E6410 Owner's Thread

hi there, in the last couple of days i've been reading through all the posts of this thread. on Wednesday i'm going to get a refurbished e6410 with these specs:

i5-560m, wxga+, backlit kb, 6 cells battery, nvs3100, no fingerprint reader, no latitudeON stuff, 128gb samsung SSD, bt, intel link 6200, webcam + mic

for 798$ (with 15% coupon). of course, i'm hoping to receive a healthy, though refurbished, system. i will need to determine ASAP if it is a faulty system, as i have to go abroad in a week time. not to waste time, i just want to ask you some things:

1) has anyone of you bought a 9 cell battery from a non-dell website? i found this (there are cheaper batteries on ebay, but i don't know if they're trustworthy in terms of reliability)
2) as i said, i need to check if everything works fine, and i have until sunday to figure it out. i was thinking of going straight with a clean installation of Win7 pro x64 and to update the basic stuff (bios, chipset, ..) to the latest version. what do you think?
3) can you suggest me some tests through which i can be sure that the laptop is working as expected? i was thinking something like this:
- running 3dmark06 and checking VGA temps
- doing some intense-browsing session (chrome w/ +20 tabs open) to test wireless device
- checking if BT is working fine (easy to do that)
- checking idle temps with HWmon or everest (suggestions?)
- checking CPU stress temps (suggestion on the test software?)
- doing some SSD test (again, suggestions?)
4) does the standard warranty covers abroad system failures (i guess not)?

this is my first dell laptop, so i'm still learning. this thread helped me a lot, though. i didn't know that dell BIOSes were that advanced in tweaking the system.
oh, btw, i'm a software developer, so i need both win7 and ubuntu running on the laptop flawlessly. i hope i won't get disappointed by this system.

thanks in advance for your support

 

Well no.. not for that reason.
Your HDD work faster, that is all. If you have a modern OS (Vista, Windows 7, recent Linux version), you want to have it set to AHCI (or RAID if you have one). AHCI provides:
- full SATA controller performance
- NCQ technology (used by HDD's for greater performance)
- TRIM support (used by SSD's)
- eSATA support
- Hot-swappable drives.

Absolutely not. What you are talking about is recording latency. This is where you want a dedicated sound card with a low latency ASIO. Something offered on good dedicated sound card, and even lower latency on professional recording equipment.

The latency we are looking at, is the hardware communication latency.

The rest, I agree with you.

 

I'm suspicious that the Intel IRST app or IRRT mode h/w may introduce latency when polling the SATA devices. But that's just a lay suspicion since my E6400 latency improved once I switched to AHCI mode and abandoned the IRST app.

My latency issue was affecting recording using REAPER and a Line6 Pod X3 Live. The Pod X3 Live is a 'sound card' with its own ASIO driver that connects to the PC via USB. Results were better in AHCI mode, but not good enough.

By my experience, you can switch to AHCI mode to improve system latency, but not enough to make the E6400 (and E6410) a recording platform. Perhaps you can whittle the system down to within an inch of it being generally useful, but I had no interest in such tweaking and hacking and experimenting to try and make the platform suitable for recording... it's not, imo.

To restate, the system's recording latency should not affect playback of audio and video content, the original poster's issue. A clean install should help with that.

GK

 

Ah ok I see where you got your conclusion from. Makes sense.
So we know that (just for everyone else reading this) that IRRT is Intel RAID system. Being honest here, Intel SATA/RAID controllers are not great. Laptops, we have no choice. Desktop, I always get a motherboard with another SATA controller. On the computer enthusiast market, it's actually pretty funny. A standard motherboard (in that market) usually has 3 or 4 SATA controllers (including the one from Intel).
For example, the brand Gigabyte, a trusted and renown motherboard manufacture for custom system builders, have med range motherboards, with the Intel SATA controller, Marvel controller, JMicron controller, and to top things off, it's own SATA controller. In result, you have a motherboard with like 20 (exaggeration) SATA ports.. and your like "heuuuuu... riiight", when you come to the moment where you decide to plug your HDD when you build it, lol. But yea. From experience on my desktop (and my Latitude E6400), Intel controller isn't great. Some are better than other, and it has nothing to do with performance. For example, the X58 chipset from Intel on the desktop, the Intel controller is crap, and the Sandy Bridge has.. well had... a fault in them, which lead to a massive billion dollar recall. But the P67, a chipset for the the lower end Core i7 and for the i5 and i3, has a fine controller.

But, yea based on my experience, Intel controller aren't great, so I am not surprised if IRRT increases the latency.

A latency problem for your recording equipment could be linked to many factors. USB is very CPU intensive for what it is, mixed with your professional recording software, and the slowness of a laptop HDD's (even the 7200RPM). Then you have the power management system that plays out. Something that you can't do anything (it's firmware related).

For the best recording experience, nothing beats a high end desktop custom build computer (or workstation if you got the money or if your lucky, a pre-build desktop)

 

I would search ebay for the batteries which are genuine / original Dell. This one looks interesting. Note that the E6410 9 cell is rated at 90Whr although the 83Whr E6400 9 cell is an alternative that may be easier to find.

(a) I wouldn't replace the Dell version of Windows until you have done the performance testing: If you do hit a problem during the tests then you need to be able to assure Dell that it is not caused by your software installation. The Dell Windows installation is bloat-free. In fact it may not have installed everything if there are options specific to your hardware configuration.

(b) Your proposed tests look OK but you should also make sure that items such as the keyboard work properly and the display looks good (run the Windows 7 calibration first).

(c) The warranty should have international coverage, subject to local availability.

John

 

Thanks so much for your advices. The laptop should be arriving tomorrow morning, so I'll have a day full of testing. Have you got some suggestions on what programs should I use for CPU / HDD testing?

I'll report my results once finished.

 

Start with the benchmarks used in the NBR E6410 reviews (mine - link below + the "official" review) since that gives you something to compare. Also SiSoftware Sandra includes a comprehensive suite of benchmarks and a big database of results.

John

 

Has anyone tried with success to use a GPS mini PCI-e Card or TV Tuner/FM mini PCI-e card in the WWAN socket for the E6410? I read that dell sells a D700 GPS module, would that work?
Thanks

 

I put two WWAN cards (both by DELL) there:
- DELL 5520 (Novatel EU870D): this one is not "recommended" by Dell for E6410, so it needed a lot of driver installer hacking (installer tried to check model and die silently). An most important - contrary to the ebay seller declaration, there is no GPS inside.
- DELL 5540 (F3607gw v2) Mobile Broadband Module = Ericsson WWAN + GPS: this is a module which Dell "recommends" for E6410, so no problem with Win7 drivers

Both cards worked well under Linux (except, of course, absent GPS in the first one).

Bottom line: If under Windows, first check if Dell supports the card with drivers for YOUR model and YOUR OS. Or - try to buy unbranded card (I hope Dell does not use BIOS whitelist...).

P.S. I am in Europe, so I looked for GSM or all-world cards.

 

Hi,

I recently bought a new Latitude E6410 on eBay. It arrived without a user's manual. I thought it would be simple to find it online, but it turns out to be harder than I thought. By "user's manual" I mean information on how to use features accessed through the keyboard (like screen brightness), how to properly maintain the battery (like initial charging and discharging) etc. Dell's website has a documentation page for the E6410 with the following manuals: Setup and Features Information Tech Sheet, Intel Active Management Technology v6.0 Administrator's Guide, E-Family Re-Image Guide, and Service Manual. None of them seem to contain the basic information that I'm looking for.
Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

Yoel