E6410 Owner's Thread

I did purchase the E6410 and had it for a few days... I hated the touchpad and the rather sharp edge at the end of the wristpad made it very uncomfortable to use. I ended up returning it in favor of the Lenovo T410.

 

Does E6410 support switchable graphics?

 

No.
Nvidia GPU feature a power management system similar to CPU's where it start at minimal speed (downclock), and will clock faster based on demand.
Of course, on battery it will require a longer demand to increase the GPU speed.

A trick I do, and I think it's the best switchable graphic type solution, is that I install Nvidia System Tool to the laptop, and create an overclock profile. BUT, instead of overclocking my GPU, I downclock it to minimum speed, so that it stays at minimum speed. When I need more power, I load the default profile.
Profiles are saved in files, which you can easily load by double clicking on them. (Double-click and you'll get a pop-up saying that the profile was loaded successfully).

Overclocking or downlocking with Nvidia System Tools is a breeze. You have 3 slider bars: core clock, memory clock, and shared clock, just slide the bars to minimum. Nvidia System tools will set all the settings on the back like voltage and so on for you (it applies the right settings based on your GPU, it will also set the best stable values.. for example, let's say you set the core clock to 300MHz, it might go to 312MHz, as it knows that at 300MHz it won't be stable.

NOTE: Only one person with the E6410 reported to me that the minimum clock speed of Nvidia System tool is not the actual lowest speed that the GPU can go when using Nvidia powerMizer technology (the power management technology of the GPU). I have the E6400, and I have no problems.

The problem with switchable graphics is that not only it takes a long time to switch between GPU's as the GPU needs to boot itself and take over. But also, you need to clock all programs and change your power profile BEFORE switching GPU's.

Apple special solution is the worst of them all, where it's based on: if an application uses OpenGL or not.
The problem with that, is let's say you have a video plug-in in your web browser, you play a video, which could have ran smoothly while having the GPU at minimum speed, but no, it overclocks at full speed. If you stop and change page (plug-in unloaded) the GPU still stay at max performance, and it will stay that wait until you close your web browser. Another example, let's say you have photoshop, and you double click on a picture on your computer JUST to view it, well the GPU clock at full speed.

Nvidia Optimus technology is more a hack them anything else, when the GPU is activated based on a auto-update list which you can redefine yourself and add your own programs (which is nice), it turns on the GPU instantly and gets to work. No screen flash, no delays, and you don't need to close any programs. The way it works is that it picks up all the tasks from the Intel GPU, process them and feed them to the frame buffer of the Intel GPU, making the Intel GPU think it's processing is done, and output the image. The problem with this technology is that it uses the system bus, which means that you will feel that the system CPU is slower (there is no CPU speed increase to try to compensate, trick). The bus is uses is the one that communicates with the CPU and memory, and as Intel GPU uses your system memory as it's own video ram, AND that only 1 can use the bus at a time, it's makes the CPU having problems in accessing the memory. It's nothing drastic, and most likely not or barely visible, but it's there.

 

Thanks for your detailed reply. But, if the integrated GPU in Intel Core i series CPU is more power efficient than the discrete graphics down-clocked to about the same speed as the IGP, it's still a good idea to have switchable graphics.

 

Re: e6410 and Docking

I've had my e6410 for a couple of weeks now and just wanted to say that I am very pleased with it. It is soooo much faster and easier to use than my D620. I have the i5 520-M 2.4 GHz version with the Intel HD Graphics card and have not had any problems with heat buildup. I use my unit mostly on AC power, but have tested the 9-cell battery running 4-6 applications (with Aero turned off) and have gotten 6+ hours before getting the first warning chime.

And I've come to love Windows 7 (32-bit), so thanks to GoodBytes for slapping me around when I wanted to have Dell install the XP downgrade option. Once I installed the touchpad driver upgrade, my complaints about that have evaporated as well.

My real purpose for posting is to tell anyone who wants to use the e6410 with a docking station (port replicator and stand) that it works FABULOUSLY. Docking with my old D-family Latitude was horrible and I usually just shut down the whole system before docking or undocking. With the e6410 I can dock and un-dock with several applications running and everything transfers to the external monitor and keyboard/mouse with NO problems. I was originally cranky about having to buy E-Family docking equipment, but whatever they did to improve it over the D-family was worth the cash outlay.

Happy with my purchase. Still haven't figured out how/if I can use the SD card slot in the front for photo SD cards, so if anyone has an answer to that please post it. (post in language suitable for dummies, please!)

Jayne

 

I can confirm that the SD card reader reads SD and SDHC cards, in both FAT and NTFS formats. Of course, the cards in question were all formatted in a PC, not in a digital camera. That is an important distinction.

As a rule of thumb, when I want to use a SD card as a data storage or transfer device, in much the same way as a thumb drive, I format it using a computer. Similarly, I always make a point of formatting the SD card within the camera itself when I'm using it in the camera as an image/video medium.

Personally, I always transfer my digital images to my PC using a USB cable, which in turn requires finding updated Windows 7 drivers on the camera manufacturers website. So, as you can see, my SD card rarely leaves the camera body.

I am of course assuming that your E6410's internal SD card reader is fully functional?

 

Updated drivers apparently solved any issues. The surface area isn't huge, but there again, there's the old school point stick as well. In actually usage, I can't tell the difference between an ALPS and Synaptics touchpad?

"Angular" rather than "sharp." It's not "uncomfortable." The big difference is that Lenovo seems to bevel the forward edge of Thinkpad cases, which makes a lot of sense on the lower end models with out screen latches.

The T410 is more comparable to the Dell's Latitude E5410 than the E6410. I compared prices and went for the all-metal case E6410 over the all-plastic T410.

 

Glad to hear that updated drivers make it more useable. I can't use the pointing stick because of RSI issues.

Happy to hear it's comfortable for you. It doesn't work for me.

 

The groove along the wristpad is annoying since the hairs on my arm get stuck and its painful when they get ripped out I ended up putting black hockey tape one it (my previous post on this seems to have disappeared.)

Yes installing the new touchpad drivers helped, however I still think my old synaptics pad is better. This one still misses a lot of scrolling swipes.

Regarding my previous post on sound stuttering, I downloaded DPC checker and my DPC's were through the roof. After disabling the intel gigabit ethernet driver they dropped to the green. Let's see if this driver is responsible for the stuttering audio

 

Just for the sake of my curiosity, could someone give me an idea of how
my current desktop, a Dell Dimension 8400 with a Pentium P4, 3.0 Ghz,
4GB 266 Mhz RAM, Radeon HD4550, will compare to my upcoming E6410
with an i5-540 2.53 Ghz, 4GB 1066 Mhz RAM, internal Intel HD graphics ?

Just an overall idea of performance would be sufficient as I've had no
contact with recent machines and I'm wondering if I'll be getting a more
powerful computer or not.

The Dimension 8400 is still going strong after what, 5 or 6 years ? Not a
single problem and haven't reinstalled Windows XP since the initial setup
(I can't believe I'm up to 975,000 files...).

Paul P