Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge

Okay, I am looking at the NVIDIA control panel right now and it says...
Total Available Graphics Memory: 1017 MB
Dedicated Video Memory: 256 MB
Shared System Memory: 761 MB
And looking at the NVIDIA link which you posted (which I looked over many times before I purchased my E6400) nowhere on there does it say that the 160M does not have TurboCache enabled. There have been several occasions on which I have been using programs such as Google Earth which have been forced to close because of low system memory even when I am only using aprox. 1.4 GB of memory at the time.

Also, as an Engineering student, I have taken several upper-division computer science and electrical engineering classes, so don't discount my own education. Your analogy to an incandescent light bulb is absolutely ridiculous. Most games will render as many frames per second as they possibly can (or to some reasonable limit such as 60 fps). Playing a game such as Oblivion or the stress test which you did will basically max out the card's power consumption for prolonged periods of time. Just because the light bulb is on a dimmer, to use your analogy, does not mean that it will never use 100 watts (or 12 in the case of the GPU). It just means that it is not a quantum jump in consumption but a rapid acceleration (still reaches maximum power).

 

Funny we study the same thing.

My example of the light bulb is correct.
You are suggestion that the GPU eats 12W all the time, no mater what you are doing. What I explain is Nvidia PowerMizer (I think Nvidia knows how their system works.)

http://www.nvidia.com/object/feature_powermizer.html

In addition, it is kinda silly to play heavy video games for several hours using the battery. Usually, you get your power adapter when you fall into such situation. When we talk about battery life using the GPU, we mean in normal Windows with Aero environment compared to another video card.

As for the shared memory topic.
If we have a look at my desktop, which has a Geforce GTX 260, "shared system memory: 1279 MB", if we look at my second desktop computer with a Geforce 8600GT -> "shared system memory: 1791MB"
Funny no?

In the situation of low memory, is because you probably disabled pagefile, and the program eats a lot of RAM. 2GB of RAM is not enougth for today application. My desktop computer with the Geforce GTX 260 had 2GB of RAM, and I had A LOT of these messages. I had to put additional RAM and have pagefile turned on. I only got 1GB of RAM as good, low-latency, DDR1 memory these days are kinda expensive. So far it does the job in games. This is why I use and would recommend for most avid users, and if budget allows, of course to have 4GB of RAM or more.

 

I would grumble less about the weight if the Dell specs didn't show a starting weight significantly less than the reality. Leaving out the optical drive and using a 4 cell battery doesn't get down to the starting weight - it's also necessary to leave out the HDD!

However, I agree that the E6400 is still lighter than most 14.1" notebooks. However, it is heavy compared to the Fujitsu S6520 and the Samsxung X460.

If you can't see it (there should be a DCP icon in the system tray), then I wonder if it is installed.

It makes sense to have the ports on the back part of the side so that cables are less likely to block the fan exhaust.

You've made my day! However, my E6400 runs so cool that I can't use it to warm my fingers on a cold morning.

@Sorian and Goodbytes: I'm following your debate about the nVidia GPU power with interest. Keep it clean!

For me the outcome is clear: The Intel GPU uses less power.

John

 

I used a Thinkpad last night and loved it. It was an older model though so not the T400 that I'd be buying if I did buy one. One thing that stuck out for me though was the touchpoint. The laptop didn't have a touchpad so I tried out the touchpoint and I loved it. There was even a mouse beside me but I found myself using the touchpoint more than that.

What is the touchpoint like on the Dell though? How useable is it? I was going to just get the T400 and forget the Dell, but when I saw the amount of flex present in the wrist support (Youtube vid demonstrating it), I just cringed.

Thanks

 

Of course it does. It's has the power of a 2005 low end GPU. It is normal that it can be remade today with our technology using less power than before. But the Intel can't even reach a close performance over the Quatro. But if you run a GPU demanding application/game.. the Intel will go at max performance and eat max power of what it can, while probably the Quadro will eat less or the same amount of power, and struggle less, which is to be expected. [Remember when Vista was out, with the good old Intel video card (before the X3100), where if you have an ATI ro Geforce Vista with Aero was running smoothly (or almost) and your battery life was not really hit by much. But the Intel GPU were hit teh hardest as they Aero require more performance of what they can deliver. But then again, for today GPU's, .... if you don't game, or run applications that need a more powerful GPU, Intel is the way to go. You should gain about 30min of battery life using the Intel for day to day office-type usage. But do NOT expect something extra-ordinary (as gain of battery life) as suggested by my challenger for the same tasks thrown at it.

Again, I will like to recapitulate on something. A Intel user of this laptop can get 9 hours of battery life (with the 9-cell battery) with little stretch with a new battery. I am able to get 9 hours with my Quadro. True I have to do more of a strech on the system, like disabling devices I don't use, using Dell Control Point and shut down the screen every time I don't need it. But it's doable. When I have 7h and 30min of battery life, I am sure the Intel version of the same system has 8h.

YOU have to choose: if the loosing approximately 30min is worth for having a more powerful video card or not. In my case, 5 hours is all I needed in reality... I got the 9-cell because I know that the battery life will degrade over time. Therefore, I decided as a "why not, you never know, I can afford it (in money and battery life)" situation, to take the Quadro. And look now, I though I would never use my laptop for games, and it ends up I actually do when I want to take a small break (if I have the Power adapter with me, I'll of course use it, and use it if I plan to use the machine for gaming for several hours)

 

I think you must be lucky with your hardware to get such a low power drain and long battery time. For example, CPUs that are nominally the same can have a couple of watts difference in the idle power drain. I suspect that if the hot core of my P8600 leaked the same power as the cool core then I could get an extra 1/2 hour of run time.

The impression I have gained from the posts in this forum over the past nearly 6 months is that E6400 with Intel GPU gives around 20% extra run time than the same hardware with the nVidia GPU.

Anyway, I'm happy with my choice of GPU.

John

 

hi, about to buy a latitude e6400 from the dell outlet. any tips or advice before i buy?

 

Most people like the WXGA+ display and backlit keyboard. The P series CPU gives better battery time as does the Intel GPU (but is less capable of 3D graphics).

RAM and HDD are easily upgradable.

John

 

I wanna add that I REALLY like the WXGA+, just love it! IMO the backlit keyboard is not that big of a deal. Most of the times I have enough light to see the keyboard and usually I can type without even looking at it. get the P series.

 

Hello all,

I just noticed that my SD card reader is not working. In the Device Manager, I have two devices under "SD host adapters", both named "SDA Standard Compliant SD Host Controller". One of them says it is working normally, while the other has the following error:

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This device is not working properly because Windows cannot load the drivers required for this device. (Code 31)

Click 'Check for solutions' to send data about this device to Microsoft and to see if there is a solution available.
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I suppose I should just download the driver from Dell's website, but there's no driver for the SD card reader. I already tried merely uninstalling the malfunctioning device and letting Windows "detect" it automatically and installing the driver itself. It didn't fix the problem. Can someone help me?

No doubt this is a symptom of not following the adequate installation order