Dell Latitude E4200 Info

Size really is everything for me. That's why I love the E4200.
Mighty and small and sleek.

 

There has been a new Intel Matrix Storage driver available for download in the Dell Latitude E6400 download page, but not in the E4200 page. I installed the one from the E6400, and it seems to work fine. Hope there is no issue with SSD.

On a related note, there is no new driver for the Samsung SSD in the E4200. However, in the E6400 downloads, there is a new driver for the 1.8 uSATA Samsung drive. I tried installing that one, but got an error saying device cannot be found. Has anyone downloaded any new Samsung SSD driver yet?

 

I don't think so, the only way you can bring the fan noise down is through a forced temperature drop. The fan drops to 5200 RPM or so at around 41 degrees and to ZERO RPM at around 37 degrees. There is no way you can reach that level with normal ambient temperature at home. The only way I did it was take my E4200 out in a really cold room and stick it on top of my Zalman cooler. I monitored the temps via Everest and I was able to determine the three-step fan state. The findings are earlier in the thread from about early March.

The E4200, in my opinion, may not have had a flawless launch but this doesn't mean that there are any more problems with it than the laptop next door. Also, many more happy users stay silent and this thread is not atypical of the average owners. You always hear more complaints on threads like these. It's just the nature of the beast. At least Dell business support is really the best in the industry. You have to keep in mind that for all intents and purposes the entire E-series has been an experiment for Dell in the sense that they introduced a new line to the market. Dell's corporate footprint is huge. There are bound to be kinks that need to be ironed out especially in a lilliputian unit like the E4200. They could have designed it better but you cannot see all this stuff in the labs or even with pre-production machines in the hands of enterprise customers. We can hope that they do better with the E4210 or whatever. There is a marked difference between the D430 and its successor. I own both so it's easy to see, however, the D430 does feel more sturdy. Again, it was a mature product by the time it reached the 3rd generation.

You don't need a separate driver from Samsung for SSD since it is seen as a regular drive, what you may have seen (but I cannot find--can you link it?) is firmware for our devices. The Intel Matrix driver may or may not improve performance but I usually leave it alone. There is, however, a new driver for the IDT audio. Might be worth trying.

 

Sorry, I didn't mean to say driver. I meant firmware update for the Samsung SSD. The update is available in the E6400 section. Here it is:

http://support.dell.com/support/dow...&servicetag=&os=WV64&osl=en&catid=-1&impid=-1

Upon further investigation, this seems to be the Samsung SLC drive, and that's probably why it won't install in my system.

 

Windows 7 Build 7100x64 LCD backlight problem

I installed Windows 7 Build 7100x64, and now I cannot control the LCD brightness at all. Tried installing and uninstalling DCP and the Ambient Light Sensor software, but no luck. The backlight control works perfectly in Vista 64. Does anyone have a solution? Thanks.

 

Same problem here, not yet solution
I hope we have quickly a way to solve this issue, coz seven is really well fitted for the 4200.

 

Yeah, we saw this in the SSD thread early on. I tried it a month ago, didn't work. This is for 1st gen MLC or 2nd gen SLC drives.

Don't have a solution since I don't run Win7 but is there a reason you are testing x64 rather than the 32bit OS? Do you have more than 3GB of RAM?

Are you running 32bit or 64bit? I am about to jump to 32bit Win7 but am concerned about the basic stuff working.

 

I have 3GB of RAM. I actually tried the 32bit Windows 7 also, and got the same problem. Why 64 bit? Why not? .

I was also running Vista 64 and everything worked well. I have Win7x64 running on my E6400, and that works great.

 

If you don't mess with the LCD brightness much dynamically (I don't), then you can set the settings in BIOS. They should override the OS settings anyway. I have it at the lowest setting on the battery and the second lowest setting when connected to power.

 

One curious thing I found is that after a fresh Win7 install and deleting all previous OS files, I have used slightly over 24GB of HD space. This is with no programs installed by me yet. However, when I added up the individual folders' sizes, the sum is a lot less, maybe about half of the 24GB only. Checked Recycle Bin, and there's nothing there. The only thing I can think of is hibernation files, but that seems kind of big. Do you see the same thing?

Yeah, it's a bummer that the LCD brightness cannot be controlled when ALS is turned off. Otherwise it's a really nice OS.