E6400/ E6500 best drivers, apps and tidbits

Thought that I would start a thread for everyone to post some useful items. Eg:

- What have you found is the best video driver for your E6400/ E6500 with NVS160M?
- What (if anything) do you use to monitor temperatures?
- What (if anything) do you use to monitor/ change voltages?
- What other useful/ cool apps have you found that work well for the E6400/ E6500?

Would also be useful if you post what operating system you are running, and links to the programs if possible.

I will post some of my own once my system arrives and I have had time to "play".


Stu

 

I have an M2400, but I'm sure story still applies ... I've found the native Vista "High Definition Audio Device" driver to give much better sound output than the IDT drivers that comes installed.

The native Vista ones also allows you to choose the encodings and sampling rates to pass onto your receiver (SPDIF), see screenshot below. The IDT one is quite rubbish in comparison.



To uninstall the IDT ones, use the Control Panel. Once it's been uninstalled go to Device Manager and scan for hardware changes, and Vista should be able to find the HD audio device and install drivers for it accordingly.

 

I did a fresh install on my E6400 and have yet to installed the IDT drivers... Seems to me the audio via the speakers on the Vista default drivers sounds 'lower', but I get a 'pop' sound every time Windows boots (I guess its the audio driver initializing) but no 'pop' when I had the IDT drivers.

The audio on the IDT seems to be rather sharp as though someone just pulled up the right-end of the equalizer?

 

I've got Vista 64bit on my M2400, and have two devices that I've not found drivers for:

Broadcom USH
SM Bus Controller

I've installed all the dell drivers, but haven't come across anything that resolves these issues. Any ideas?

EDIT:

Don't install the newest drivers from laptopvideo2go, you lose 3dMark06 points:

3dMark06 Scores with 176.07 (Dell A02) @ 1280x800
1847 Total
704 SM2.0
616 SM3.0
2296 CPU

3dMark06 Scores with 177.93 @ 1280x800
1623 Total
550 SM2.0
603 SM3.0
2296 CPU

 

is there anyway to output digital audio into a toslink connector? i see "spdif" in your screenshot, but how exactly did you work it? what kind of equipment did you need?

 

SPDIF is just how windows vista refers to the digital out offered on the display port .... neither the machine itself of the docking comes with a traditional SPDIF or toslink port.

 

Does anyone have any problems with the brightness notification bar when you adjust your brightness? I couldn't get it to reflect properly after I re-installed my OS.

Whenever I adjust the brightness, the bar will begin at the position of the brightness level I set in BIOS irregardless of what I've adjusted in Vista. Once the bar disappears and I re-adjust my brightness levels, the bar again begins at the position of what I set in the BIOS.

I've tried the ControlPoint utility on the driver disc, as well as the latest from Dell's website but the issue persists.

Any ideas?

 

I find that the dell touchpad drivers for the E6400 cause the blue vista loading cursor to become static if you use the touchpad. If you only use the trackstick the problem never occurs.

 

read elsewhere on this forum (sorry, cant find the post again) the windows XP sound problem - where music sounds like its played from a small radio - is fixed by muting the PC Spkr in the Advanced Settings of the Volume Control

 

omfg this works! but it also causes the built-in speakers on the laptop to not output any sound...