Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge

the touchpad occasionally freaks out for me as well. when it stops responding, the trackpoint will still respond.

 

I have solved a connectivity problem that I was having with the Intel Wireless 5300 agn. I had the Dell driver installed. When the computer was first booted it would connect to my default network automatically but if I launched a browser too soon I wouldn't have any connectivity. Frequently, I would have to disconnect and reconnect to the same network in order to have internet. This may have started happening after Firefox was installed but I am not sure. I would also have to occasionally have to disconnect and reconnect during the day.

Installing the drivers directly from the Intel website cured the problem! Here's the link for Vista Ultimate 32-bit:

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/fil...+32-bit+version&lang=eng&strOSs=156&submit=Go!

I downloaded the drivers only. Inside of the zip file you'll find drivers for all versions of Vista 32 and 64-bit.

After installing the Intel version of the drivers I can instantly connect to a web page while Windows is loading while the caution sign is still on the network tray icon. Thank you Intel, I wish that NVIDIA was as gracious as you to provide the drivers that we need.

 

http://www.westfloridacomponents.com/HW071/Self-Adhesive+Rubber+Feet+Round+Tiny+Black+Bumpers.html I previously posted rubber bumpers that will protect the front bezel. The link above provides bumpers that are thinner and are black to match the case color. They are a little thicker than the gap so use an xacto knife to slice it down to size. They also sell by the piece so it is relatively affordable to order from them. Hope it helps.

 

it is not nvidia's fault that they cannot provide drivers. use the ones from laptopvideo2go.com (nvidia themselves suggested this to me). Dell refused to sign the agreement to allow them to provide support.

 

Thanks for your advice.
Just received the package this morning, works like a charm. There seems to be interferences sometimes, but it mostly looks like when i hooked my old laptop with s-video. Can now playing games on tv, watching movies with subtitles etc... So I definitely recommend this solution too for connecting the e6400 to a SDTV.
Thanks again, veritas72!

 

So I finally made the plunge today after months of thinking about it and reading the helpful comments on this board and ordered an E6400.

Unfortunately, the prices up here in Canada just aren't that competitive with those in the US. After spending a couple of hours and numerous calls back and forth with the Dell rep., I got an all-in (incl. 13% taxes) price of C$2,000 for the following:

P9500
2GB Ram (2 x 1GB)
Vista Business 64Bit with Media
160GB 7200RPM HD w FFS
Backlit Keyboard
Fingerprint reader
9 Cell battery
WXGA+ LCD w/ Webcam + WLED
8X DVD-RW
Dell Wireless 410 Bluetooth 2.1 with UWB
Intel WiFi Link 5300
3 Year Basic Limited Warranty and 3 Year Onsite Service
E-Port (the basic one, not the "Plus" one...)

Hopefully, it arrives soon and hopefully it won't have the issues that seem to have plagued the E6400/E6500....very excited so just wanted to share the joy! Thanks to all the posters; the comments and feedback on this site has been invaluable!

 

Strange how the E6500 has a higher WEI for the same chip... Ah well it seems 3.x is normal for a E6400 but whenever I minimise windows or maximise them it's a bit slow so I thought it might be a problem.

Do the Nvidia drivers that aren't compatible with Latitudes that people here seem to be installing give a higher value? Are they stable?

The fingerprint reader seems a bit broken when you have a Dell BIOS password and a windows login biometric password enabled. Windows won't let you log in after coming back from sleep. Had to restart losing my work

And it turns out hibernating it is more like putting it into an unrecoverable coma... *sigh*

4 hrs and 30 mins out of the 9 cell so far and 30% battery left!

 

the e6400 and e6500 versions of the nvs 160M are different (ddr3 on 6500, ddr2 on e6400). and which drivers do you mean? the only drivers "not compatible with the latitude" are the ones on nvidia's site, and those arent the ones people are installing anyway. if you modified that inf, though, they'd install and work just fine. in fact, evidently dell has the driver to release and just hasnt yet (because they never bother to update video drivers). if you want ANY kind of video driver support, itll have to be through laptopvideo2go.com if/until dell lets nvidia support directly. nvidia has confirmed that there is no hardware modification which would make the drivers not work exactly as intended.

you might want to see if one of the two switches is in the wrong position on the side. glad to hear it worked though

 

After further use of my E6400 (still very happy with it), I have a few questions:

- I installed the Dell Security Manager but ended up removing it, as I didn't want to put a password for booting nor most of the other features (Smart Card security etc). I would, however, like to try the fingerprint scanner, even if only for fun. Is there any way to do that without using DSM?
- What are the switch and button on the right side, near the USB ports? I know that the switch turns off Wireless and Bluetooth, is that all it does? What is the button for?
- Related question: is there any way to turn off Bluetooth without turning off Wireless? Even if it can't be done with the switch, can it be done from Windows Vista? How?

Thanks in advance guys. I just recommended this great laptop to my father, after his lousy experience with two ASUS laptops.

 

Important update:

I hadn't posted here because I didn't want to ward off potential customers. The latch that keeps the screen closed was broken on my E6400 when I received it. Also, there was a scratch on the screen lid.

I just had a technician over from Dell Customer Support. The two people I spoke to at Dell were:

- very friendly, especially considering that I don't speak Finnish (yet); for example, one of them was glad to tell me which numbers I had to press on the automatic call answering machine to get there on the next time
- not in China/Bangladesh/whatever, because all of them spoke Finnish perfectly, even though I could not understand it
- helpful, because although I only noticed this flaw last Thursday (the laptop arrived on Monday), they trusted me when I said that "it probably came like this, because I didn't feel or hear anything snap"

The only very minor complaint I have is that they could not provide the service on the next business day, but only on the day after that. To me, no big issue since I understand that not everything can go as clockwork (even in Finland).

As for the technician himself, he was very friendly, surprisingly he was not a young guy but around 40/45 and very experienced. I asked him if he could give me a "tour of the inside" and he gladly showed me how to remove the screws to upgrade HDD, RAM etc, something I plan to do in the future.

Although it was a bit unfortunate that I had to resort to tech support so early, I am (i) confident that the tech support is well worth the "business" price tag and (ii) glad to have seen the laptop on the inside, it seems very "upgradeable".

So in conclusion, it seems that the tech support for Dell is, in Europe, quite good.