Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge

No! Contact Dell once more, they should give you a new system, and ask for compensation you can't do your work, and you are behind your work because of this (having a replacement system should be considered as a compensation, unless you want to push them)

 

Are you sure the screw tap in the body is not stripped? I really don't understand how a bent or missing spring would make a screw fall out. Are you missing threads on your screw that is in the bottom plate? If it's a problem with the screw in the bottom plate have them send you a new one. If you stripped the hole in the body that's a completely different issue that probably will not be covered unless you bought it used from the outlet.

EDIT: When you completely back the screw out from the cover you probably damaged the threads on the screw and bent the spring somehow too. Request a new rear cover assembly be mailed to you in exchange for your old one if that's the case.

 

I've been looking into getting a E6400 and I have a few questions that I hoped a few owners could help me out with. I'll mainly be using it for school and the associated functions (Email, Word, Music/Media etc. no gaming)

1.) I was curious to which Wi-Fi Card I should get, the Intel 5100 a/g/n or the Intel 5300 a/g/n. Is it worth the extra $20?

2.) I'm leaning towards just getting the 24x CDRW/DVD as opposed to the 8X DVD+/-RW because I have the DVD+/-RW on the family desktop, but any second opinions would be appreciated.

Here are the specs, feel free to suggest any upgrades or unnecessary upgrades that I made.
PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ 2 Duo P8400 (2.26GHz, 3M L2 Cache, 1066MHz FSB) edit
OPERATING SYSTEM: Genuine Windows Vista® Home Basic SP1, With media edit
WARRANTY & SERVICE: 3 Year Limited Warranty and 3 Year Mail-in Service edit
LCD PANEL: 14.1" Widescreen WXGA (1280x800) LED Display - Brush Metal Black edit
GRAPHICS AND EXPANSION SLOT: NVIDIA Quadro NVS 160M With PC-Card edit
MEMORY: 2.0GB, DDR2-800 SDRAM, 2 DIMMS edit
INTERNAL KEYBOARD: Internal English Backlit Keyboard edit
SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT: No Intel® vPro™ Secure Advanced Hardware Enabled Systems Management edit
CAMERA/MICROPHONE: Integrated Webcam with digital microphone edit
PRIMARY STORAGE: 160GB Hard Drive, 5400RPM edit
OPTICAL DRIVE: 24X CDRW/DVD with Cyberlink PowerDVD™ edit
WI-FI WIRELESS CARD: Dell Wireless™ 1397 802.11b/g Mini Card edit
MODEM: No Modem edit
FINGERPRINT READER OPTION: No Fingerprint Reader edit
BACKUP OS DRIVERS AND SYSTEM DOCUMENTATION: Resource DVD - Contains Diagnostics and Drivers

 

It's impossible to tell if the threads on the body are stripped. They replaced the screw and it didn't fix the issue so I guess it must be the body. The cover isn't bent and the new screw looks fine. The only thing that might have stripped the body was when the spring got bent out of shape and I wasn't able to get the screw out when I put it back in without the spring (at the time, I was hoping the spring wasn't necessary).

I put some masking tape around the screw under the cover to hold the screw in place and it seems to be secured for the time being. Not sure if it will come loose with time but the laptop looks good on the outside and bottom feels secure.

 

My opinion on the E6400 (other than my screw problem)

+ LG LED screen is really nice
+ Battery life on a 6 cell appears to get about 4 hours for me with wifi turned on
+ Great wireless connection now that upgraded to Intel 5300 (got 54 Mbps with Dell 1397 and now getting 130 Mbps with 5300). Range appears stronger too (picking up more wireless access points.
+ Runs smoothly

- Won't wake from sleep mode (using XP)
- Screw on bottom

I would probably try returning it if the rest of the laptop wasn't so good. There's no guarantee I'd get a LG screen even if I got Dell to send me a replacement and i'd rather have everything else great and try to figure out the screw issue than screw being fine and have something else get messed up.

 

Service-Newsflash:
My ac adapter left me with a big bang today. It was plugged in, working. A friend of mine pulled it out to plug it into another power socket, put it in and bang! The metal contacts were swollen and black.

I phoned Dell immediately. The technician only asked a few question to evaluate whether the notebook was affected (what doesn't seem to be the case) and told me they'd send out a new one today.

That's what I was hoping for when I purchased this notebook! In an answer mail concerning other problems with my e6400 I received later today, the technician said he'd read about my phone call and I should tell when the ac adapter had savely arrived. Wow!

I'm very satisfied, this is what I was looking for. It seems I just got the wrong guy on my first call at Dell's. They are going to send me a technician next week to see about the LED-cover, the loose smart card reader, exchange dvd-drive and wlan-card.

 

Like me (I mean the usage) But I still took the Nvidia GPU in case I play a game on it. But the Intel option is good too.

I don't know, personally. But I have the Intel 5100, where my laptop has the ability a signal where most people around me can't. So the Intel one is pretty good. I'll let someone that had experience from both card answer the question.

Take the cheapest option. If you call Dell over the phone, you can negotiate a price and you'll get the DVD burner for free among other things. On my side with Dell Canada I got: ~350$ off + free DVD burner + free Intel wireless N 5100 + free shipping and I think free backlit keyboard but I forgot I need to see my notes again.

Fast enough CPU, I have the same, and at worst you can change it, it's not soldered it, and because Dell "flipped" the motherboard on reverse it's ultra easy to access it.

