Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge

Now I'm also a member of the club...and I have to say, this notebook really amazes me! No problems so far with the preinstalled Vista Home Basic (lockups at least haven't occured in the past two hours) - let's see how well this machine does on Vista Business (MSDNAA) and Linux with the new HD that is still sleeping in its packaging...

Wait, there is still one problem, but I really don't blame it on the notebook itself. Any USB device works like a charm, except for my old 3,5" external HD case based on Cypress AT2LP. If I plug it in, the notebook continues to work, but the external HD doesn't get a drive letter and the removable drive management goes crazy, it even disrupts the shutdown process. If I turn the HD off, everything continues to behave like it should...

Wanted to buy something eSATA capable anyway...

EDIT: Tried this HD case plugged to my desktop PC, and it's 100% the same way. So it's no controller issue, it's a Vista issue - nothing that should urge me to return that notebook for a second chance. You ask why I didn't notice the problem earlier? Simple answer - on my desktop PC, I used the external HD exactly one time (copying the stuff on the faster SATA HD) and I had it plugged to the internal IDE bus for that...

 

CPU is the T9400, GPU is the nvidia 160m, HDD is the 250 GB seagate with FFS (in theory, although my monitor reports FFS as off). I have the intel 5300 and the bluetooth 410 modules internally, nothing external. and by warm i should clarify that my CPU sits around 105+/- 10 (fahrenheit) and the GPU idles a little higher than that. (up around 115 F). the chipset itself, however, seems to sit closer to 130F. none of these temperatures to me seem at all out of range, although it still creates enough heat in the palm rest for my hands to be warmer than i like.

 

I have about the same specs as you and i have CPU temps around 100, GPU temps around 130, chipset 105 and the HDD is 95 (fahrenheit) when idling. The HDD is a 200gb. My palmrests are both "cold". I use HWMonitor, there is a calibration issue with i8kfan.

 

Can someone post what files are contained in the recovery partition on d in the following directory: 'd:\dell\image' ?


Many thanks.

The reason is that my directory is empty as well as the tools dir on d and I'd like to know if this is an isolated error or if everyone did not got their recovery option.

 

For some reason I had the understanding that you need the system software for the computer to function well at all - is that not true? I've had no problems with BSOD (or the webcam in general) and I'm running the latest intel drivers. At this point I'm satisfied with the performance, but I'll probably explore further the next time I reformat for a clean install.

 

no, you absolutely don't. it is a dell program that is effectively spyware (it gives them the option to force install things).

@acidspy, I am getting almost exactly the same numbers with HWMonitor. (with the exception of the GPU, which is reporting ~10 degrees F higher in HWMonitor. is there some reason you believe this is more accurate than i8kfangui? actually, speedfan is reporting roughly the same as HWMonitor, so you may be right. but 123 as an idle for a discrete GPU is by no means hot.

I should point out that my palmrest is not HOT, it is just warm, and certainly not cold, which i would want it to be. any help/numbers would be great. i should also point out that it just dropped to being even with i8kfangui within a few degrees. so i dont know which to trust.

 

See this post for some of my temperatures.

Note that HWMonitor 1.10 and 1.11 have a 5C difference in some values.

John

 

A few questions with regards to the Latitude e6400 running XP Pro.
1. What is the default BIOS setting for the HDD Acoustic manager? I have mine currently set to 'performance' and find the HDD access/use to be somewhat noisy. I believe I have seen other posts regarding the HDD noise and being constantly in use. I have the Seagate Momentus 7200.3 160Gb with FFS.

2. Are people still experiencing random BSOD's with Windows XP? I just got a "Bad Pool header' BSOD out of the blue whilst checking my email.

3. Are there any improved audio drivers yet which automatically mute the PC speakers on plugging in the headphones to allow for bypassing the default sound filters?

4. Is it possible to retrofit the fingerprint reader?

5. How good is the default x4500 GMA? I'm wondering if it will play Oblivion or Half Life 2 on default resolution (have the LED high-res) albeit with HDR turned off and some advanced graphic settings / AA turned off.

6. Installing Vista Business using the default DVD - do I need to do a clean install or will I be able to install 'over' XP?

 

Intel 4500 GMA is like a Geforce 7300M... Oblivion should be a slide show on minimum settings. HalfLife2 will run nearly smoothly at minimum settings.

 

sry for that, I'm still having problem to differentian concave from convex . thx for clarifying. It's a great relief for me to hear that the "roll cage" is made intentionally.

I'm still having some questions regarding the battery life.
My sample is equipped with the nvidia graphics and C2D P8600. is there any possibilty to undervolt or to reduce the clock frequency so the gpu drains less power? and which settings do I have to take on RMclock to have my cpu undervolted?