E6410 Owner's Thread

I actually thought of trying that last night, but it was late so didnt bother. I just tried doing just that before I saw your post and lo and behold, it worked.

Thanks

 

Why does Dell set things to RAID by default when there is only likely to be
one HDD in the E6410 ? I also set things to AHCI before installing the OS.

How does this work ? Care to expand a bit on the procedure ?

Do you still have a yellow exclamation mark for the Broadcom USH ? (I do, though the system doesn't complain)

Paul P

 

>>Why does Dell set things to RAID by default when there is only likely to be
one HDD in the E6410? I also set things to AHCI before installing the OS.

Not sure why... possibly because it supports everything... AHCI, RAID, and IRRT.

>>How does this work ? Care to expand a bit on the procedure?

When the OS does not have the device driver for a critical install device like the storage controller, you can use the 'load driver' option at the beginning of the OS installation to load the desired driver from your media so that it is immediately available and used during the OS installation. In this case, the
Intel(R) 5 Series 6 Port SATA AHCI Controller driver is loaded from a USB flash drive. Otherwise, you have to load it afterward to update the default generic AHCI driver used by Win7. I believe installing the Intel RRT app also installs the desired Intel storage driver.

Previous versions of the Windows installation routine did not display a 'load driver' option. Instead, you pressed F6 to invoke an option to load a driver (also called 'slip streaming'?), and the driver had to be at the root of your media... such as on floppy diskette.

Because Win7 has a generic driver for the Intel SATA controller, pre-OS loading of the exact driver is not required/mandatory (despite being implied at various sources)... the generic driver works well enough to get the OS installed. And then you can update that storage driver like any other driver. When Windows does not have a critical install driver, pre-OS loading of that driver is mandatory.

However, I figure it doesn't hurt to load a critical driver as soon as possible, and knowing how will help when Windows does not have a working default driver as can happen when new OS and new hardware versions intersect as did the E6400 and Vista, and now slightly less so, the E6410 and Win7.

>>Do you still have a yellow exclamation mark for the Broadcom USH ? (I do, though the system doesn't complain)

I did... E6400 ran with no problems. But I recently right-click disabled the device on both E6400 and E6410 and now no active device and no yellow bang... and I suspect no problem... one less bells and whistles to maintain.

Note that the Dell image guide advises installing the DCP security drivers even if you do not install the DCP security manager... but I ordered none of the security options on my E6410... no readers, TPM disabled in BIOS, no vPro, not using AMT... so I do not see any problem with omittng the drivers and disabling the Broadcom USH... has not been a problem on my E6400.

GK

 

GKDesigns, do you notice any performance gain from starting fresh like that? I was pleasantly surprised with how little bloatware my e6410 came with, but I didn't think of Control Point and the IRRT as bloatware. Do they impact performance very much? I'm not adverse to starting from a fresh Win7 install, but it will just set me back several hours of work.

 

Subjectively, the new image is running fine and dandy, no Aero video setback issue (never bothered to figure that out). Nothing sluggish about it... very snappy. No apps or antivirus installed yet. Only Bluetooth and DCP in Startup.

Otherwise, here are Windows before and after performance ratings... E6410 Core i7-620M NVS3100 Win7 Pro x64:

As shipped: WEI 4.9; CPU 6.8; RAM 5.9; GPU: 4.9 (5.9 gaming); HDD 5.9
Re-Imaged: WEI 5.1; CPU 6.8; RAM 5.9; GPU: 5.1 (5.9 gaming); HDD 5.9

The GPU improved... could be the latest nVidia driver downloaded from Dell.

GK

 

Dell Control Point takes up a shocking amount of memory despite running in the background and really doing nothing for the most part. As I recollect, it's a 19,000k process that runs all of the time. I'd say that fits the definition of "bloatware."

I really didn't think of Intel® RRT. I really don't remember the impact of that particular process?

 

Has anyone figured out how to get rid of the annoying high-pitched whine? It's beginning to annoy me a lot...

If there is no solution for the whine will I be able to return it?

 

Stop using "re-image" this is wrong. The correct term is re-install or fresh install. Re-image means you restore (with the software provided by the your laptop manufacture - Dell, in this case) computer to the original manufacture settings. And this is something your not doing. So basically, when people read your post, it's confusing.

The performance increase is most likely due to a simple driver update.

Oh noes! 19MB out of 4096MB of RAM, what will you ever do!?!
Anyway, the Dell Control Point consist of 2 applications at startup, the first one is this big bulky one that does nothing other than start up for the first time when you do Fn + F7 on your keyboard. And the second, much smaller one is the one that does the on Screen notification, and makes all the keys working (thank goodness).
I suggest you disable/delete the item named: DellControlPoint, located at C:\Program Files\Dell\Dell ControlPoint\Dell.ControlPoint.exe

Leave Dell ControlPointSystemManager. This is the small program that makes everything work nicely (special keyboard keys, and onscreen notification)

It doesn't run on the background... you run it if you want to see if your HDD is in working order... The idea of the application is if you setup either RAID, or use Intel Rapid Restore technology (don't ask how it works, 'cause I did not figure it out - my guess is that it has to do with RAID1).

This is a common problem on all Intel laptop CPU's. It's actually the power management system on the motherboard that does this noise. Intel licensing term prohibit any manufacture from altering any portion of this component on the motherboard (ie: OEM manufactures can't use higher grade components, or redesign the system for better performance or reduce/illuminate noise).

What you can do, is contact Dell, and explain how it's very loud and annoying, to get the motherboard replaced, which COULD help, but don't get your hopes up, and certainly don't expect it to be fixed.

Intel doesn't recognize the problem.

The real solution is to get AMD CPU's.
If only AMD would make a kick- mobile CPU, so that manufacture start using them on their high end models, that would be a welcome competition, where it might finally get Intel to fix the problem.

Additional note, due to a lack of complains and a complete lack of mention from review sites, the problem won't be fixed... ever. It wasn't fixed since the first Core 2 Duo.

Workaround:
Have CPU activity. a trick that was mentioned in the E6400 section, is to turn on bluetooth, the activity the bluetooth card does in searching for a device, is enough to stop the sound. Sadly it also means reduce battery life. Alternatively, run an application that perform constant level of low activity (I don't know any other than playing music). Then again, this one also means a potential reduce in battery life, depending on the program CPU usage.

 

The term is given in Dell's E-Family Re-Image Guide and I've adopted it. Get over it.

GK

 

I re-image laptops at work all the time, and I don't use Dell's image or disks!