Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge

How much battery time should I expect with a P9600, a nVidia 160M and a 6 cell? I gather thats quite a power hungry spec.

 

Just browsing the web, wifi and BT on? My guess is 4 hours unless you have a really power-hungry hard drive.

 

I have a serious issue with internet browsing. I have a Latitude E6400 with an Intel Wireless 5300 card running XP Pro. I can be on the net for a couple minutes and my browsing experience is flawless- lightning fast cycling through pages, no delays or issues. Then for another web browsing session I could be getting time outs, having to refresh my pages, clicking a link several times to make it 'catch' and activate, and sometimes the site just hangs up... this is not site related nor is it browser related because i've experimented on several sites as well as the main 4 browsers- Firefox, IE, Chrome, Safari.

No one at Dell can seem to figure out the issue I'm having with my Latitude E6400. I've reinstalled Windows XP Pro 2 times and deleted, re-installed, and updated all drivers and now also set Windows to control my internet connection. I also did not install all the Dell Control Point software as I've been told it brings on a lot of issues.

Originally, I was having issues with intermittent disconnects and re-connects when working in wireless mode connecting through my router, but I resolved that by toying around with the settings in the intel wifi area. I also have windows managing the connection now and it seems to not drop off at all anymore- before I would disconnect and re-connect probably 4x an hour.

Now the problem is that when browsing web pages, they get hung up, delay, or don't register and go to the next page after clicking links. I don't know what's up. I've spent over 5 hours on Dell Support phone and e-mail support and no success yet. We've swapped out my wireless card and that didn't work, now they're talking about sending me out a motherboard but I don't think that's the issue... I was hoping the geniuses on here might know a better solution?

 

60 to 90min! That's huge! I don't think that is correct. The battery on the Nvidia is aged or more used than than your Intel system.
Another thing is that Intel uses 128-bit memory, which consumes 2 times the power than the Nvida 64-bit memory (that is the reason why Aero runs smoother on battery with the Intel GPU) And memory bus can't be changed on the go.

To solve this problem with the Nvidia if its annoying for your, is to disable Nvidia PowerMizer, then create a new an overclock profile with Nvidia drivers, to ser the Core and Shader clock at minimum but you leave the memory clock as it is, or you can lower it to a point that it's still extremal y smooth like the Intel solution. And set it to go full speed with a different profile every time you start a game. Battery life you not be affected by much, and you can continue to have the ultra smooth Aero experience with transparency battery or plug-in.

 

You got your answer but I just want to add, what is cool about the P series is that it consumes less power then the T series, also (same for the T series), is that the CPU goes in lower powerstate when the system is on battery. Meaning it downclocks and increase speed as you need it. So for example, if you browse folder my CPU (P8400) will be at ~800MHz (as the interface is drawn by the GPU), but when I start applications it overclocks to higher than minimum speed for that moment and downclocks again to minimum.

 

We must first isolate the problem. To do this, uninstall any firewall software, anti-virus, internet security, toolbars. And then any software that doesn't come from a large company.
Restart your system, and see if it helps. If it your problem is solved, install back 1 application at a time until you notice that the problem came back. If it did that application would be the problem. Tell us we we will try to find an alternative application that fits your needs.

If no result, then do you mind uninstall your drivers, upgrading your system to Vista, and update it to SP2 with install all the Vista drivers?
This system uses new technology, and XP doesn't like anything new. Vista is the contrary, the newer your hardware the better it will run, and currently you can't be more new than with the this laptop.
From there, see if your problem is solved. If not. Then your motherboard or wireless card is most likely broken, or a broken bluetooth card that does conflict with the wireless card.. rare, but always possible.

 

We had this discussion before. You have nothing to back up your 30 minute claim other than wishful thinking. Your excuse was that you used the word "about" loosely. I have data from actual power draws.

10W from a 85WH battery gives 8.5 hours. 12W from a 85WH battery gives 7 hours. You can argue you are little better than 12W with Nvidia, and others argue that they get close to 9W with Intel. Your 30 minute guesstimate is way off.

 

The Intel 5300/5100 dropping connections problem is a common one. Intel said that in most cases, the router is to blame. I had this problem on my son's E6400 which is used on a college campus. We fixed it by turning off all power management on the Intel wifi. Also, the latest Intel drivers appear to help.

By the way, that E6400 that was having problems on campus did not have trouble with the router we have at home, so it is likely to be a router-dependent problem.

 

Forgot to mention: LCD brightness set to medium low, maybe 3 or 4 clicks above minimum.

 

Fine, I have a super battery, then.