Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge

I ordered mine today and - unfortunately - discovered this thread after the ordering process. I fear that my high expectations can't be met. I do hope that some of the issues mentioned here are already solved. When it comes to those, that are not: please, let my e6400 be unaffected!

Well, after working through this thread, at least I know which things I have to keep an eye on.

My specs:
P8400 2.26Ghz, 4GB RAM, Nvidia 160M, 6 Cell battery, 160gb 7200rpm, WXGA-screen (1440x900), backlight keyboard (German) and because somebody asked somewhere in here: Neoprene Black Sleeve Case for 14in Laptops; for about 1220 Euro/1540 dollars

 

Everyone with fan issues can get I8KFanGUI and set intervals for when the fan is off and when the fan turns on for the CPU, GPU, Memory, Chipset individually.

However, if you have a hot computer that's not recommended. Only get I8K if your fans are acting silly for no reason.

 

I use this for the battery indication, you might wanna try it.

vb.nitescifi.com/batterybar.html

 

With regard to fans, I've noticed that propping my laptop up to allow more ventilation underneath seems to be counterproductive.

The fan is blowing loudly, but all I felt was cool air coming out. Placing the laptop back level to the table, warm air comes out, and the laptop gets cooler and eventually the fan shuts up.

Design flaw? or intended design?

 

You can disable aero in "appearences", change to "vista basic" or something.

When idling my fan is off, with my GPU temp up to over 65. Actually Im not sure what triggers my fan, but i think its the CPU temp. And to clarify, you have to make some adjustments to I8kfan. First change to sensor 3 for GPU in options (and CPU sensor to 2, i think) and calibrate with HWmonitor (i had to correct the GPU temp by 7 degrees in i8kfan, it showed way to low).

Lifting up the back of my e6400 (1 cm) actually lowered my temp about 5 degrees.

 

Are you really talking about the display quality from the VGA out?
I have bad colorbleeding at text letters, most noticable with close letters like "ll". and a generally "unpleasent" output. Very different from the VGA output on my other laptops (on the same display, an ordinary 19" samsung 1280x1024) where the VGA is clearly acceptable.

Do you think this can be from a faulty component or is the graphicscard model that bad?

I'll try to show the colorbleeding with a (very bad and unsharp) picture, sorry.

 

Thanks.
Hmm... That doesn't make sence. If I do that then I get a GPU temp of 0C . Maybe it is because I have the intel integrated GPU!? And I can't really callibrate with HWmonitor as it doesn't show a GPU since I have the integrated one. The CPU temps seem to fit with HWmonitor pretty well. How is it possible to figure out the exact index numbers because it is quite frustrating if I look at wrong temperatures

As to lifting the back of the notebook. This lowers my CPU temp significantly, but is as if there is not enough vacuum effect from the end of the pipe which is located near GPU and RAM and therefore these don't lower as much in temp as when situated on a flat surface. That is my interpretation anyway.

 

I'm thinking that the E6500 has better cooling than the E6400... the E6500 that my workplace gave me doesn't experience fan's that are continuously on, and even the screen is incredibly bright (its a Samsung one).

I'm not saying that the E6400 is bad in these regards, it's just something I've compared with the people who've mentioned the above about.

My only gripe is that the trackpad moves too slow for me, even on the fastest and most sensitive settings. A mouse fixes this issue though.

 

Actually I was taking about the internal display. I'll hook it up to a VGA display this afternoon and let you know.

The picture you posted looks like an issue with ClearType. If you turn that off does the same issue still occur?

 

I'm still getting many USB driver crashes. Some blue screen, some lock-ups, some just result in device malfunctions until a reboot. I hope Dell gets the replacement machine here soon. Seriously ... gold level service and it takes over a week to get a replacement?