Well, people that know me knows what is coming... hehe...
Absolutely not! Get Windows Vista Business or Ultimate 64-bit! I say it's critical that it's 64-bit, as you'll have 4GB of RAM (2 is NOT enough, trust me! Even in XP I was struggling with 2GB and I mostly program (I disable pagefile too to save battery life and increase response rate of the system). Also your laptop has eSATA post. With Windows Business and Ultimate edition you can create form Windows an complete image backup of your system. Just get a harddrive with an eSATA enclosure (or pre-assembled for you), and you are set. I tried it. Windows Vista took 15min to restore my computer (56GB). That is faster than re-installing Vista or Windows 7!
One note, Vista Business doesn't have any DVD codec (for 32-bit and the only 64-bit available), only Ultimate edition and Home Premium has it. That is why, if you take (well you'll get it if you negociate) PowerDVD which solves the problem (it's not 64-bit thus) And I remind you, you will pay for a 64-bit CPU, why not use it.

Other notes:
- Vista 64-bit is more polished than the 32-bit.
- Running 64-bit codecs with saves you battery life and lowers system resources used to play your videos. Well... lets put a little star on that claim is it depends on the video, the codec, format, and media player. but anything that could help, is always helpful.

Get better warranty gives you more room to negotiate the price for your machine. I STRONGLY suggest the 3 year warranty with the Next Business Day thing.
1- You get a technician that comes at YOUR place at the day (business day) and the time you want (well in Canada). He/She basically calls you several time a day until he/she reaches you, than ask you that he/she is coming now, or you can say at what time you would like to have him over, or have it set for a different day/time.
2- If the technician brakes (even light scratch) something Dell will cover everything.
3- You have the system always with you, which is important for school/work.
4- If you get a replacement system, you get to keep your system until the new one comes to you (that also means new power adapter, disks, and battery (you'll obviously need to return the old ones with the same box that you received the system)).
5- You can request for Dell to send you the new part that needs to be replaced (next buisness day) and you can do the switch yourself if you don't want the technician (a full self-service manual is offered on Dell website). Return of the part(s) is also free (use the same box and use the provided pre-paid waybill).
Worth every penny! Trust me on this one!

This is preference only... I have the 1440x900 because the workspace is the closets than a normal 17inch CRT (so 16inch in reality) monitor with 1280x1024 (just multiply them together).

1280x800: 1 024 000 pixels
1280x1024: 1 310 720 pixels
1440x900: 1 296 000 pixels

Also, its great when having 2 windows/document side-by-side.

If you wonder if things are too small, I personally don't think so. Comparing the Start Menu orb from my laptop to my desktop screen it's close in size, it looks the same size without looking closely. But I have good eyes with my glasses. So it's up to you. You can always return the system to Dell, or ask for other options like simply changing the display.

Ah I see you took the nvidia video card... great then.

Each year software's gets less and less optimized and more and more fancy. The laptop life span is generally for a every day use (the battery will finish before that) is 3-4 years if you are careful with the system. A year ago and half ago 1.5-2GB system were fine, even for Vista (2GB was best for Vista), But now... oh no... 4GB. My desktop PC has 2GB of RAM DDR1 RAM and getting an extra 1GB for it cost me a fortune because DDR1 is discontinued.
Also Vista and Windows 7 sweet-spot is 4GB (for XP it's 2GB). And you get to disable the page file which means less HDD being used so few minutes (depends what you do on your system. From 1-2 min up to 20min) extra of battery life.

Great choice.

Do you really need the webcam. I warn you the webcam is from Creative Labs, they don't make good drivers. Be prepared. A lot of people on this forum has issues down to BSOD's. I took the digital microphone only option (if you don't have it, you can see it into having it when you call). I use it to record classes and it works great. . However in my case, I know I won't use the webcam on to go, and that I have a great web cam on my desktop, which I can use on my laptop if I need it.

Great!.

See what i said.

I say get the Intel option. I don't really trust Dell drivers or this random brand. Also the Intel one is wireless N... you never know form now to 3 years, that how I see it. And again you can get it for free.

Good.


Oh by the way, if they refuse to give you a lower price and/or free upgrades, it's either:
- There is a special on the machine already.
- Or, the guy is not nice. Switch persons.

 

Swingman I'm having that problem too. Upgrading to Vista isn't an option, sadly.

 

I got my E6400 preinstalled with WinXP Pro in october. In the company I work, IT always reinstalls laptops from DELL. I liked my new E6400 so much, so I didn't bother with the reinstall. I had all sorts of problems, including not recovering from hibernate or standby.

In the end of december last year I downloaded fresh drivers from DELL website and did a clean install of WinXP 32bit with a standard Windows XP SP2 CD (not from DELL). So far, so good. I have had no BSOD or other standby/hibernate problems. Only once when I installed webcam drivers from Windows Update, then I had problems with standby, I rolled back to old drivers - problem solved.

 

I debugged the dmp file and its pointing to oa001vid.sys which is the webcam AFAIK. More than one version of the webcam driver hasn't worked for me. 1.3.2.919 and 1.3.2.0 both give me blue screens when recovering from standby problems and I haven't had the laptop for that long so I don't have any other version to use as a roll back. I'm contemplating installing the latest version from Windows Update which is 1.5.2.1227. Is anyone else using this version of the driver on XP 32-bit?