Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge

herrkaput, the whole point of the quadro nvs cards is for intensive rendering -- exactly what you need for autocad. it will perform quite well. there is a difference between autocad type programs and 3d games.

 

hdd led blinking stopped after i disabled the module bay in bios. guess it was the dvd controller then...

 

The Quadro NVS 160, is design for light CAD. Meaning the moment you start working on a large project then expect to be slow. What I mean is, if this system is the only system you will use for CAD, and you are not a student (ie: have small projects), then it will be slow. If you have a desktop computer for this, and just want a system on the go to continue your CAD project, then it's fine.

The Quadro NVS 160 in the E6400 is under cool operation is you are NOT unlucky like 2 people here. In my case it's so cool I even overclock it quiet a bit using Nvidia tool.

It's gaming performance is similar than a Geforce 9300, but remember that a Quadro handle heat better (will no brake easy if your GPU is at 90C+ for long period of time) as it uses higher quality component (that is also why Quadros are more expensive then Geforces), and also can draw more polygons than the Geforce (however, slower in some effects).

 

Just got my new E6400. Should I keep it on the charge for a few hours even though it came pretty much fully charged?

 

There's no need to, but if it eases your mind, it won't hurt either.

 

This thing is sick. I'm loving the lenovo like trackpad thingy.

 

Just saw that they offer 3 years "on the site" guarantee, that sounds amazing, and being silent and cool is something I really want. That's the reason I'm buying a new laptop, my old "17 inch LG LW75" is constantly overheating and burn my legs.

Yeah, I'm just a student, and won't really be using CAD that often anyways, just good to know you are able to.

Basicly I'm looking for a laptop I can use in bed/on my couch and while traveling without a hassle, my 17" is too big and warm to use comfortably wihout sweating.

This must be the ultimate laptop for me i think, i need the 1440x900 display, can't settle for less, was looking at the Sony vaio Z with 1600x900 but it's too expensive, exactly twice the price of this E6400.

 

Clarification: I don't do CAD, it was a just an assumption based on gaming (as it also has a lot of polygons to draw). I pick the Quadro over the Intel one because I didn't fell like having the performance of a 4 year old video card (the Intel 4500HD is equivalent to the Geforce Go 7400). Also, I wanted quality drivers, that are not per application basis, but rather for everything. Also, I was consider light gaming also. Oh, and back then there was little info on the Inntel GPU, and I knew the old ones where crap at external display, so I didn't want that. (But it ended up Intel actually put a little effort in doing a proper job now)

If you are looking at CAD or gaming, just remember that normally (default settings), you can't play games on battery... you need to plug-it in as the GPU goes in lower power mode and stays that way. Now to chnage that, I have made a tool (see my signature) that allows to do that. However, well it kills your battery life as it goes in full power (let's say you better have the 9-cell battery or the second battery ). Now, of course my tool allows you to reverse the effect back to default, so when you don't need it it's back as it was before.

This machine will do that, until you have the sun pointing at it and it's ~30C in your room . About the fan, the fan basically kicks in, when the system is plug-in and you start loading the machine or run Flash videos. The rest of the time, the fan goes in low speed or turned on. On battery (default GPU settings), it's almost all the time turned off.

If you are buying it new, make sure you call to order instead, not only you get get free shipping, but also you can negotiate a price. A post pages earlier I gave someone some tips to get a good deal.

My selling point for this machine was the 3 year warranty with next business day on site service for also 3 years, anti-glare screen, eSATA, display port (you never know for the next 3-4 years), battery life and performance. The rest of the cool stuff just applied further on my decision to pick it.
Despite it's minor cosmetic issues that arise after use, I think it's worth every penny, even new.

 

Anyone know the screen manufacturer of "CMO 1441" on the E6400, and whether it's LED or CCFL?

 

CMO stands for Chi-Mei Optoelectronics, a top Taiwanese LCD manufacturer.