E6410 Owner's Thread

Yea Windows 7 Pro recognized the new screen immediately, no need drivers etc. needed. It somehow disabled my pointing stick though (The Dell Touchpad app didn't recognize the pointing stick being installed) and the pointing stick was acting all wonky. Maybe an IRQ conflict or something. A quick reboot fixed it though and I rebooted 2 more times just to make sure and everything seems to be working fine.

 

I guess this feature is useful for individuals who purchase this laptop.
For instance, with Office 2010 Web now, as a student, it is a great solution for very long school days, where I can type all my notes all day, without worrying about battery life.

 

It should not be a problem, maybe for some reason the drivers stop responding.... if it happens all the time when you do this, check out for an older or newer driver.

 

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I have a new E6410 NVS 3100M with the LGD0257 WXGA+ LED display, and an older E6400 NVS 160M with a SEC5442 WXGA+ LED display. They are both very good displays, very usable, not something I'd consider returning. They seem very similar in overall image quality and viewing angles. The newer display is as good as if not better than the older display.

Not sure if the video circuit is a factor here, but with desktops, the video card can make a big difference in the image quality... inferior video can make a high quality monitor look poorly.

The viewing angles seem 'normal'. If I can adjust the display for a fine image for me, I'm happy. If people nearby have trouble seeing my display, I'm happier.

GK

 

So I'm playing with my E6410 right now, and I noticed that the machine does not do well coming out of stand-by mode. I've put the machine in stand-by four times, and the machine would not successfully come out of stand-by all four times. Sometimes it will show the desktop with icons, but I cannot move my mouse or type anything. Sometimes it will just show the background. Basically I have to restart the machine.

Do I have a defective machine or something?

Specs are Core i5 540
250GB
4GB RAM
XP Pro SP3

 

Many things are wrong...
It's very hard to diagnose because you run a Windows that is soooo ridiculously old, it doesn't even know have the technology you have in your system. While your system "Work" nothing is being take advantage off.

Let's have a look:
- You paid for 4GB of RAM, but you use 3.x GB of it
- You have a SATA drive with a SATA controller, where you lock it down to IDE (legacy mode, so that XP can detect your drive), preventing your HDD to use NCQ for increase performance, and use properly your eSATA port
- You have a graphic card which waste power, and makes your CPU struggle for drawing Windows UI. CPU suck at drawing... GPU's are there for that... so basically you waste power as your GPU is continuously turn on (obviously). Aero uses your GPU to draw the interface, providing you with mode power for your system to do other things, and even help a bit on battery life (especially if you move your mouse a lot, have a wallpaper, and move/scale windows a lot).
- Your GPU, Wireless card, Bluetooth, etc. all use PCI-E. That's going the fun when you'll re-install XP.
- You paid for a 64-bit CPU, and you lock it down to 32-bit.
- You paid for a multi-core CPU which your OS can't properly benefit from it. Having an OS itself using it, will providing an overall system performance increase and responsiveness to your other programs. XP own processes and kernel was designed for single core CPU's meaning it will go on either your core, but can't take multiple cores simultaneously to get the job done faster.
- You have 4 (well ~3) GB of RAM, which you don't use. XP memory management was designed for 128, 256, 512MB of RAM, not 1GB+. So basically, XP memory management approach is to act as if you are low in memory no mater the amount of memory you have. This means it dumps everything it can in your page file instead of using your RAM which is extremely faster... making a computer run slowly.
- Sleep mode doesn't work properly in XP and older Windows especially with new motherboard sleep states technology.
- XP is no longer supported by Microsoft (critical updates only until 2012).
- XP and all 32-bit Windows is limited to 2TB of HDD disk space.
- XP is bombarded with security holes and issues
- XP has no auto-maintenance system, forcing you to re-install XP every now and then to keep max peak speed (assuming you defrag a lot you HDD).
- XP is bombarded with bugs.. you don't see them because you got used to it.. get to use Vista SP1 or Win7 for a few months, and you'll never touch an XP machines as it's so buggy.


So in conclusion, many hardware technologies goes under a compatibility mode, which reduces system performance and can cause system problems, which makes it very hard to diagnose the problem. In addition, you just wasted money as you are not using what you paid for, and might as well return your system and get one less powerful, saving you money.

If I was you, I would return the system, and re-order it with Windows 7 64-bit, for the best experience out of your new system.Also, on your re-order, call to order as you can negotiate free upgrade and/or reduce price, to make your system a better deal.

Win7 wake up speed (this is completely true):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK-nMQiLzts

 

No offense, but your post was way too long winded that didn't really help me diagnose my current problem. I also didn't ask whether I "wasted my money" on this system. That's WAY off topic to my original question. (FYI: I bought it from the Dell Outlet, and the price I got for this was just as equal to your suggested "less powerful model").

Anyone have suggestions or a similar case?

 

Can you test standby mode in safe mode? If it works, then may suggest an installation issue... not sure where to look for that... given its a just received new 64-bit platform running XP, me I would clean install Win7 x64 and trust the issue to go away.

Does standby cache in memory? Could a memory issue be defeating standby?

Could bang on the hardware with Dell Diagnostics to see if that turns up something. I'd want to do this anyways on an outlet purchase.

GK

 

GoodBytes acts like you have Windows 3.1 on it or something, instead of an OS that still holds almost 65% of the market share.