Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge

This doesn't seem to be related to your problem, but for the first few weeks of using my E6400, my right click touchpad button would stay down unless you gave it a little nudge. It's worn in now and hasn't done it for months.

I also had a problem with one of my keyboard keys, but I just removed the key and clicked it back into place fixing that as well.

Greg

 

Wow Dell has some really good configs in Outlet now and then there's a 20% off coupon. Look at what my friend just scored...


Genuine Windows Vista Business
2 GB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz (1 DIMMs)
160 GB Free Fall Sensor Hard Drive (7200RPM)
Mobile Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD With PC-Card
Integrated Webcam with digital Microphone
Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 (2.40GHz, 3M L2 Cache, 1066MHz FSB)
8X DVD +/- RW w/dbl layer write capability
Dell Wireless 1510 802.11a/g/n Draft Mini Card
Fingerprint Reader Internal
6 Cell Primary Battery
90W AC Adapter
Back-lit Keyboard
Brushed Metal Black
Dell Wireless 370 Bluetooth
14.1 inch WXGA+ LED Laptop Screen
$607 plus tax


I'll probably have her order a 2GB stick now since its so cheap to upgrade to 4GB. Would any standard 2GB DDR2-667 (or faster) stick work? Or is the memory Dell uses picky?

 

You can actually use DDR2-800 and it'll run at full speed. DDR2-667 will also work and so will DDR2-533. I haven't heard of any real issues with E6400 memory compatibility. My second memory stick is a Patriot 1GB DDR2-800.

 

I've had my e6400 for a week now. I like it but it seems like I'm always tweaking something. My current problem is my hardrive. I got the 160gig 7200rpm drive. It seems to run a lot. The updated drivers (Jan 8) from Dell's website included the Intel Matrix application and a driver. I installed the new application but I can't figure out how to install the driver. The instructions on the Dell site say to just launch the EXE file. But, the driver folder I downloaded didn't have a .exe file. What am I doing wrong?

 

You don't need both. The application includes the driver. The driver itself can be used to load into a Windows installation that does not support SATA. (XP) or if there are problems with the application, just the driver may be used.

Greg

 

I've had no problems with RAM and I'm currently running my E6400 with 2GB of OCZ DDR2-800 + 2GB of very cheap unbranded DDR2-800 (which has the same timings as the OCZ module). I had tried other RAM combinations including DDR2-667. See part 2 of my E6400 review for the (small) effect of various RAM combinations on performance.

There are also the extended battery life options in the Power management module of Dell ControlPoint.

John

 

My E6400 WEI graphics score shipped mid 3, dropped to low 3 after a clean install, and then went to high 3 later on... who knows what affects it. It seems the E6400 nVidia is in the 3s... the E6500 is in the 4s.

GK

 

To install just the Intel Matrix driver, run the download to extract it. Then find the SATA controller device in Device Manager and update the driver manually from there by browsing to the extract folder. The driver will be found and installed. The device may change to "ICH8M-E/ICH9M-E SATA RAID controller" if not that already (Vista installed a similar SATA controller when I re-installed).

GK

 

does anybody else have problems with the touchpad.
i "hate" it. sometimes after 5min or so it stops working (ie. scrolling). then i have to remove my finger and wait for ~3 seconds (doing nothing) and then it's working correctly again. Happens really often to me! I've installed the newest driver from Dell.

 

I've had no problems with the touchpad. I suggest you do some trouble-shooting by (i) disabling the pointing stick and (ii) using an external mouse and disabling both the touchpad and pointing stick, then seeing if you still have problems.

John