Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge

Silly question: does the Windows "personalization" screen also only offer you two monitors?

 

Finally get my E6400 back from mail-in service tomorrow. I was without it for 8 days. Hopefully all is fixed and good to go

 

Hi all, I'm new here but I have to thank you all for the great information. I've had an E6400 since November and I love the performance. I don't love some of the driver issues and blue screens that the system has had. But once I get through all the pages here I hope to have a better understanding of this system and how to care for it / feed it.

The config is:
Model: Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 @ 2.80GHz
Mobo: Dell 0HT027
Bios: Upgraded to A11
Memory: 4GB
Chipset: Dell GM45 Mobile
Video: Intel Integrated 4 Series Express
Disk: WDC 160GB SATA 7200 RPM
WiFi: 5100 AGN
Ethernet: Intel 82567LM Gigabit
OS: Good ol' XP SP2

 

As you will read this 176 pages thread you will discover that:
1- XP doesn't like new stuff. XP SP3 helps, try that, but expect any miracles
2- This laptop drivers are disgned more for Vista than XP. From what I saw, that was asked, Vista drivers seams to be better and more functionality, but then again, this was some time ago, and new versions of the drivers might have fix this. In your case I see it's no.
3- You are using a 32-bit OS with 4GB of RAM, this here causes trouble. As I explained in this thread, (BTW, this affect ALL 32-bit OS. When the system requirements says "support 4GB of RAM" they mean that your system will work, will boot to the OS... but don't expect any miracles. In fact, all these 32-bit OS's performs "hackery" to the itself, so that 4GB RAM system works, that is why you actually have a slight system slow down, and get only to use 3.5 to 3.8GB (at best, and lucky) of RAM, but not your 4GB.
You can find more information on this at a more computer enthusiast web site.

The reason, why companies like Dell offer at the business level machines Windows XP 32-bit, is for compatibility reason with company special software and your old devices. Else the XP 64-bit version would be available (which has worst compatibility than the early - early - days of Vista 64-bit).

Solutions to the problem is to switch the OS to:
- Windows XP 64-bit.
- Windows Vista 64-bit
- Windows 7 64-bit (when it gets released, unless you want to take big chances with early beta drivers with the Beta 1 of Windows 7)

If you don't have Vista 64-it and have the 32-bit version, you can contact Dell and ask for it. Or ask a friend for the Vista 64-bit (any edition, all disk, retail and oem are all identical, it's the product key that decide which edition to install) and use YOUR product key. But ask Dell first, as it might be easier for you (you may need to try and push them for it).

 

I know the 3.5GB limit is supposedly true for a 32 bit OS, but when I look at computer properties, it shows me a full 4GB of RAM. CPU-Z shows 4GB. What do I look at to see my actual 3.xGB of useable RAM?

 

do you have vista sp1 installed? they made a change for how it reports ram, it reports the installed ram, not system available. I *believe* that you can see this in the BIOS. see this KB article for details (and i can't check for you, running win7, but msinfo32.exe ought to show you -- and what you are looking for is total physical memory -- there will also be an available physical memory (which i believe is what is left over after your ram is shared with the video card, although i can't confirm that at the moment because I can't find it in win7)

edit- i finally found the setting i was looking for, and i am right. the available physical memory is the total available minus whatever is being given to your video card (in my case a whopping 1785 MB)

dxdiag.exe may also report the available physical ram (total, not counting what is taken by the video card) rather than the installed, but i can't confirm that on my x64 os.

 

Hi I'm a new member, about to order an E6400. Needed for work.

I went to a presentation from DELL on new D series two days ago here where I work, and they said prices are going to go up in UK by 12% by 1st Feb (due to the pound being so weak and economic crisis), which I didn't know. So I've decided to put an order through asap. After reading most of the (very useful indeed!- sincere thanks to everybody) previous pages, I am considering following specs

Processor: P8600
OS: Vista Business 64bit
Screen: WXGA+
Memory: 2x2GB (quite cheap from DELL)
Graphics: Intel X4500HD
UK Backlit keyboard
ExpressCard slot
web camera and microphone
Battery: 6-cell

There are acouple of things I am not sure about:

1) HDD: I would like to buy one of the ones offered by DELL and stick to it for at least a couple of years if possible. To me it's also very important to have a quiet machine. Power consumption could also be an issue. Excluding the SSD's, do you have any suggestions on the available options? E.g. is there any difference in performance between 160GB 5400RPM and 250 GB 5400 RPM? Are the 7200 RPM disks generally noisier?

2) No clue here. I was thinking about DELL WLAN 1510 802.11a/b/g/n. Or would an INTEL one be better?

3) and another thing: I've been playing around with an E6400 (with XP) after the presentation I mentioned above. The HDD led was blinking continuously (like every sec). Is this normal on the E6400 or does it depend on the HDD that is installed?

thanks

 

The HDD light blinking is normal on this computer. It is actually a SATA light, and since the optical drive is SATA, as Windows checks the drive for a disk (it does this constantly) it causes the light to blink.

The larger the hard drive, generally the faster it is. The 160Gb versions from Dell however mimic the performance of 320Gb models, because they are on a single platter while most drives are on 2.

I doubt that you can make a bad choice as far as wireless card goes. I have the Dell 1397 and it's an excellent card.

Greg

 

Several times now when ripping an audiobook CD to mp3 (to put on my player) I run into the situation where after getting about 75% through the disc, the process slows down and the drive alternates between inactivity and loud acceleration. I don't experience this effect on my desktop computer with the same disc.

It doesn't seem to make a difference between using windows media player or another program. I'm using Vista64.

Anyone come across this before?

 

My 7200RPM HDD ticks ever so silently like a typical quiet drive. This data sheet suggests not much difference between the various builds, power and speed wise. You could research similar for other makes/builds, but you may not be sure which make Dell will ship. Sometimes you can gather clues and make an educated guess... I did, it was a Seagate... the free fall sensor (G) was one clue.

Intel suggests their WiFi 5300 is a more current solution. It should be fastest if you connect to a dual-band AP.

My HDD light was also very active but now has periods of much lower activity after installing the latest SATA driver.

GK