Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge

I have the same issue. When I had ControlPoint installed, there was a setting to control that. Now that I have reformatted and not installed ControlPoint I've not found a place I can do the same thing. I would like the brightness to stay the same as when the laptop lid was closed. I don't recall any of my previous Latitudes doing this.

 

To all who are interested:

It appears that Everest/HWmonitor are not the best programs to read your CPU temperatures. This thread suggests a program called Real Temp, which is easy to find using Google search.

Can anyone more knowledgeable on CPU temperature readings comment on that?

 

To all the E6400 experts, I seem to have a minor issue again: Whenever my computer is unplugged, closing the lid, pressing Fn+F1, or pressing on the sleep button in the Start menu, all make the computer sleep--lock Windows, turn off screen, power down hard drive, turn off all lights except the "power" one which starts slowly flashing, etc.

The problem is that whenever I try to do those things while the computer is plugged in, it just locks Windows and turns off the screen, but doesn't actually go to sleep. I'm not running any active apps while I do this, and certainly not doing anything different when plugged in than when not, so I can't understand what could interfere with the process...

 

I had the laggy feeling as well on mine and after a fresh install of Vista it was smooth sailing. Not sure what the problem was, but after spending a few hours doing reinstall and then installing drivers and my programs it works great.

I also agree on the touchpad - it actually sucks compared to the laptop I just "handed down" to my wife.

 

I don't remember any other Latitudes doing this either. In fact, my Nvidia-based machine was fine too; dunno what's up with the Intel-based machine. At least it seems like a software problem; I'll see if i can find a solution that doesn't involve ControlPoint.

If you have XP, I do believe it's just a matter of Display Properies > Screen Saver > Power > Advanced and changing the settings there. I bet there's a similar panel in Vista, but I have no idea where.

 

So much to respond to, thanks for everyones help (this post is mainly responding to GoodBytes:

1) I think I've been talked into asking for a 64bit, if there aren't really driver or software issues that I need to worry about with a new computer then I don't see why not to get it.

2) I eliminated the window lag by unchecking "animate window minimization" under performance options which fixed it. It was a vista thing I guess. Arrow lag still exists in both IE and Firefox, though I might be getting used to it. It's a bit choppy, but consistently so I don't think it's the applications rendering agent unless it's constantly re-rendering.

@veritas I changed keyboard sensitivity settings and it makes scrolling faster, but it still has that choppy feel.

@John none of my lagging issues appear to be CPU related, there haven't been any flareups except when doing all the initial installing

@buckethead, hoping a clean install will fix some of this - unfortunately I have to wait for dell to send me the discs!


3) circular scrolling is ALMOST what I'm trying to replicate (this is pretty cool btw and works almost smoothly, probably need to get used to it). I'll try to describe what I'm looking for:
- when you scroll normally with the e6400 trackpad it goes up chunk by chunk
- when you scroll circularly you are able to smoothly move up and down
- when you scroll the way I'm used to one flick of your finger doing a "normal" scroll causes automatic circular scrolling until you stop it. it makes the trackpack scroll mechanism feel incredibly responsive, as if you are gently rolling the screen up and down with a simple touch here and there

does anyone know what I mean?

circular scroll takes a bit too much work to engage and isn't as convenient a feature, to really be an adequate replacement imo

@buckethead: I guess if you haven't found a touchpad sollution, there isn't much hope for me then either...


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One other issue I'm noticing is that the fan seems to be running almost constantly. Sometimes a little more intense than others, but there is a perpetual flow of hot air being pushed out of the left side. Computer itself isn't very warm, cpu is pretty low, so I'm not sure what's causing this.

edit: According to real temp my cpu is running at 45 c while in idle. core temp confirms this. w-t-f? this is with ~5% of my cpu in use

I wonder how hot my old comp had been running if this seems cool in comparison!

double edit: reading that 30-50 is normal. Does that mean my fan will be running constantly? it's been going at about 2800 rpms consistently all morning

triple edit: fan turns off if it gets around 40, then turns back on when it's around 50 cooling back to 45 or so. running a stability test for about ten minutes or so, temps max out at about 71 then fan goes up to 4800 rpms and keeps it at about 65

 

Something, somewhere, is keeping the computer awake. Vista has a lot more power management options which you can work through.

See the Power Management options in Dell ControlPoint. These might be overwriting whatever you set at the operating system level. I would also work through the Power Management of devices in Device Manager and disable any options for devices to wake a sleeping computer.

John

 

@Claphands - I believe you are used to a Synaptics touchpad in terms of flick scrolling and overall responsiveness. Alps, as in our Dell's is just not as repsonsive. I am learning to love the TouchPoint/Stick however.

 

I really need some help with my BT. I have a keyboard and mouse BT and especially the keyboard are driving me insane. After turning one of the two off and return on they don't connect. but under the BT software they are connected. then when one tries to connect the other one disconnects. it's insane. then I get lag with my keyboard.

any help please?

 

Long before I got the E6400, I gave up using Bluetooth mouse because of similar problems. I decided, correctly or otherwise, that Bluetooth is not good at maintaining continuous connections.

Unfortunately, I can't offer fixes, but I suspect the problem is more Bluetooth and less E6400.

John