Latitude E6510 Owner's Lounge

That disk is Windows 7, it's a OEM version. To be specific, it's a pre-activated version of Windows for Dell laptop exclusively (specially made by Microsoft) - it won't run on another system.

 

occasionally when the computer switches the display off, if I move the mouse to wake it up, it "wakes up" with a blank screen.

solutions?

Also I have the cpu whine whether I'm on battery or plugged in. Have it on High Performance right now and I can hear it.

Considering uninstalling dell control point or something to make it shut up.

 

Ok simple solution (but a bit of time consuming).
- Download (but don't install, yet), the drivers from Dell web site (sound card, graphic card, motherboard, wired, bluetooth and wireless). If you have the Nvidia GPU, go to Nvidia web site to get it.

- Uninstall one by one every driver
- Use CCleaner (free): Piriform - Download CCleaner, Defraggler, Recuva, Speccy - Millions of users worldwide!, and clean your registry (to remove any left over settings from old drivers, and any software that can cause a conflict)
- Install the newly downloaded drivers.
- Be sure to remove any peripheral and extra card installed on the computer (for debugging)
- Be sure you have the latest BIOS
- Restart your computer

Sleep feature problem is really a driver problem. So, it's either a driver conflict, or a bug in one of the driver which prevents normal wake up of the system.

Diagnostic
Windows 7 allows you to diagnose your sleep feature.
To do this, remove any peripheral from your computer, then open the Command Prompt as true admin (Start > type: cmd > Right-click on cmd.exe in the search result, and select Run As Administrator).
Type in the Command Prompt: powercfg -ENERGY and hit the Enter key.

A full, nicely represented, report will be create C:\Windows\system32\energy-report.html. Just go there, and double click on the file.
This report will give you any warning and problems related to the sleep feature, so that you can pin-point the thing that causes the wake-up to fail.

 

Ordered an E6510 from the Outlet today. It comes with 160 GB HD. I have a 320 GB Hitachi spare and am thinking perhaps I should swap it first thing. I'll use the stock 160 GB as a backup drive.

Could you advise what's the process I should go through? I tried a search but couldn't find too much useful result as I think this topic might have been covered. So if you don't mind posting a link, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks!

 

Well...

Review installed devices via Device Manager and collect all such device drivers onto a USB Drive...

Remove stock drive, install your drive, boot F12 to Windows install DVD, install Windows (wipe your drive and create new system partition), and then install device drivers in required order. See link below to my reimage notes.

Apologies if this is more than you were asking for.

GK

 

Before I start doing more drastic things to the system, I thought it'd be a good idea to do a system image backup.
I connected a 500GB disk via USB, did a quick format, and it was mounted as F:. (The internal disk is ~300GB.) I then used the following command:

wbadmin start backup -backupTarget:f: -include:c: -quiet
(as suggested by the W7 Resource Kit)

wbadmin complained
Note: the list of volumes included for backup does not include all the volumes that contain operating system components. This backup cannot be used to perform a system recovery....

But when I add -allCritical it complains
One of the source volumes specified has an invalid format and cannot be protected using Windows Backup. Only volumes formatted with NTFS can be protected.

*aargh!*


The disk management snapin shows the internal disk to contain 4 partitiions:
[unlabelled] Simple Basic -- Healthy (OEM Partition)
OS (C Simple Basic NTFS Healty (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition)
READER (D Simple Basic FAT32 Healthy (Logical Drive)
RECOVERY Simple Basic NTFS Healthy (System, Active, Primary Partition)

C: looks to me to be the only one that can be backed up.

*sigh*

s.

p.s. FWIW, the backup of C: did complete successfully, creating a 37GB vhd.

 

You could have used Windows 7 full system backup, which create a system image. It's a simple wizard found in the Control Panel called "Backup & restore". But your way works, more complicated, but works.

 

I've had good results using Norton Ghost 15 to backup to an external drive using the eSATA interface (eSATA port enabled in BIOS). Backups are completed much quicker using the eSATA port. NG15 does support usb external drives.

I prefer NG15 because it supports a cold or off-line back up; no worries about open files, inconsistent state, etc. because the laptop is not running Windows on your C: drive; instead the laptop is executing a specialized minimal operating system out of RAM.

When it is time for back up, connect the external drive and boot the NG15 DVD (as opposed to the internal hard disk). NG15 executes on top of MS Windows PE (pre-execution environment). In addition to backup and recovery, the NG15 DVD/Windows PE environment contains a file explorer tool, shell to command prompt, and disk partitioning/formatting tools.

If you have an external drive/NG15 set up, you can even capture the factory image before launching Windows for the first time. Of course the F12 key must be pressed for boot options before Windows starts.

In fact, NG15 is NOT installed on my laptops, although many users do install it under Windows 7 as an alternative to the Windows 7 tools for scheduled hot back-ups.

The only downside is NG15 is not totally intuitive or simple to use; some Windows PC admin skills are needed.



No doubt there are other good choices. I was using clonezilla before NG15. It is a free and reliable tool for off-line backups, but not easy to use.

Hope this helps.

 

On your laptop, Windows 7 system files are installed on the OS (c: ) partition AND on the RECOVERY partition. Note that the RECOVERY partition is the active partition; the one which the BIOS boots from. RECOVERY has to be included in the back up set along with OS (c: ).

Although the two partitions can have different volume names, Windows 7 prefers two partitions as it requires the other partition (RECOVERY on your laptop) for BLDE files, if the BLDE functionality is used.

The OEM partition contains Dell diagnostics and utilities.

 

I usually clone my HDDs. One prudent step to take early on is to change the SATA mode in the BIOS from IRRT / RAID to AHCI. Most people don't use IRRT and it can cause a few compatibility problems. Then, if you reinstall Windows it will install the AHCI driver.

John