Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge

Was that through the internal speakers or headphones? I wouldn't expect the speakers to overcome airplane background noise.

The extended power options in Dell ControlPoint include "put audio into low power state". I've not checked what that does.

9 cell battery, I presume (in case people with the 6 cell get over-excited).

I was sitting outside in the sun yesterday with display on full brightness and wireless on and getting an average power drain of 12 - 13W using the basic Portable / Laptop power profile. That gives potentially 4 hours on the 6 cell battery. See the attached graph.

John

 

Which program do you use to check the power consumption? Is it after undervolting?

 

RMClock and Notebook Hardware Control are very good tools for measuring power consumption.

 

The graph above was using MobileMeter, but it doesn't work with Vista.

The battery info page of RMClock will give the current discharge / charge and battery capacity remaining but doesn't draw a graph. There's also BatteryMon, which works for 30 days before demanding money.

John

 

A colleague of mine just got his E6400 with same HD (200gb free fall sensor Seagate Momentus 7200.2) and I asked about clicking and he described the exact same (frequent annoying clicking noise when idle/low activity, most notable when working in a quiet environment). I don't really think the HD is faulty it's just this brand/series that does this. So getting a new one from Dell probably won't fix anything. Maybe a different brand but not sure how that works, if they will charge me extra for this. Also I waited sooo long for my E6400, took two months since order date, so not that keen on more waiting. At work I don't really notice it (probably why many won't ever notice it), but at home when windows shut (not the OS ), television off etc. it's pretty annoying, but glad I found a solution although it's not perfect.

 

I was wearing headphones with iTunes on full blast and the speaker volume on full. In contrast, my iPod with the same headphones (or my old laptop) could do this at 40% volume.

 

I talked to Dell the other day and they said that in order to return the E6400--if you just flat out didn't like it--you would have to pay a restocking fee. Is this true? Does there have to be something defective in order to send it back with no strings attached?

 

Don't forget the fix where muting the internal speakers enables the bass on the audio. That effectively makes the signal to the external headphones / speakers much louder (I've just tried).

John

 

Please forgive my ignorance. What fix is this?

BTW: Just in case I don't mention it ... thanks everyone. This is a great forum.

 

I just noticed that my power cord does not fit tightly in the computer, but leaves 2-3 millimeters, which makes it wobbly. It is not a major problem at all, but it just seems stupid, and also make me worry a little as to the durability of the plug.
I have uploaded a picture to show what I mean. Does anyone else have this issue?