I had too many Precisions and too little time

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Wasmachineman_NL

Wittgenstein the Supercomputer FTW!
Aug 7, 2019
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Or: my hobby is getting out of hand.


Left to right: M70/M90/M6300/M4300/M2300/M40/M50
Back: M4500/M6400 Covet/M6500 Covet/M6500 Covet

Not pictured: the shitload of M6500 parts machines I have and a well-used M90 next to me being tested.
 

Wasmachineman_NL

Wittgenstein the Supercomputer FTW!
Aug 7, 2019
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Reminds me of an acquaintance of mine that owns pretty much one of every ThinkPad ever. I think, from a productivity standpoint, I like your choices better.
Precisions are built far, far better than early ThinkPads IMO, the M40 and M50 have a plastic case with steel reinforcement in the chassis, and every model since the M60 is almost all-magnesium clad.
 
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Wasmachineman_NL

Wittgenstein the Supercomputer FTW!
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So I tried Liquid Metal on one of my M6500's I use for testing. WTF was my reaction when I booted up ThrottleStop and could run 3.45 GHz all core (!) with minimal amounts of throttling on a 920XM. Imagine what it'll do on a 940XM and when temperature goes below zero in the winter, holy shit.
 
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Wasmachineman_NL

Wittgenstein the Supercomputer FTW!
Aug 7, 2019
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I liquid metalled my M6400 Covet and also bought another QX9300 off eBay. I managed to hit 4.25 GHz stable at 1.5v, YES!

Also bought a non-Covet M6400 with rather awesome specs off Marktplaats which i'm thinking of parting out, not sure yet.
 
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chinesestunna

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that's an awesome result for liquid metal - curious though, what do you do to deal with the corrosion of aluminum it brings?
 
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chinesestunna

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I guess for laptop since it's copper heatplate/pipe on direct silicon die it's less of an issue? Most of my research has been around desktop types of applications and it does corrode aluminum heatsink base and IHS easily, literally eating through them
 
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Wasmachineman_NL

Wittgenstein the Supercomputer FTW!
Aug 7, 2019
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I guess for laptop since it's copper heatplate/pipe on direct silicon die it's less of an issue? Most of my research has been around desktop types of applications and it does corrode aluminum heatsink base and IHS easily, literally eating through them
IHS is nickel coated so it won't get damaged, but copper does get stained by LM.
 

Wasmachineman_NL

Wittgenstein the Supercomputer FTW!
Aug 7, 2019
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Hell yeah, my Quadro 5000M arrived in the mail at last. It's well used (bent heatpipe, backplate is missing a screw) but it works, and it gets 9400 in 3DMark Vantage off the bat without GPU or CPU OC!
 
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Wasmachineman_NL

Wittgenstein the Supercomputer FTW!
Aug 7, 2019
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oh no, I just bought a dead M6300 with this sticker on it:

Dells with that sticker on them are apparently Engineering Samples or review samples. Imagine if it had a engineering release BIOS on it with unlocked options!
 
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Wasmachineman_NL

Wittgenstein the Supercomputer FTW!
Aug 7, 2019
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oh no, I just bought a dead M6300 with this sticker on it:

Dells with that sticker on them are apparently Engineering Samples or review samples. Imagine if it had a engineering release BIOS on it with unlocked options!
Not so dead as I initially thought: one of the RAM modules was broken. Swapped over the parts from my damaged M6300 and now I have a nice M6300 that only needs a new screen someday.

Oh, and it had stickers related to it being a ES/IUO model on the keyboard, CPU heatsink and GPU.
 
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Wasmachineman_NL

Wittgenstein the Supercomputer FTW!
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Fun fact I found out: the Precision M6300 can (theoretically?) take every GPU Dell used in their laptops from 2004 to 2008, from the Latitude D810's Mobility Radeon X600, to the M6300's Quadro FX 3600M. Imagine the MR X600 coupled to a Core 2 Extreme X9000 equipped M6300, holy shit lol

Vice versa doesn't work however, I tried running a M90's FX 1500M on a M70 board and it didn't work at all.
 
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Wasmachineman_NL

Wittgenstein the Supercomputer FTW!
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There's a top-end M6800 (4930MX/K5100M) on eBay K-A but €800, oof no thanks. If it was a Covet i'd be all over it for that kind of money.
 
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Samir

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HSV and SFO
I spy a D610 and D420 that I also own. :) In fact, I think I have almost 1/2 dozen of those D610 units.

I wonder which Precision is best equally matched to my HP 8760w with a 17" 1080p display, 32gb of ram and the i7-2820qm? I know the Dells and HPs of this era went head to head and I'm really curious if I'd like the keyboard on the Dell better but keep running into models that aren't an equal match. :(
 

Wasmachineman_NL

Wittgenstein the Supercomputer FTW!
Aug 7, 2019
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I spy a D610 and D420 that I also own. :) In fact, I think I have almost 1/2 dozen of those D610 units.

I wonder which Precision is best equally matched to my HP 8760w with a 17" 1080p display, 32gb of ram and the i7-2820qm? I know the Dells and HPs of this era went head to head and I'm really curious if I'd like the keyboard on the Dell better but keep running into models that aren't an equal match. :(
Those are actually a M70 and M2300.

As for your question: M6600.
 
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Wasmachineman_NL

Wittgenstein the Supercomputer FTW!
Aug 7, 2019
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oh **** there's a M6700 Covet for sale in Finland, but it's on a forum I can't register on, F

Looks extremely nice, specs aren't insane (a Covet without a 3940XM/K5000M, wtf?) however for some reason:

EDIT: managed to register and I PMed the guy selling it, let's see what he says.
 
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