Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge

Has anyone had any problems with the sleep funcion key? or just sleep in general. Sometimes it wakes a minute after it goes to sleep. Than it also happened that the monitor would turn off and it wouldn't turn on again, but vista was actually running because I could hear sounds. I tried to turn it off using the keyboard but didn't work and I had to shut off the machine.

 

Well that is normal, you are on a laptop, and this machine wants to maximize battery life. Remember that some keys like Tab, CapLock, Shift, etc... already has more than 1 LED under them to light the text the most as they can. They could double the LED, but that would kill your battery life (like if you have 2 LCD's backlit... which is just insane).

As John said, you get used to it, and it does the work perfectly.

 

its not really an issue at all, just making sure things are working the right way!

thanks once again guys!

 

Sleep function works great here.
As for the screen turning back on issue, that happens when you confuse your drivers. For example when you: sleep > unsleep > sleep again before the "unsleep" is done. If you have set that when you close the lid it sleeps, when the scenario is the same (close > open > close back quickly).

The video card drivers get confused. You can fix teh problem by attaching a display to the DisplayPort or VGA (as the video card thinks theirs is a display there). Or do Ctrl+Alt+Delete, then press Down key then on Enter. And then type your password and press the Enter key (basically you do Switch user and log back in). The drivers should be un-lost and your display should come back.

 

question, since i dont use the sc card reader or the other card reader, and maybe a couple more things that i cant think of, would it benefit me to just disable them in the device manager? i figure the less stuff on, the better.

 

Yea, I tried that...
But it does what you don't want.
I found that that the SC card reader heats up, and I lose a lot of battery life. Like if the SC card was constantly trying to read a card. So yea, you need to install the drivers and leave it enabled in the Device manager. I did not found ANY upside in disabling it. The OS boots as fast as before, account loads at the same speed, resources usage are the same. The only thing is that it heats up, and you lose battery life, when you disable it, or do not install the drivers.
However, you can disable stuff, like SD card reader, Firewire, etc.. in the BIOS.
Do not disable Media Bay and external USB, as the Media Bay is your optical drive, and "external USB" means internal USB (so if you disable it, all your USB ports will be disabled)

 

How to identify the LCD manufacturer? I installed Vista 64, and Device Manager reports a PnP Monitor.

 

You need to use a program that show your system information. I use Lavalyse Everest Ultimate Edition. It's a shareware app, thus. But a trial version exists. I find it's worth purchasing it, as it can run from a USB stick (no install require) and you see system specs of all computers, including system temp and fan speed (well fan speed is not showing for this laptop, sadly), and you get to see/remove the full startup applications too, including duplicated items. Oh, and benchmark the system (CPU and RAM), test monitor and stress the computer.
http://www.lavalys.com/

[edit]EDIT
Oh nice their is a new version, and this one even show the temperature of the RAM and fan speed for this laptop!
Added picture
[/edit]

Anyway... they are 2 LCD. Samsung or LG. both are equally good.
If you use the program above, go to the Display item, and it's sub-item, "monitor"
See "Manufacture ID". If you see it starts with "LP", than that is LG.


But I am sure freeware tools exists.

 

Thanks for the tip. I installed the trial version. Nifty piece of software. Monitor is LPL0140, so it's a LG.

 

just a quick question: to upgrade the ram, do i remove the most middle screw and just slide it in? I know thats REALLY general, but i havent opened it yet to look around.

the ram arrives tomorrow, so im trying to figure it out really fast. any tips for not screwing it up? or just general advice on things i may encounter?

ive installed desktop memory plenty of times but im not sure if its the exact same.