Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge

I've just tried that and it has made no noticeable difference. It's not the hinges themselves which are loose because there is no free movement in the display when it is almost closed.

John

 

I just got my brand new E6400 I ordered recently...and it has the same exact bent chassis issue as the last outlet one! WHAT THE HELL!?!?! This is getting ridiculous, I'm calling support right now to figure this stupid crap out.

OMG, a dell rep just hung up on me after placing me on hold...

*EDIT* Okay, so arranged another exchange, this time they promised me a week turnaround. We shall have to see...

 

I'm surprised. Does your table have a flat top? A glass surface is the best for flatness.

John

 

I'm wondering if if I should reorder a Dell E6400 from the outlet, as there is the current 20% off coupon right now.

I'm worried that I might get a hot video card again, maxing out at 99C on a PCMark Vantage benchmark. Sure it's not it's limit, but is it safe? And others' are maxing at out high 80's... so i'm wondering what's the problem. Ambient temperature is not hot.

Or should I look towards something else? Maybe a Lenovo...

Also, would like to go 15.4", but the reason for going for an E6400 from the outlet is it's pretty cheap... The E6500 isn't as discounted as the E6400 in the outlet, right? Or am i wrong about this and the only thing that I'm paying more for under similar specs is just the bigger screen?

 

I have a glass surface desk I'm using so...it's not an issue with my desk. I also tried like 3 other desks to be 100% sure that I wasn't just nuts. Interestingly, the customer care rep I talked to asked me if I had bought this E6400 from Walmart (?). Since when can you buy Latitudes there or from anyone else for that matter?

Btw, 99C I don't think is very safe for the long term as something is bound to get damaged by that heat. I remember that the max temperatures I got even when heavy gaming only reached about 94 or 95 if that. Plus, how is it even usable at 99C? There's no way your putting that on your lap. Also, another issue with the outlet is that the units in there are there for a reason...it's all luck of the draw. You're supposed to get better chances of a 100% working computer when buying brand new, but well, look at the issue I have now.

 

The problem is bad box set of parts. The thing is that Dell doesn't get a box with 100 parts in.. more like thousands (maybe more). And as long as there is no real problem to the eyes of Dell (meaning few complaining), the box set is set to be fine. So when you rebuild your system, it might still be from that very same order.

 

At the moment, what's the recommended HDD upgrade for Dell Latitude 6400? (I just got mine with 160GB but I need more for installing other OSes using VirtualBox).

I am contemplating or :
1. SSD - 256GB but it's really expensive right now.
2. HDD - 500GB+ (not sure if it's SATA or SATA-II I should be looking for, a link to a recommended HDD will be nice).

I am thinking maybe I could get a normal 7.2K hdd right now and then replace it with SSD later. I can put my regular HDD in a case and use it as an external drive later.

 

I don't know about you, but on my 160GB I have 47 application + GTA 4 (~14GB) + TeamForterest 2 game, and 4 Virtual PC OS (WinXP, 98, 2000, Ubuntu), AND Win7 RC1 with codec packs, and 10 applications installed AND XP Mode on Win7.
And, I still have free space.. not much.. just 50GB free (I kept Dell system partitions)

Your laptop has the latest technology today. SATA-II is what you need to for. But SATA-II is backward compatible to SATA.

7200RPM HDD will east more battery, and will be noisier than a 5400RPM.

 

Well, I am going to have tens (if not hundred's) of GBs of raw video from my camcorder. So, I tend to eat up space quickly.

Nice! So, I will look for 7200 RPM, 500GB 2.5 inches SATA-II drives. My current drive is 160GB @ 7200 RPM and I don't find it noisy and battery hasn't been a problem so far (I've a 9 cell battery)

Thanks for the tips!

 

At the moment you have only the choice of the Seagate 7200.4. Maybe Hitachi and WD will bring out 7200rpm 500GB HDDs in a month or two.

John