E6410 Owner's Thread

1. Sure enough, it's a Seagate in there. A st9500420as (Seagate Momentus 7200.4) to be more precise.

When Googeling I found quite a few complaints about vibrations with this drive.

 

Some complaints can be normal background noise, some can suggest a definite issue. Given Seagate and a large capacity drive with more discs, I'd prefer a different make/build.

Glenn

 

Given the way my drive vibrates I'm inclined to say complaints are above the normal random complaint level. I know that the drive I got definitely has to much vibration for my taste. I spent about 10 minutes next to the laptop yesterday and I felt a genuine sigh of relief when I turned it of and the vibration noise stopped.

I should mention that the vibration is amplified to audible noise by the surface the laptop sits on, in my case a wooden table. Lifting the laptop of the table stops the noise.

I'll contact Dell and see if they agree to send me a different drive.

 

The support suggested some tests. But after a quick answer from me with some additional information they offered to send me a new drive ...before I even had a chance to report the results from the tests.

 

Another E6410 reporting in!

I was a long time thinkpad user and decided to try a dell this time. The keyboard is different that on thinkpads but I really love typing on this thing. Overall I think this laptop is great and I'm very satisfied with it, but there is one problem which is very, very annoying. I know there is an issue with CPU whine on e6410 which for me is almost unnoticeable. If I put my ear close to the keyboard I can hear the high pitched noise but it's not disturbing me at all when sitting in front of the laptop doing normal work. So that's ok.

The real important and annoying issue is the buzz in the headphones comming from the headphone jack . The noise comming from the headphones sounds exactly like the CPU whine when having your ear close to the keyboard- very different from normal static sound. This is a major problem as it's very distracting when listening to music or watching videos. So far I was unable to determine what's the cause. This happened on both Vista and Windows 7 and happened even when the headphones were connected when the audio device was turned off in Device Manager and with uninstalled audio drivers. This issue seems very connected to the CPU whine as when I run a program using 100% CPU (on both cores) the noise in the headphones disappeared toghether with the CPU whine.

I find it strange that there weren't any complaints in this thread about this issue, cause it's much more important that the CPU whine itself. Please, can you guys check if you're experiencing this too? I'd hate to return my e6410 just for this issue alone as it's everything that I expected from a laptop.

 

I've just checked my E6410 with earphones and can't hear any static. Can you check:

(i) That the problem occurs both when the computer is on mains power and when it is running on battery;

(ii) That the most recent version (17 Sept 10) of the IDT audio driver is installed. (if in doubt, install that version).

John

 

Thanks for the respose John!

The problem occurs on both running on battery and on power supply. I also checked IDT driver version and I already am on 17 Sept 10 drivers. But as I said, the problem occurs even when sound is disabled or when IDT drivers aren't even installed.

I also checked Ubuntu LiveCD and the headphone high pitched noise is present there too . Any ideas?

 

If you have any kind of warranty get Dell to look into it or just have it replaced.

My E6410 is completely silent through headphones. Me, it was the screen
that stopped working the first day I got it. Everything has been fine since
and I really like the laptop, especially the keyboard (if I ignore the messy
fingerprints).

 

You have excluded the software side so everything points to a hardware problem. Contact Dell support. I think they will want to replace the mainboard.

John

 

Like Paul P, my E6410 also does not have any whine noise from the headphone jack. I've used other computers that has a little whine noise from just moving the mouse, but nothing like you describe.

I'd do like John and Paul suggested and contact Dell support.