Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge

1. I see Dell has posted BIOS A03 for the E6400. Has anyone tried it? I'm a bit far from home and NBD service to want to test it.

2. There's another short review of the E6400 at PCPro which gives the weight as 2.33kg. I couldn't see whether it was integrated or dedicated graphics but that's a few grains more than my weight measurement. Did anyone else weigh their E6400?

John

 

So, I brought the E6400 to work today, and I'm noticing a high pitched whine from my HD (250GB w/FF sensor). Has anyone else noticed this? It's really obnoxious.

I've had fans on at home because of the heat the past couple days, so I didn't notice it there, and I don't remember it doing so on Monday when it was still running XP.

Edit: It may not be the hd itself, but the sound is from that vicinity and dissipates when the hd is accessed. I disabled several devices trying to figure out if it was a power related issue, but no luck.

 

I wonder if it is in the infamous CPU whine which can occur when the CPU is transitioning into / out of low power states. What happens if you set the power profile to maximum performance or gives the computer something to do (eg the wPrime test) which loads the CPU but doesn't disturb the HDD?

John

 

The machine is plugged in and the stepping locked at 100%, and changing that has no effect. CPU usage doesn't change it either, though IO does. It sounds the same as the whine from other laptop drives I have used, but louder. If it is the drive, and a general problem with the model, I'm really regretting spending the money on this one from Dell because I will most certainly have to buy a suitable replacement myself.

I'll have to mess with it more when I get home.

 

I just installed A03 and there were no problems. I did the HD install method.

Ward

 

I have a similar question. My old laptop was an inspiron 5150 that died and was replaced through my warranty with an inspiron 1525 that has 32-bit vista ultimate installed. Can I use the product key from that vista ultimate and install it on the e6400 that I ordered (I will uninstall it from the 1525)? Will that same product key work for 64-bit vista?

It would be nice to have ultimate instead of basic if it's not going to cost me anything.

 

If you are sure that it is the HDD then perhaps you can get Dell to replace it. HDDs can hum, purr, click and clunk but shouldn't whine.

Which model HDD, so anyone else with the same one can have a listen? The rigid mounting of the HDD in the chassis makes noise transmission easy.

John

 

Can anyone tell me why I should have installed Dell system software before my drivers on this when I reformatted? It seems to be working ok.

Thanks,
Greg

 

Of course, the question is just if it's a model issue, or this particular drive.

I've seen a few models of drives, particularly of the cheaper variety (and the older seagate scsi drives) which have this characteristic high pitched whine to them over the years - usually in desktop models where you don't even notice.

Unfortunately, I've noticed this sort of thing passing through QA on a lot of equipment in recent years - Several different modern power adapters for example exhibit high pitched whining when the device is fully charged. I think these manufacturers must all have tinnitus (or they do their testing on the factory floor)

Seagate Momentus 7200.3 ST9250421ASG

Yeah, I've been thinking about that myself, wondering If I couldn't slip in some thin rubber washers to see if that helps.

Thanks for your input. Always appreciated.

 

Pass.

I would have done what you did and got the chipset driver installed first.

John