Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge

Microsoft announced that new Vista PC's purchased between June 26 and January of next year will receive free upgrades to the equivalent Windows 7 versions. Dell has not posted this on their website yet. I also don't know if Outlet computers receive this free upgrade, too.

BTW, there is a 10% coupon available for Outlet purchases. Just purchased an E6400 for a neighbor yesterday. Unfortunately might have missed the free upgrade by one day.

 

Goodbytes, agree with your re: Vista and XP (let it die, please! ) but cannot agree about WUXGA on a 15" screen. I think that even 17" like Chunglau says is too small for that many pixels.

 

I had a technician here yesterday to change my palm rest and the screen bezel.
It turned out the last time I had a technician fiddling with my laptop the guy ruined the screw that holds the lid/cover of the bottom case.

The technician checked back with Dell what to do. They told him to try it again and if he wouldn't succeed he could open the case with force - and so he did.

He took a screwdriver and forced it between the lid and the case. Then he broke the corner of the lid off. He did that with the whole bottom case lid.. that really isn't a nice feeling, seeing someone literally taking apart your laptop!
But he could then easily remove the screw with a pincer (not sure if this is the right word).

During this process I was unfortunate - a small fragment of the bottom case broke off.
This means that the technician that will bring me a new bottom case lid on Monday (working without one atm) will also have to change the whole bottom case because otherwise the lid wouldn't stay in its place.

I also noticed that whenever I press a bit on the left palm rest area it makes an annoying snap/clicking noise.

All in all, this is a bit annoying as the technician probably has to take apart the whole laptop again, but on the other hand I get a whole new E6400 case. Only the back of the screen remains unchanged.

Just wanted to share my story.. when the guy coming Monday is done I will try to put some rubber into the screen lock.

 

That looks painful.

 

Ouch!
Well the next technician can't make you have a fully operation, problem free system.. Dell should build you a new one.

 

Errr... what do you mean?

 

Based on my experience and by other people experience I read, it seams that if the technician comes to your place and fails to have your system up and running perfectly after trying to fix your problem, Dell USUALLY (unless it's some small thing) will send you a new system with a new battery and everything.
It would be more convient and cheaper for everyone than to have 20 technicians coming at your place and trying to fix it, if you get what I mean.

If you wonder, in my case the palm-rest plastic was faulty, and got it replaced. To do this, he pretty much had to disassemble the hole laptop. After re-assemble of the laptop with the new palm-rest, my trackpad mouse and it's buttons stop working. Also, the keyboard backlit stop working as well. So, Dell sent a second technician with a motherboard replacement. The system now was showing a BSOD at startup, and the keyboard backlit still didn't work. Dell built me a new one and sent it with all the basic accessory (A/C, disks, and battery) in the box.

Upon receiving the new system, I swap the HDD between the new and old system (I asked and said it's fine with them), and it booted fine Windows (I did this because I did not feel like re-installing all my things. Also, the new HDD was a noisy and clicky Seagate one). In addition, I swap the optical drive between systems, as the new one was from a different brand which made this annoying "bzuurt bzuurrt" sound every time the system turn on, insert a disk and come back from sleep. Again, I asked Dell if it was fine, and they said it's fine, as long as they have a complete system assembled in the box and have mine fully functional. The return shipment of the broken laptop was paid by Dell with a pre-paid label I received via e-mail.

 

Could anyone give me dimensions of the laptop with the 9 cell battery. The only dimensions i could find were

13.1" x 9.37" x 1" - 1.2"

But I would imagine thats with a battery that doesn't stick out the back.

 

The above dimensions would be with a 6 cell battery

 

@GoodBytes: okay, now I know what you meant. Let's see what happens on Monday.