Dell Latitude E4200 Info

The E4300 owners say that this bug has been solved with DCP A12:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5191929&postcount=27

FWIW, E4300 and E4200 share the same ALS and brightness control circuitry.

 

Well, it worked for me - not making any guarantees - and I have the genuine Win 7 RTM. It was a clean install, with the old DCP removed before updating... and I updated to the latest Intel X4500 driver in WU, if any of that helps.

 

It did not work on my E4200. Tried both an upgrade install from Vista, and a fresh install. Both with Windows 7 Ultimate x64 RTM. With the upgrade install from Vista, the brightness control did not work, with or without ALS enabled. With the fresh install, brightness can only be controlled if ALS is enabled. Tried that with and without DCP A12, and get same results.

So it looks like right now there is no way to adjust brightness when the ALS is disabled in Windows7 on the E4200. The best workaround is to put black electrician tape over the ALS sensor, and leave ALS enabled. That effectively disables ALS.

As an aside, in Windows7 RTM, the defrag scheduler was turned on by default, even though the OS should know that the OS drive is SSD.

 

I noticed that too when I installed Windows 7 RTM. It also left the supercache or whatever enabled too, which it's meant to turn off if it detects an SSD drive. I'm wondering if it's not detecting the drive as an SSD in the laptop? Is there anyway to force it to detect it as an SSD?

 

Has anyone seen graphics corruption like this on their notebook?
http://getsatisfaction.com/dell/topics/studio_1537_with_intel_gma_4500mhd_graphics_corruption

I have an E4200 running Windows 7 x64 RTM and with both the stock Windows drivers and the latest Intel drivers from Windows update I see intermittent graphics corruption like in the screen shots when I have the aero desktop enabled. If I turn off aero and go back to the basic desktop then there's no corruption anymore. I hope it's not a problem with my graphics card as I don't have a warranty for my laptop. Has anyone else seen this before?

Thanks!

 

Sorry to tell you this, but you probably don't have the antenna's. Dell delivers to screen with the 4200. The screen with wings: 5 antenna's--> 2 for the 5530 3g/GPS module and 2+1 for the intel 5100/5300.

Or the other screen without wings and only with 3 antenna's for the wifi adapter. I noticed that this screen has enough room outside the bezel to fabricate your own antenna's.

 

I did see this kind of corruption. I still can't explain it. I saw it when I changed from a 1gb module to a 2gb module (dell approved modules). It became more profound when I connected my notebook onto a dell E-dock. Couldn't explain it and neither could dell tech support. They exchanged the mainboard and the problem is solved.

 

Longtime no post. I still own E4200.


I did see this problem, and it got really bad using E-dock. Dell sent me a M/B and it is doing better. It seems to be getting worse with load on the laptop running multiple windows. It almost looks like Nvidia problem on D620/D630 but this laptop has intel graphics.

To replace M/B I had to completely disassemble the laptop and I was wondering myself if I can put it all back together. I ended up couple extra screws but I decided to fix it next time I open the laptop.

I have W7 RTM running and it is great except my SD reader won't read any cards. It is showing in device manager but when I insert SD card, it doesn't show me any drives.

By the way, do we still have Latitude ON coming? It's been almost a year since Dell released this laptop and still no Lat ON?

 

I'm going on a 3 week trip across Europe and looking so forward to it. Last summer I traveled with XPS m1330 and it was heavy as brick. Before that I traveled with D620. I'm planning on taking extended battery with it so I can use at airports without power outlet.

I'm still waiting for Dell to release 5600 Mobile Broadband card in Canada. Then I would be able to use HSPA network while overseas.

 

(http://forums.lenovo.com/lnv/board/message?board.id=T400_series_ThinkPads&message.id=14359#M14359)

According to this post here in a Lenovo forum it seems that the Intel graphics card can't properly handle having two memory modules which aren't the same size. I have a 1GB and a 2GB memory module so it seems to back up your explanation that the problems started occurring when you added the 2GB memory module. So all you're problems went away after having your motherboard changed? My laptop isn't under warranty so I can't have my motherboard changed. I hope a driver fix is possible otherwise I might have to consider swapping out my 2GB module for a 1GB module.

Also have a look here:
http://getsatisfaction.com/dell/topics/studio_1537_with_intel_gma_4500mhd_graphics_corruption