Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge

true enough, but its really pretty rare to run into stability or other major issues with them, especially if you aren't gaming.

 

Your E6400 must be using a lot more power than mine. I can browse the web, set brightness at 3 clicks, write this message, and still be charging the battery using the 65W power adaptor.

I have Intel graphics and a 5400 rpm HDD. The charger is the Dell 65W one that came with the Inspiron 700m (PA-1650). I have it plugged into the kill-a-watt meter and it shows that it is drawing 68W. Sounds about right, since there is some inefficiency in the PSU.

Or you could have some BIOS settings, or some battery charging settings, different than mine. I am running A12 also.

You can run your E6400 at full clock speed with the 65W adaptor, right?

 

no I can't teh laptop acts like if I am at PowerSaver.. but the GPU has no problem at going at max speed... I think it's because I have the Nvidia GPU. I even even tried to create a new overclock profile and load where the speed is set to minimum (a little lower then the minimum speed PowerMizer sets the GPU), and still no.
By not recharging I mean it does recharge, but really really slow... maybe like ~20-25min for 1%

 

Something must not be set right then, if you cannot go full speed. Look at it this way: your 6 cell battery is rated at 54 W hours. So if you get 4 hours of battery life, you are only running at an average of 13.5 watts. Your 65W PSU delivers 65W, so clearly there is a lot of power available for charging your battery.

The other thing is that the charging algorithm slows down the charging rate when the battery gets close to 100% charged state. You may want to run down your battery more before you test it again with your 65W PSU.

 

Dell probably did what I would have done: Provide no operational limits for the E6400 with Intel GPU but still have some restrictions for the nVidia GPU.

That said, E6400 + nVidia GPU under light usage probably draws less than 30W which leaves plenty for the battery charging.

My 65W PSU works without any limits, but I have the Intel GPU. I think the operational limits for this hardware with 65W were lifted by BIOA A09. The info is buried in this thread somewhere.

John

 

My power drain (measured with BatteryMon IIRC) is:

Idle, battery saving ON: 11.5 W (kudos Dell, that's quite good for a dedicated GPU)
Idle, battery saving OFF: 14 W

Battery saving here means turning on Dell's "advanced battery saving" on the DCP. I don't recall exactly which features I selected but I'm pretty sure I allowed all of them except turning off the wireless internet.

I didn't measure "light usage" as I don't like to use stationary measures for non-stationary processes (or in laymen's terms, it's very hard to define what "light usage" means and make it draw a constant current).

Still, whatever "light usage" may mean to someone, I'm pretty sure there's plenty of power left to charge the battery.

 

Well Fellas...Just requested an RMA for my E6400.

Constant yet random poiter stick and trackpad freeze/lockup is my main motivation in returning the unit.

I reloaded the OS twice...once with XPSP3 and again with Vista Ultimate 64Bit.

Latest drivers each time. The mouse even froze one on my while in bios! I am pretty sure this is not a driver issue.

I also had the following dislikes:

Power adapter plug doesn't plug in completely leave approximate 1/8 inch of the metal barrel exposed. Even if designed this way, it doesn't feel secure to me and I don't like the way it looks.

Unexpected gap between the LCD and the LCD bezel.

Bottom base cover (to access memory) fits loosely and flexes when carrying the laptop in hand.

Missing SD card blank (trivial, but missing all the same).

Anyhow...let's see how well my return goes.

 

Those seem like easily fixed things to me except for the touchpoint and touchpad. Still, a tech disassembled and re-assembled my E6400 yesterday in something like half an hour. I would have given them a chance to replace the keyboard and touchpad to see if the issue is fixed. If not, it is likely related to the settings under Control Panel --> Mouse --> Dell Touchpad.

Still,good luck with the RMA, keep us posted...

 

Of the items on your list, the only thing that I would say is an Outlet issue is the missing SD blank. The other items are generic with the E6400, and could happen on brand new units or Outlet units.

Now think about the 35% to 50% that you saved...

Every time I requested an OS disc from Dell, they sent me the SD blank. By overnight express. The blank probably costs a penny, but the shipping must be $10.

 

Looks like you could get at most 4 hours in "Idle" mode, battery saving off, then, using the 6-cell battery. FWIW, I get about 8.5 hours using the 9 cell, which equates to 5.7 hours using the 6 cell. This is with the Intel graphics, BT and Intel 5300 wireless on, 5400 rpm WD 400GB Scorpio Blue drive, and Windows 7 x64. No special battery saving mode, just the Dell recommended power option. No problem running full speed or charging the battery with the 65W PSU.

Are you running Win7?