E6400 question for owners

I posted this as a response to the official E6400 thread, but the thread is so huge my concern is it would be overlooked:

I ordered an E6400 fully loaded, 4 Gigs of RAM, etc. I'm a graphic designer and use the entire Adobe Suite, so I needed something that could handle that, and this is what was recommended. For 7 years prior to this up to now, I have been using thinkpad. My latest thinkpad, T61, fell apart. Had it for 2 years, screen hinge snapped, hotspot on screen, sudden battery death, power chord won't connect properly, etc.

So anyways, I received my E6400 and sent it right back and asked for a new one. Issues:

1. Trackpoint mouse (the eraser thing) is something I'm very adept with and use constantly. I can't use a touchpad to save my life. The trackpoint movement was VERY choppy, not smooth at all. Choppy, skippy, would stop during movement and then suddenly dart to the end of the screen, and worked like absolute crap.

2. For a loaded computer with 4 Gigs of RAM, it performed like a mouse.

Anyone else have ANY issues at all with their trackpoint? Is it choppy or unsmooth for the rest of you? Or is it mostly smooth movement?

I'm asking because if you guys all have the same problem, then I will just cancel the new order and get a refund. I don't want to deal with this and wait another 2 weeks. My lenovo is barely usable right now with the dead battery and the unstable power chord. the thing keeps shutting off randomly every time i move the computer an inch.

Just need to know how the trackpoint mouse works for the rest of you E6400 owners.

Thanks.

 

I am not an E6400 user and I must say that I am clueless with the trackpoint and I have only used it on ThinkPads. However, I think you may find that there aren't many trackpoint users with the E6400, most folks probably use the touchpad. The trackpoint on the Dell is, at best, poor emulation of the one on the ThinkPad. You should certainly try the second E6400 to see if it fixes the issues but I daresay they may persist. It shouldn't be performing like a mouse though! What CPU did you order? In any event, if the trackpoint is not working for you, and you are a designer, the nub is your lifeline...

I would recommend, at the risk of getting castrated here in my home Latitude forum, that you get a T400 with P9600 CPU. Don't bother trying to make things work. Use what works best for you. I am very surprised at the T61's state though. My brother has a X60s that he has abused worse than anything I have seen and he has traveled the world with it. The backspace key has popped off but it's still going on strong.

 

*cough* Traitor! *cough*

I'm kidding

 

I'm also not a trackpoint user but, if I push it around, then the pointer seems to move fairly smoothly. My initial reaction would be to check that you are running the latest driver and then fiddle with the options.

As for the computer performing like a mouse, were you running Vista and it was doing its housekeeping? My E6400 (P8600 + XP) is still running smoothly. If some CPU-intensive background processes were running then that would also screw up the responsiveness of the trackpoint.

You should have looked at the processes in Task Manager to see what was using the CPU and then checked the power management to make sure you weren't in a profile which locked the CPU down to minimum speed.

If you are coming from a Stinkpad then it may take a little time to understand and get used to Dell's way of doing things.

John

 

Trackpoint works fine; not stuttering issues on my E6400 (P8600 + Vista-32)

 

With regards to your trackpoint problem, I just used the stock OS drivers, and its felt smoother for me. You may want to consider trying that out. Of course, you could also try to fine tune the pointer using the provided software.

 

Et tu, Bruté? John, John, come on, don't call it THAT!

Hehe, but seriously, the guy should stick with what he knows. Imagine if all of us were forced to use the trackpoint everyday at work, we might adapt but we would hate every minute of it. However, since I used it extensively in the 90s and the software has come a long way, I would say that the accuracy and responsiveness of TrackPoint, once mastered, cannot be beat. Getting there is the problem though. I can't seem to do it anymore or I would probably own a X200s. Wait, that might still happen. Never mind that.

 

Thanks for the info guys. The computer was ordered with XP. Not sure of the CPU, but I asked our computer specialist to order the best one for what I need, and he put together a powerful package using what he knows. I'm assuming he got the higher end version of every option. The problems involved taking unusually long to open files, and (this one was great) the start up music pausing and skipping every time, and other noises unable to flow smoothly, but pausing and skipping, just like the trackpoint movement.

monakh: I too travel with my T61 extensively, which is why I thought it may have fallen apart. I'm a pilot so this thing goes from hotel to hotel, bag to bag, plane to plane, but I've always kept it in a good case. If it ever got banged against something (which I can't remember ever happening), it was always in its case, which is solid. No reason for it to fall apart. My first thinkpad T40 from 2003 was a solid piece of machinery. This one I got 2 years ago and it's been disappointment after disappointment in term of quality. If it turns out this next dell is also problematic (I'll try new drivers for the mouse, but should that even be necessary with a brand new, very expensive notebook?) I'll have to order the T400 as your recommend.

Thanks again for the helpful info.

 

My trackpoint works great, although I use an external mouse more often.

Are you sure the guy who maintains the computer installed the latest drivers? I had those problems using old drivers but the latest Intel Matrix Storage Manager fixed it...

 

My trackpoint works fine with A08 (onwards) driver...
But the touchpad still works badly... comparatively...

Since you said the system is running like a mouse, would the problem also caused the trackpoint issue instead of the hardware problem?