Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge

I am having a minor issue with WiFi - our local routers see the E6400 as a g device but not an n device.

OK so I am using 802.11g but I would rather use 802.11n.

Is there some connection setting that allows me to force the WiFi card to be 802.11n?

My machine has the intel 5300AGN card.

 

Just wondering... do your routers see other n clients? Do they support simultaneous g and n clients?

GK

 

Have you tried setting the SATA mode in the BIOS to Intel Rapid Recovery Tech (IRRT). I did a little research to find out if the IRRT mode is really useful. For me, it's not since I don't use the RAID features nor do I ever plan on temporarily removing the optical SATA drive. But I also found out that using it causes no problems or undue CPU usage, so I kept it.

 

I have not tried IRRT, not something very useful for us, plus it does not have the same advantages as AHCI (hot swappable e-sata drives)

Puting the computer in to ATA mode seemed to stop the random blue screening. But we would like to use AHCI since we use it on our older dell systems, d630,d430,775

Wish we could find a solution for this.

 

As far as I know IRRT does support hot swappable e-sata drives. Do you have other information?

I have put my E6400 in ATA mode and it made my E6400 go from being 99% stable to 100% stable. I run Windows XP 32-bit and have not noticed any performance loss because of the the switch to ATA. Actually the only difference in speed I have seen is a 50% increase in raw file copy performance when copying the files from a Windows XP CD from C: to C:. But it could be different thing on Vista. From what I have read Windows XP doesn't benefit much from SATA AHCI/RAID but Vista does because it has a new driver architecture.

I do miss the eSATA port that gets disabled in ATA mode. I have purchased an ExpressCard eSATA card that works well but it is not as convenient as having the eSATA port built-in.

Regarding the SATA drivers, do you use the driver package supplied by Dell or have you downloaded the drivers from Intel? I had many issues with the Intel version 8.6.0 drivers. The Dell version 8.2.2 drivers have been much more stable.

Örjan

 

We have it so that the n routers see n only and the g routers see g only.

I can actually live with g, but it means my IT guy has to continue to support g as well as n, and I'd rather only have him have to deal with n. In my experience, g is awful compared to n.

 

I just joined the E6400 club too.

 

I think you are mistaken about the IRRT. It does support hot swapping of SATA drives. In fact, I think that's one of its primary functions. Here's the information page : http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/index.htm

If you are installing Vista, I suggest sticking to IRRT. In my opinion, Vista is better suited to most new hardware since the drivers are designed with it mind, rather than XP.

Edit : An extract from the Intel Matrix Storage manager page :
"Driver Used By Each Mode

The Serial ATA (SATA) mode in the system BIOS determines which operating mode your system is using, whether you need the Intel® Matrix Storage Manager, and which I/O controller you should choose during the F6 installation process.

IDE mode uses a different driver than SATA and RAID mode.

* IDE mode uses the native Microsoft* driver and does not require the F6 installation method.
* SATA and RAID mode both use the Intel® Matrix Storage Manager and require the F6 installation method. "

 

Welcome! Unique location to be posting from!

 

Where I really come from only feels like Antarctica.