Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge

You may be right so I'll wait for reports of noticeable improvements or bug fixes before I make up my mind.

 

New question: Can I use my reinstallation disk of Windows XP on a different computer? I just received my E6400 and wanted to use the disk to reinstall XP on my home desktop computer (also Dell) since I can't find the disk that came with it. Is this a problem? Will it prevent me from reinstalling XP on my laptop should I need to later?

Thanks!! Jeremy

 

I finally bit the bullet and ordered a 6400 today from the Outlet. While I wanted something a bit more stylish, you just can't beat the value of the E Latitudes in the outlet.

I got the following specs for $854 after tax. (with a 15% discount)

- Intel Core 2 Duo P9500
- 4gb DDR2 Ram
- 160gb 7200 rpm HDD
- NVIDIA Quadro NVS 160M With PC-Card
- Back-lit Keyboard
- 14.1 inch UltraSharp WXGA+ (1440x900) LED Display
- 8X DVD +/- RW w/dbl layer write capability

and some other odds and ends.

I'm hoping I did good. I would never have been able to afford the P9500 anywhere else. The HDD is a disappointment, but most of the hard drives were small on the 6400's anyways. I can always upgrade later.

My only real concern is if I ever wanted to go to DDR3 memory, this wouldn't support it.

Lappy should arrive in a week right around my birth day! Here's to hoping I like it.

 

DDR3 with Intel Core2 Duo CPU's is a complete waist of money. I don't know where between the CPU and memory a slow down occurs, but the BEST you'll get is a 1-5% increase in performance over DDR2, which is nothing. Maybe, about few seconds saved if you decided to render a movie length video montage (no proof, just smart guess). The day DDR3 will shine on laptops would be a CPU that actually benefits from it... so maybe Intel Core i7 Mobile or something. Even on a desktop level, Intel Core 2 Duo/Quad with DDR3 is a waist. But a Core i7 and DDR3 that is a different story. It's going to be like if you take a Pentium 2 processor and you put a Geforce GTX 280 (hypothetical scenario), your games won't go faster as the CPU limits incredibly everything. OEM's do it for marketing reasons.

 

Standard OEM disk world speaking:
If it was Vista/Win7 you should be able to. As for XP most likely not as the product key numbers is changed between versions of the disks... matching service packs does not work. But then again, Dell have special OEM disk from Microsoft.... so try and see.
I know that for Dell Vista disk, the OS is pre-activated and the product key is inside, so if you install it on a different machine then you'll lose your laptop activation. If XP is like this, then expect the same.

 

Actually that is just Vista miss test the first time. If you change back to the 179 drivers, most probably the score will stay the same as now (3.3).

I have the 185 series drivers, and I see a performance increase in games over the 179 series drivers.
To make you happy, you can change the score to 5.9 (or any other value) every where if you want. It's just a XML file located in C:\Windows\Performance\WinSAT\DataStore

 

Thanks for replying but I'm still confused. Not sure if I can use the new XP re-installation disk without a problem on my old Dell desktop. If it doesn't work, then will my old desktop be without an OS? Is there some other way to get a working XP disk without spending a lot of money (or any)?

 

you can use any dell OEM disc on ANY dell machine.

 

Though the WEI Aero graphics score has reduced a bit, I've not noticed any difference in performance and I suspect this may be due to some rounding off of decimals. If that's indeed the case, then 3,3 and 3,4 are practically the same.

I don't play any 3D games on my Latitude so I can't comment on any gains in that area. But I'll be testing some CAD software to see if there's any noticeable improvement, though I suspect I won't see any since requirements are different from fast moving 3D games.

Changing the scores manually is useless since I'll know that that's false!

 

WEI isn't really the greatest benchmark, you'll have to open up some games and benchmark it that way. That's the only sure-fire way to know.

Also, I just bought a new E6400 yesterday, yay ! I just couldn't stay away from the E6400 haha. Got the NBD service and complete care warranty just to be sure, so when I do drop it...it won't be an issue.