Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge

I received my E6400 yesterday. Here are my observations regarding some of the issues brought up in the forum:

- Build quality is ok, but a step back from my latitude D630. I'm disappointed about the slight jiggling of the battery (6-cell) on the E6400, but it's nothing I can't fix myself.

- I have the SEC WXGA+ LED backlit screen. While the brightness is great (%60 on this feels like %100 on my year-old D630), it looks extremely washed out. I played around with the intel gfx software, and adjusting the gfx driver brightness and contrast settings made a huge difference. It's far from perfect, but now it's something I can live with. Btw, if anyone here with this display has any experience with color calibration, could you please play with the intel settings and tell us the optimal settings?

- I'm experiencing the touchpad issues in vista as well. The animated cursors don't work, and sometimes the cursors skips around, or moves very slowly. I'm hoping a driver update will fix these problems. But I'm really really digging the circular scrolling feature.

- I've installed applications off 2 dvds and 1 cd, and also tested a video dvd. no problems with reading yet, and the vibration is on par with any other laptop I've used. The drive is very loud though. I burned some files (about a gigabytes worth) onto a dvd, no problems at all. I'll be burning some more dvds later, I'll post an update on how that goes. Yes, I have the same drive as everyone else.

- The fan seems to get louder than on my D630. But I've only noticed it kick into full speed when I view videos on flash-based players, like on youtube or hulu. What does that tell you about Adobe's flash player?

- When I pick up and move my laptop around when it's on, it often make an awkward buzzing sound. I'm guessing it's the fan. Whatever it is, it makes me very uncomfortable.

Now, all that aside, I have a extremely major problem with my E6400 that I've posted about separately: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=301853
Please take a look, I would really appreciate any suggestions.

 

OK, so it turns out the whine, despite turning off and on with IO usage, is actually related to CPU stepping after all, but different from what I've experienced in the past. The whine is present whenever the cpu is running at 50% or above (including locked at 100%). The quickest way to test this is to listen near the left side of the touchpad, and switch between vista's default power save profile (no whine), and the high performance profile (whine).

Does anyone else get this? I'm guessing it can't be too common since no one else has mentioned it, so maybe it means I will need a motherboard replacement.

Now I'm not sure if I didn't hear it in XP because it never stepped up the CPU, or if it was some other factor which prevented the noise. Bluh.

 

I just returned my E6400 because the amazing amount of heat this thing puts out. I am going to get a Macbook and not have to worry about my OS crashing when i am using photoshop.

 

Heat? Wow. That's one thing I can definitely say doesn't exist on my laptop.

 

is the dvdrw drive removable from the laptop?

 

Yes, it is. Why might you ask? Because to upgrade anything, you'd need to find a 9.5mm SATA optical drive which is difficult to find on the open market right now.

After being tempted by the HP 6930b and 6930p, I'm gonna stick it out with the Dell E6400 for a little while longer. If my new order has any problems though, I'm headed to Dell Outlet to buy an older but more proven D630 for a heck of a lot less.

 

because I want to take the drive out and leave it at home in the event I wish to lessen the travel weight.

thanks for the quick reply.

 

I was very disapointed in the build quality of my e6400 vs. the D620 I have from work. I am exchanging it and that exchange laptop should arrive this week. If that one is not any better I am returning them both and ordering a MAC. Things that were wrong were the keyboard was not seated when it arrived, the battery wiggles in and out, and when I press the bottom I hear and feel a popping.

 

They have an E/TravelLite module, which is basically a filler for that slot. I suggest you use it, because if you just pull the drive out you leave some innards open to dust.

Well, a MAC isn't necessarily going to solve the issue. Unless that notebook is your 2nd choice for some non-myth reason, which then I say go for it. But I think those have a lesser battery life, no docking options...

 

heat? really? i have been running my e6500 (yes, i know that isn't technically this forum), and it isn't putting out heat at all(approximately ). yes, there is a little slippage on the battery, but it seems sturdy enough, and the build quality generally seems great (comparing to D820, which was also very sturdy). i also haven't had any audio issues or anything else running vista.