Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge

Your argument made the assumption of a specific usage pattern. There is no right or wrong wear levels of 2 years because it depends on the usage. For my battery, 19% is a fact based on my everyday usage pattern.

I am probably 70% on AC. But there are also many times that I let the battery dried to auto shutdown. Knowing how to take care of it is a different matter from wanting to actually taking care of it (I have no incentive). I use the battery when I do not have reach to the AC power. I charge it no matter what's the percentage left on the battery. I never calibrated it.

After 2 years, I can get almost two hours out of the battery which is roughly 80% of the original capacity.

My 5 year old Sony Vaio with similar usage style. The battery is completely dead.

After owning so many laptops, I never pay attention to battery capacity. I just know that batteries will be dead sometime. From the discussion, T61 has a good battery. I am interested to see how Latitude's battery holds up based on my usage pattern.

 

Hi All,

I received my refurbished Latitude E6400 today and I'm loving it so far except for one issue. Is it my unlucky machine or is the wifi switch located besides the dvd drive pretty loose (easily toggled to off)? Please let me know. thanks!

 

Bad luck. Mine is stiff... not impossible to switch, but the right amount. I guess the previous owner had a psychological problem making his finger obsess with the switch to continuously turn it on/off. We all have our share of issues.

 

Mine is still tight as I leave it on all the time as I'm always connected via WiFi. Did play around with the switch though and it does give me the impression it will definitely become loose after repeated on/off.

If yours is really bad to the point that the position can switch if you rub against it, maybe you should call Dell to ask for a replacement switch.

 

i make no assumptions about a usage scenario, nor the "quality" of the battery. take a look at this article for a brief explanation of lithium drain. http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm -- and you must have a REALLY crappy machine or a low capacity battery if under 2 hours is 80% original capacity... I can pull 6+ hours EASY on my 9cell running the e6500 with the nvidia gpu.

I agree completely. I merely pointed this out because I have known a bunch of people that remember how to use the old NiMH batteries well and will drain their batteries down even when a PSU is available.




On an unrelated note, has anyone that is using 7077 gotten the Intel My Wifi technology working? I had it working on build 7068, but I cannot seem to enable it on build 7077 -- it doesn't give me any errors, it just doesn't actually enable when i click enable.

 

I agree. It shouldn't be that loose.

 

I just got back from my first day at school with the E6400(Nvidia card). I managed to get 6 hours out of the battery(With everything at super low(800mhz). Thats pretty awesome. My old compaq Z2000Z only got 6 hours when it had a 12 cell battery, and my dell studio 15 can't get 3 hours.

 

I imagine you have the 6-cell battery. Don't be too exited, it will diminish (I don't know how much for the 6-cell. For me it was 9 hours down to 8 hours with my 9-cell battery).

 

you downclocked your CPU?

 

No he did not.
When you set the computer as PowerSaver in Vista and you are on teh battery, the CPU goes at ~800MHz all the time