Latitude E6510 Owner's Lounge

I was just boxing up that laptop.

I had 32 bit Win7 on it when it came in. I reinstalled 32 bit again. Then I installed 64 bit win7 today, and the problem has shown up consistently. I have tried all browsers on all windows installs, I have tried 3 Nvidia drivers (one from dell, one nvidia stable and one nvidia beta) on all the windows installations and the results have been consistent!

I haven't had any trouble playing back content on my hard drive though, don't know specifically about the H.264 codec.

I spoke to another guy online on a different forum with a similar config as mine and he ran a check to see if he has the same issue and the answer was negative.

As much as I hate to do this, I'm boxing this baby up.


EDIT: Just noticed you edited your post. Yeah, I had a hard time explaining to the rep doing a screenshare with me. He told me to get a screenshot. Because the screenshare doesn't show relatime fps of a video, he wouldn't see what the problem was.

He had the nerve to tell me, amongst other bull, like it's the video that is bad etc, " Sir looks like the problem is not with the computer but with your perception." That's when I went semi-ape on his . Anyway, I could very well just return this, because frankly the time and effort I've spent on this far outweighs the money I saved buying a refurb. Lesson learnt here. I love this notebook so I won't return it, but hopefully the repairs take care of the issue.

 

Let us know what they say

I'm actually bringing mine in to IBM for an unrelated problem next week so I'll ask them about this as well. The video you put up will be extremely helpful in explaining the problem since they probably don't want to sit through minutes of video for it to maybe happen once (and then probably miss it when it does ).

It's interesting how this only happens in Flash though (and how it differs with Flash-video-player implementations too. I get it less at Youtube then other sites for instance)... I'm leaning toward it being Adobe's fault now knowing others are having the same problem, and not seeing anything similar happening in games or with video-playback in other apps. If it was the GPU you'd think similar corruption would happen elsewhere too.

Edit: But seriously, the video is awesome. The best I could do as far as "evidence" was this screenshot after spamming printscreen until it happened and then managing to _not_ press it again Harder than it sounds with split-second flickers happening at best 2-3 times a minute

 

Hahaha I know what you mean there. The dell rep on the phone was insisting on me taking a screenshot when it happened, and even when it's happening that frequently, it was tough! Like you said, not only do you have to be fast to catch it, you have to be quick not to overwrite it with another print screen.

I was forced to take that video after explaining the problem felt impossible.

I wouldn't have sent it back if other E6510 owners were having similar issues, but they're not, so even though I believe this maybe something to do with flash, I have wasted a lot of my time and patience over this thing. Not to mention its 2 AM now and I'll be sleepy through work all day tomorrow!

So yeah, boxed and ready to go. Let's see what I'm up against.

Feels like I'm just beginning my trip to Mordor.


P.S: Just out of curiosity, if you've tried playing DVD movies on your T410, is the playback smooth and lagfree like you see on HDTVs for example? Cos mine was not, but my friend's XPS16 (with 512MB graphics card 46xx or 45xx I don't remember) was playing them smooth.

I know it's probably the difference between full HD matte screen vs the 1366x768 glossy.

 

Hmm, can't say I have... I'll try to pop one in later and check though. Any preference in media-player since it would probably matter at least a bit?

I also wanted to mention though, hoping somebody with more knowledge than me could chip in; in the NVIDIA Control Panel (Video -> Adjust video color settings) one can make adjustments to video-brightness/contrast and such. These changes apply to video playing in WMP, VLC, MPC-HC etc. but _not_ to video playing in Flash -- even though it's using the GPU to decode. Why is this, and could it be significant as to why videos might play fine in media players but not Flash

Edit: Oh, and btw: do you also get flickers while not in fullscreen-mode? I'm wondering because I do. Kinda significant if you don't.

 

My Win7 x64 re-image notes link below may help you organize your clean install of the OS.

I wonder why Dell is not shipping all ODDs as burners.

The Power DVD s/w is not necessary, as far as I can tell. Win7 plays videos.

Other new E-Series notebooks here have arrived with Aero bailing out. I don't know why, but this problem went away when I re-imaged my E6410.

I suggest you can blow away any OEM partitions and use the entire HDD for the new OS install.

GK

 

I tried with VLC and windows media player 12.

About screen flickering when it's not fullscreen, no it does not. It only does it in full screen mode. Exclusively.


Other interesting thing is, it would NOT do it for videos on Vimeo - HD or SD, no matter what. It just wouldn't do it on Vimeo.

I don't know much about Flash implementations, but there's definitely something different between Youtube and Vimeo's streaming/encoding process.

 

Will they send you the 64 bit install disk for W7 if you ask for it (and the system didn't come with it) and do they charge for it?

(edit: have the 32-bit W7 disc, just to clarify)

 

I think someone did that and they did send the disk. I'm going to order one too.

 

If they refuse, just say that you can't see/use your full 4GB of RAM, and that the system is broken because of that. The tech guy will explain why (which we all know why), and push him for a WIn7 64-bit disk. A good method to push, is say that you got a broken system for Dell, and that you should not pay to get it fixed as it's under warranty. Your playing with words.

Personally, I don't think the above is needed, just asking the tech support nicely is enough. But, just in the case that you have a jerk or a guy who had a bad day.. your ready!

 

I have not returned my system, as I am waiting for the exchange system to arrive.
so no worries, you didnt get my return.