

[ivotron]

Thought I'd share my experience after I bought the Dell Precision M4600 in October.
Now I run Ubuntu 12.04 LTS with proprietary Nvidia-drivers and everything (almost) works great. Displayport, HDMI has video but no sound, other than that I havn't encountered any problems. I have a port-replicator and it works great with that to.

I hope @askel can still read this. When you mention that HDMI/DP work OK, does that statement consider having an external monitor running the same session? I'd really appreciate if you could share more about this. I've been unable to have HDMI/DP work.

[Askel]

I hope @askel can still read this. When you mention that HDMI/DP work OK, does that statement consider having an external monitor running the same session? I'd really appreciate if you could share more about this. I've been unable to have HDMI/DP work.

Yes, I have the external monitor connected via DP connected to the portreplicator. A bit of an issue though is that I have to disconnect the DP-cable from boot until Ubuntu have started to load. If I have it connected when GRUB loads Ubuntu starts loading and then both screens just go black. When I disconnect it during starup and then plugs it in it works just fine. I havn't tried with more than one screen at a time though.

The proprietary driver I use is Nvidia version current-updates 304.88-0ubuntu0.0.1. None of the others showing under "additional drivers" works.

Hope any of this helps.

//Askel

[Askel]

I hope @askel can still read this. When you mention that HDMI/DP work OK, does that statement consider having an external monitor running the same session? I'd really appreciate if you could share more about this. I've been unable to have HDMI/DP work.

Did you get it to work?

[Marty_Leisner]

I've had a m6600 for a bit over a year. I'm using the Radeon version

I had ubuntu 12.10 on it -- it was a pain to install.

The system regularly overheated -- not sure how I fixed it. (but the temperature/shutdown has always been an issue -- I run
it as "conversative" or "powersave" -- ondemand seems to take too much power (and make too much heat).

I trashed my system, so I wanted to reinstall. Not easy!!

The trying to install various flavors of ubuntu, mint and debian consistently gets on overtemp and a shutdown.
Running psensors and watching whats going on, the graphics seems to hit up and then shut down.

The bios tests don't indicate a problem.

I'm going to make a usb key with the flgrx drivers present and switch them in and see if it helps.

But its SOOOO painful (I've installed linux on dozens of machines over the years and this is the most painful [often times, something doesn't work, you
fix later -- but "shutdown on overtemp"])

BTW, I did an upgrade on the bios (to A15 -- just for grunts -- doesn't seem to help)

And I'm running one core/no hyperthreading (to see if that helped)

Are there any useful "fan" utilities to run seperately?

marty