E6400 with windows 8

Has anyone tried install win8 on E6400?
I have looked the DELL website and there is no driver support for win8.

 

E6520 has w8 drivers posted.so I suggest wait for few days.
you may get those drivers for your system.

 

I just clean installed Windows 8 Pro and there is only one piece of hardware that wasn't natively supported by the installation media (meaning before I even bothered to hit Windows Update) and that of course is the Broadcom fingerprint reader (the USH driver, which I don't even have). Some other E6400 models may have another device or two but for me, as soon as I got it up and running the first thing I did was check Device Manager and sure enough the Broadcom USH driver is all that's missing.

I know it's not on Windows Update so I have the latest one (just the driver itself) stashed for this purpose, just pointed Device Manager to that folder and wham, 2 seconds, installed, good to go, everything supported at that point. I did hit Windows Update anyway to get updates and the IDT audio driver and the Ricoh SD card reader got updated newer drivers (but again, they are supported from the Windows 8 installation media natively, these were just newer versions from Windows Update).

So far so good, performance is snappier than Windows 7 as expected. I have it installed on a WD 640GB hard drive (still haven't bothered to get an SSD) and it works just fine with the 4GB of DDR2 667 RAM I have. Hoping to bump to 8GB of DDR2 800 at some point, the CPU is a P8700 at 2.53 GHz.

As for Dell providing actual Windows 8 drivers, I wouldn't count on it; the Windows 7 drivers should be completely functional for any additional Control Point devices that may need support so, keep 'em around just in case. Now, as I said the native support is there but that doesn't mean the additional functionality the actual manufacturer supported drivers may provide. Case in point: the touchpad driver from the native installation media doesn't support the scrolling aspects the pad supports so, again, look to the Windows 7 drivers. I don't use that functionality - I always use a mouse - but I'll probably install them anyway to ensure the entire system has ACPI support so the battery life and power management function properly.

There were only 7 updates on Windows Update so, that's not bad I suppose even in spite of it being about 272MB to download.

 

great feedback bbz and I am going to install it now

 

Thanks for the info. I am thinking of getting the Win 8 update as it is quite cheap right now. I ran the Win8 update advisor and it said that my MoBo doesn't support secure boot. Any idea what this is and if E6400 not having this would have any impact on functionality?

 

Secure boot is a feature that allows the BIOS to check to see if the OS bootloader has a valid digital signature before executing it. It's a new security feature that will help prevent malware from sticking itself very early in the boot process, however, it is not required for Windows 8 to run and won't have any impact on functionality aside from this pre-boot security check.

 

Installed Windows 8 64-bit on my E6400. I thought I had the latest fingerprint reader driver saved for this purpose as well, but no luck. What is the driver/file name of the package you are using? I've got about 4 others so I know one has to be the right one. Also, did it require you to install any of the additional ControlPoint software to get it to work?

 

It's the latest Control Point Driver pack, I don't have the specific download number (the Rxxxxxx identifier) handy at the moment, but I did finally use some brain cells to realize I need to keep these saved for future purposes and stashed them in my Dropbox account, so if anyone wants them they can get them here (the archive contains the complete driver sets for 32 and 64 bit installs, must be manually installed through Device Manager):

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19019338/Dell_E6400_Broadcom_USH_Drivers.zip

If anyone is concerned about potential virus infections, I scanned the archive using VirusTotal and you can see the report here with checksums for verification:

https://www.virustotal.com/file/431...c70e63946530f1290f3e4438/analysis/1351597310/

This particular E6400 I now own doesn't use the Intel Management stuff so the AMT/etc drivers aren't required; the only thing it did need was that Broadcom USH driver - in Device Manager it's listed as "ControlVault Device: Dell ControlVault w/o Fingerprint Sensor" since I don't actually have the fingerprint reader. I believe the same driver does function for those with an actual fingerprint reader also, but I could be wrong on that. I've now owned 5 E6400 laptops but never actually had one with the physical fingerprint reader, go figure.

Hope this helps...

 

Not sure if it will be different on the Latitude E6400... In Precision land I don't think there's been any luck in getting the fingerprint reader working in Windows 8. On the M6700, I can install the driver without a problem (shows up as "ControlVault w/ Fingerprint Touch Sensor") but if I go to enroll fingerprints I just get an error. I've heard similar complaints from M4600/M6600 owners.

 

Is the TPM on that machine enabled? Without it (enabled in the BIOS) the fingerprint reader won't function; could be something to check and verify just in case. I can't really imagine that device not working if the driver installs and loads without issues. Maybe there could be an indication of why it's failing in the Event Viewer, no idea but it can't hurt to check/verify the whole security subsystem I suppose.