Dell Latitude E4200 Info

Was there ever a hardware revision to address the loud fan? Was using it in class today and the fan was damn loud.

 

For the E4200? Nope. As far as I know the 4200 only got a minor refresh to support the back-lit keyboard (which the original batch did not).

The E4300, on the other hand, supposedly had significant issues and underwent major changes. I don't know exactly what they were, but every time I asked my rep he just mumbled something about "serious problems" and then tried to change the subject. My guess is something basic was wrong with the design that makes Dell look bad.

 

The fan noise can be handled with a BIOS update, however, there is a risk to the hardware. Dell is playing safe. That's all. They have been bitten by the nvidia fiasco. The amazing thing is that the E4200 is not THAT small, they could have designed a chassis that was better ventilated. Not sure what happened.

E4300 production was halted for a week or two in January on account of the issues that Jason mentioned. Anything built after February or March should be OK.

 

Major problem: E4300 locking up

"Latitude E4300 system shipments have been suspended due to customer reported system freeze/hang conditions. These system hangs are due to an interaction from some E4300 motherboards to Intel® Core™ 2" Duo SP9300 and SP9400 processors. Dell and Intel are committed to providing high quality systems and are working diligently to resolve the issue for this platform."



"The old motherboard had a date of 8/15/08 printed on it with the words "Made in China" and "V1". "

"The new motherboard has a date of 3/24/09 printed on it with the words "Made in Taiwan" and "V2". This motherboard came with the A05 BIOS, which I upgraded."

Source: Dell community forum

 

Have you already tried something like i8kfangui?

http://www.diefer.de/i8kfan/index.html

It doesn't fix the thermal design issues, but it gives you control over when the fan kicks in.

 

Im on the latest BIOs (A06) and it is still quite loud.

 

What I meant was that Dell can take remedial measures regarding the fan issue via a BIOS update. Yes it is still loud in A06. We have complained about the fan noise from the beginning of this thread.

 

Is the fan noise better in XP? I am running Windows 7 right now.

 

I haven't any problems at all with my E4200. It makes me kind of nervous to hear the problems some have.. yike...

 

Similar to the one I got for my E4200