Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge

See this thread (stickied at the top of the forum). It might be easiest to start at the end and work backwards.

John

 

>If you don't mind me asking... what's the part number of the backlit keyboard and where did you find it?

it says "part ordered: HT517" on the box. I had originally ordered the backlit keyboard with my laptop, but Dell sent me the non-backlit one by mistake. They sent it me the backlit one later, when I've asked.

 

mine says ht514

 

It still baffles me that Dell doesn't offer a caddy for a 2.5" hard drive...despite a substantial number of aftermarket/generic adapters that do just that!!! Instead, they only offer a 1.8" 120GB "E-Module for around $149!!! I'm fairly confident that very few buyers choose that option! Instead of sellng maybe 12 of those at $149, they could sell an adapater for 2.5" drives for $50...and they'd sell tens of thousands of them, too....they're missing out on that market AND most Latitude/Precision users are missing out as well....it makes no sense!

I also think they're missing out on other options that utilize the flexibility of the E-Modulal (optical drive) Bay! I'd love to see a 3-4 cell supplemental battery that slides in there!

Lenovo has offered both 2.5" secondary hard drive adapters AND batteries that fit in the optical drive bay (Ultrabay, I thiink they call it) for years! As it stands with Dell's lack of options, it's hardly worth them making the optical drive removable...woo hoo, it slides right out!...then what? As much as I love my E6400, Dell always seems to miss the boat on a detail or two....

And sometimes they offer brilliant features such as the backlit keyboard...one step forward, one (or two) step backward is how they operate!

 

I find the link below useful for determining the correct part numbers:
http://warrantypartsdirect.dell.com/AMER/program/Latitude E Series Update 20081104.xls

The part number for the back-lit English US keyboard is HT514 ("Keyboard, US/English, Dual Pointing, Backlit"). I don't see a HT517 listed but it hasn't been updated since November 2008 so there may be new parts out there.

 

The backlit keyboard is one of the selling points of the E6400! I'm rather surprised that Lenovo and HP haven't copied it for their competing models!?

Unfortunately, there are some E6400s (seem to be fairly limited in number and from the first 3-4mos of production) where the keyboard gradually dims and eventually loses all illumination. It is NOT a keyboard defect and it requires the replacement of the left palm/wrist rest (similar to removing a kidney) and I HIGHLY recommend letting Dell do the repair...I got mine back in six business days from the time I shipped it out and the keyboard is, once again, lit up like Fort Knox!

I just thought I'd share for any other users whose keybaords are slowly going dark...Dell will send out a new keyboard and it's a 2-minute job to swap it out. That's the obvious first step to see if the new keyboard does the trick...but instead of being frustrated about it for weeks/months (as I was, until a few other users reported the same issue), at least there's a definite 2nd step that seems to resolve the problem (for at least six users including myself, so far)!

 

I agree. It is baffling why Dell haven't produced their own version.

They omitted to include any separate power connector in the bay. I think the design philosophy was to have the 6 and 9 cell standard battery options, plus the battery slice. However, I agree that the option of 3 cells in the bay would give more flexibility.

John

 

Hey that is interesting, thanks to wsx document he found.. apparently Display port can output VGA: Check RN699 under "Video Card (VGA)".
But, if you look at the E4300 the VGA option is not there... could it be only for Nvidia video card?
I thought that display port was only digital signal. Good to know, I guess.

 

Guys, apologies if this is a repost. A bit difficult to work through 438+ pages of thread. This is the Dell Certified Systems Engineer document for the E6400. Lots of good info in here

http://dcse.dell.com/IFR/Latitude/E6400.zip

 

For those that do not have the fingerprint reader on your E6400, you can purchase the module from Dell. Or find it on Ebay.

The Dell Part # is FX304, and it includes the fingerprint reader, connection cable, and small speaker grill.

Ebay price is $39 or so, but I've seen it as high as $49.

Not sure on Dell price, but the part details are here

http://accessories.dell.com/sna/products/I_O_Devices/productdetail.aspx?c=ca&l=en&s=corp&sku=FX304