Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge

ah thanks a bunch John!

Going to go line 3 cd cases up with the missus nc6400 so I can get an idea

EDIT: Just did it with the nc6400 and from the look of that picture they have basically the same thickness. This have allfiredup alredy pointed out ;-) but it just makes more sense when you see it for yourself and have something to compare it to (the picture) rather then reading some numbers on a screen.

Thanks John

 

Yeah well my heatsink + fan has already been replaced by Dell, the fan bearing died and it sounded like I had a cricket having a fit inside my case.

When they replaced it, I watched the tech do it and I didnt think he miss-installed it, but then again I am no Dell tech either.

Pity, I used to be able to control the fan quite happily with I8kfanGUI, guess I'll just have to put on some mp3s or something else to drown out the fan

EDIT: A couple of the other 10 we bought do the same thing, one is running Win7 RTM and is not, interesting.

 

Well if the heatsink is bended a few degrees, then it probably doesn't do a nice contact. Or maybe the base of teh system is not well done, which doesn't seat the heatsink well.

 

Ah nevermind me now I understand what you and John are trying to explain to this noob

So the theory is that the heatsink is not properly fitted and is has not made the appropriate contact with the heatsink. This is causing the chipset temps to rise quicker than it should normally, thus the fan kicks in and stays on high all day long. Coupled with this I have read reports of the E-Dock causes the chipset to be stressed, thus creating more heat. Due to the fact my laptop spends most of the day on the dock, and all of the night off the dock, when docked the extra heat due to the stressing of the chipset is exasperating the situation. And when the heat in the chipset rises, and the fan on high not able to cool it to Dell's standards, it causes the cpu to be throttled down, causing the loss of performance to the operating system and/or any programs running at the time.

I have had the heatsink + fan unit replaced under warranty due to one of the fan bearings failing, causing the fan to sound like a coin in an empty washing machine, this is when the faulty installation might have occured.

So my question now is, how do I convince my tech support here that I am not on funky drugs and I really do have that "improper installation" issue. It is a pity I am not allowed to crack the bottom off and just take a look myself, but everything goes through our Dell Support thingy.

 

Right. But now imagine that the heatsink is well seated, and that the Northbridge processor (the motherboard processor, not to be confused with the CPU) doesn't heat up at 90-100C which results the system throttle as expected, but rather only ~50C.

We don't know why it only affects few people. Some got it solved with a motherboard + heatsink replacement or system rebuild. But other, less lucky, are stuck with the issue. At first we beleived that the problem only affected Intel GPU users, but 1-2 people mentioned here that they have the problem with the Nvidia solution. It could be a bad batch of motherboards, but how come it affects people all around the world. We thought about some sort of revision of the motherboard, but no one wants to remove their keyboard to check (it's under the keyboard), and some people have the issue despite getting it via Dell Outlet, and some new builds are also affected but not all.

My vote, is that Intel screwed up with it's Northbridge, and pulling an Nvidia. That is ignore the issue, like Nvidia did with it's faulty Mobile Geforce 8000 series.

Simple: "My system overheats and throttles when barely doing anything on it. And the temperatures shows are low (check with software)"
They should either replace your motherboard + heat sink, or rebuild your system (you get to keep your system until the new one arrives (just ask), and you can sawp the HDD's between system to avoid a re-install of everything, if you have Next business Day onsite service).

 

Hey i have a problem. i'm using a display port to hdmi adapter to power an external monitor. i then have a 2.1 speaker system hooked up to the audio out jack on the monitor. this set up works fine with my xbox, but when I try with the e6400 at first it didn't send any audio at all. now it sends audio to my speakers but it also outputs the same audio through my laptop's speakers and my 2.1 speakers are fuzzy and staticy. they sound great and work fine when plugged directly into the audio out jack on the laptop though.

edit: I found an option to mute the laptop's speakers, but my external speakers are still really fuzzy and unbearable to listen to. and again, it works fine when plugged directly in without using the hdmi's audio.

and just as a note, I did fix the computer's speakers static problem a while ago with new drivers and such, so that's not the problem.

 

I dont understand the Ambient Light Sensor:

I have this stuff enabled and if I relocate the my laptop from a dark to a light room the display brightness doesen't change.
I have to enable/disable the Auto-feature (via FN arrow left twice). Is this the way it should be?

I couldn't use Windows Mobility Center (Windows + X) to change the brightness if ambient light sensor is on.

(Windows 7 Ult x64 RTM)

 

Due to a lack of Win7 drivers the feature doesn't work properly.
It works under Win7 64-bit RC, but not as good as under Vista 64-bit.

To have it work: you must not install the Ambient drivers form Vista, but use Windows 7 default. Also disable "Ambient Light Sensor" service. Ensure that "Adaptive Brightness" is not set to disable.

 

Seems like most people are going with WXGA+ on the E6400. If any of you went with the WXGA and could comment on that display, I'd appreciate it. If you've seen both and can compare, that would be great.

Objectively, I'd like to know the brightness of both.

Thanks

 

Brightness of the WXGA+ (1440x900), is very bright. You will be able to see you screen when the sun you almost behind out, outdoor. And the minimum brightness is about 50% brightness then most laptop you find in stores (based on my observations).

Of course, I can't comment on the other lower resolution one.

If you want to know how 1440x900 feels, if you have a 17inch CRT (the old monitors with a tube), you can set that resolution (or force it in if you can't with the video card drivers), and see how things appear.
17inch the closest screen size then this laptop.. as most CRT computer screen are not wide-screen. Of course, you will need to adjust the image with the CRT option so that the nothing is super stretch out (meaning you will have a black think line on top and at the bottom). If you have the opportunity and time to make this on a 17inch CRT I believe you will have a CLOSE idea on what to expect in the sense of the size of text and icons at default Windows DPI.

To say the truth, I have a CRT, and that is what I did. The result were very close (laptop being a little tiny smaller than the CRT output image... as well it's bigger. By tiny smaller I am talking about 1-2 pixels smaller... if that means anything as both screens have the same resolution)
Why a CRT? It support virtually any resolutions so you can try that.

I suppose the same can be done on a LCD screen of similar size (14inch wide or 17inch non-wide) that has a higher resolution than 1440x900, and set it to 1440x900 and set the video card to not scale the output picture.

Again this tip, is just to give you some idea, if you really don't know what to expect. But don't expect any real accurate results.