Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge

I have the A11. Now it's charged. I can't see the yellow-organge icon, but I don't have DCP installed.

 

Well that is the problem
You need DCP to make it work. It's probably set to not recharge and stuck there. Look inside the BIOS for an option to switch modes, or install DCP (it's fairly light application, you should not be afraid of install it. I myself was VERY surprised compared to other laptop crap I saw on friends machine) I think HP is the winner in this, where every button on the first gen laptop with their "new' look several years back.. where each button was a executable file...

 

Re the charging problem: Are you getting any message about the computer not recognising the PSU?

I had a small panic yesterday because my E6400 was complaining about my 65W PSU (this used to be a regular problem with the earlier BIOS versions). Eventually I discovered that the intermediate connection on the DC cable (which comes in two pieces) was not completely pushed together so the centre pin of the power plug wasn't connecting. This pin carries a PSU identity signal.

John

 

if you feel like your harddrive is on all the time, then you have something wrong with your setup. possibly you need a different intel matrix manager, or you need to, as i have repeatedly reminded people in the forum, install the firmware updates. you ought to be able to get the drive to be whisper silent. i have the 7200 rpm 250GB, and it barely makes a noise, and barely comes on unless i am copying to/from it. if you have specific questions, don't hesitate to ask

 

Which 7200 rpm drive do you have? I have the Seagate Momentus 7200.3 250GB, and I can easily hear it a foot away. Yes, I have the update applied, and also selected "Quiet" in BIOS. Of course, quiet is in the eye of the beholder...

 

agreed, its definitely not quiet, but its not horrible. and quiet in the bios does nothing. and the latest driver did nothing for me

 

hey guys just wanted to give you an update on my E6400 woes/screen issues (got the 1440x900 and didn't like the small fonts) so have been going back and forth trying to figure out what to do as far as returning/exchanging/buying something else.

Dell Customer Support= A Dream

DELL TECHNICAL SUPPORT & CUSTOMER SUPPORT is the reason I'm going to work through this and stick with the dell. They have all gone out of their way to please me as a customer and I truly feel like their service is second to none, in any industry, it's truly impeccable.

They are swapping out my unit for a similar unit with a 1280x800 display and even though I applied the 20% off discount coupon last week that was lingering around out there (and now expired) they are still going to swap me out another unit that is about $200 more than what I paid for it and are going to 'call it even.' I made a contact in the customer relations dept. who is facilitating all of this for me via contact with dell outlet team and her superiors to approve all of this, and I am basically waiting for them to find a good unit that matches my specs to pop up in their outlet inventory, as soon as it does they will reserve it and facilitate the exchange. Even though there are some nuances with this laptop that I don't care for... just having Dell on my side is enough to make up for the small things I don't like. They truly have created a 'RAVING FAN' (good customer service book).

I am thoroughly impressed with their support and believe they made me a customer for life through this experience. The 3 year warranty is something I'm stoked about considering their unmatched support and how pleasurable it will be to work with them should I encounter any problems over the course of this lappy's life.

Hope this helps any of you out there wondering about Dell's support. Because of their intelligent approach to customer service, even though they will probably lose a couple hundred on me, they will be gaining a whole lot more because I will now tell everyone I know how great Dell treats its customers and that they do whatever they can to make you happy.

Looking forward to posting a thorough review of my E6400 after everything gets settled and i have some time to work with my new unit!

 

they really are good to work with. it sucks that some things require the unit to be sent in, but they are really nice and helpful people and i will likely stick with them for any future purchases as well. good luck with the new one!

 

Yeah, no question there. Dell's business support is very good.

 

I'd like to bring up an old issue here: temperatures.

My system has a P CPU and Nvidia graphics (see my signature). I usually have it hooked up to a simple docking station, and to an external 22'' monitor through DVI running at 1680x1050.

My idle (= light load, like browsing the Net) temperatures, as reported by HWmonitor, are 40 to 45 ºC for both cores, and 55 to 60 ºC for the GPU. This unfortunately puts the ACPI temperature at 46 or 47º, meaning that the fan comes on at the low speed (around 3000 rpm). Undocking the laptop and running it with its own monitor reduces the temperatures to 35 - 40 and 52-54 respectively, and the fan goes off.

EDIT -- while docked, my GPU temperature occasionally rises to around 67º, and then comes back down. The same thing happens undocked except that the maximum is around 65º. This is still on idle. I doubt this is normal. Should I be worried?

Are these temperatures normal? More importantly, could other E6400 owners with Nvidia graphics post their idle temperatures and tell me whether their fan is on or off on idle? Those who also have a docking station and an external monitor, could you compare idle temperatures and fan with and without the docking station?

Thanks in advance guys.