Dell Latitude E4200 Info

200$ for a keyboard... man they make so much money...

probably the screen is 400$...if that is the case you can get a 22inch 6-bit LCD screen non glossy, which turns, tilt, pivot, and all the fancy stuff.

 

Dell charges whatever they like especially if it's not covered by one of their service contracts. I spend lot of money with them and also get quite a bit of deals so overall I'm not going to complain.

I wish my E4200 worked with 3008WFP 2560x1600 monitor. Then I would be able to get rid of desktop.

1. I still have problem with keyboard not going into "On" mode. It will only switch between off and auto. I heard someone else had this problem as well. Not a major problem but annoying at times.

2. I noticed backlit is not as bright as in E6400. It also kinda look yellowish instead of white.

 

Seems my US system and the Canada CoporateTraveller system have identical issues and the '5300 no connectivity' problem is a more general issue. Should let Dell know.
Another strange backlit keyboard phenomenon: it makes a humming sound that is quite loud if background noise is gone. The humming turns on and off with the actual backlight. Weird. Keyboard Soundeffects were not in the specs...

 

I had 5300 connectivity issue from day 1 but I just didn't care whole lot. But it surely does get annoying when I REALLY need it and it DOESN'T work.

When it happens, I usually turn off Wi-Fi using the switch, then turn it back on. It usually fixes problem but it happens again within a minute or two. Super annoying.

In my case, only way to get wireless to work reliably is by setting AP to only run on 802.11g mode at 20Mhz channel width. I'm only AP on channel 11 in my area. Everyone else is on channel 1 or 6 (in theory those shouldn't overlap).

I think 802.11n in general is still a problemetic technology at best. I haven't seen a single public wi-fi point adapting it and properly supporting it. Even if they do, no one has that kind of landlines bandwidth to support multiple 11n clients. If they do, they restrict it anyway to preserve bandwidth for other users.

 

Hello,

I've no problems with the WIFI Intel 5300. Only sometimes after canceling a vpn with the Laptop StandBy. Wifi is every time good and fast and reliable.

My favorite problem ist the noisy fan? Has anybody find a solution to make the fan silent? If there are 32°C outside, the fan will never stop. It is crazy.

thanks phil

 

32C outside is very hot. So when the fan kicks in, it takes the 32C hot air and tries to cool off the laptop heat... the temperature difference is not enough to properly cool off your machine. That is the downside of small compact machines.

Go to a dry cool place (or get AC). This should solve the problem, or set Windows to "power saver" mode to de-overclock your computer component to heat less. The % of the CPU speed can be adjusted in the power option. I set my machine (Latitude E6400) to 1% to save battery life... the system goes at 787MHz when idle (or using Word or something basic like that).

 

thanks for the answer.

look, now its about 20°C inside my room. My CPU is between 38 and 40. the fann is running all time. There is no reason because. The fan turns off under 30 °C and move slow by ca. 33°C. Whats going on?

But this is with all E4200. what can I do?

-> phil

 

Hey guys, i just got mine.. its sweet!

I just wanted to ask, is it recommended to do a clean install of vista so that all the extra dell applications are gone? or should i just turn each one off?

 

You system is not supposed to come with anything other than:
- Drivers and Dell software to make the buttons work (it's 1 software that works with plug-ins, rather than 20 (exaggerating of course) programs for like 1 per button or something idiotic like that).
- Roxio
- PowerDVD

You need PowerDVD to play DVD's as Vista Business (and Home Basic) don't come with any DVD codec.
Roxio can be uninstalled if you don't want it, the same way you uninstall any other software.

Usually we say to do this for Home type computers, as they come with sooo much software that it's just faster and easier to re-install the OS. It comes with anti-virus trial version, Office trial, old drivers, too many software for the laptop, ads, and shortcuts to websites.

 

the Dell controlpoint and UCM are constantly running in the background... As i only have 2gb of ram, i would like them to stop running in the background.