E6410 Owner's Thread

There is a 28% off coupon for Latitudes online right now that expires on the 7th. I was able to configure the following model:

Intel® Core™ i7-620M (2.66GHz, 4M cache) with Turbo Boost Technology
4.0GB, DDR3-1333MHz SDRAM, 2 DIMMS
Internal English Backlit Keyboard
512MB NVIDIA NVS 3100M discrete graphics with ExpressCard
160GB 5400rpm Hard Drive
Fingerprint Reader and Contactless Smartcard Reader
14.1" UltraSharp™ WXGA+(1440x900) Anti-Glare LED with Premium Panel Guarantee
Mobile Broadband ready
Dell Wireless® 375 Bluetooth Module
Internal Modem
90W A/C Adapter (3-pin)
8X DVD+/-RW w/Roxio and Cyberlink Power DVD™, no media
Light Sensitive Webcam and Noise Cancelling Digital Array Mic
Intel® Centrino® Ultimate-N 6300 802.11a/b/g/n Half Mini Card
Latitude ON Reader
6-cell (60Wh) Lithium Ion Battery
3 Year Limited Warranty and 3 Year Mail-in Service
3 Year CompleteCare Accidental Damage Protection
Recovery Media for Genuine Windows® 7 Ultimate,64bit,Multiple Language
Resource DVD - Contains Diagnostics and Drivers


With the coupon, the price went from $1903 down to $1370. I'm really interested in this notebook, having used my trusty D810 for nearly 5 years. I was initially interested in the E6510, but the 16:9 ratio was a major turnoff and I would like something lighter and more mobile, while still very powerful. After looking at a bunch of netbooks and ULV systems, I decided I couldn't do without "business" notebooks.

With the coupon, will I be able to call Dell and possibly talk the price down some more? I was looking for a $1200-1300 budget. Also, I have owned dell notebooks since 2003, and have never had CompleteCare. Is CompleteCare worth the $100 that it costs?

 

Through my stubbornness and determination, I have managed to get the newer drivers installed. I am sure this procedure is not particularly original, and some of you may already be familiar with it, but I was able to get the drivers installed in the following steps:

1) Download the driver you intend to install directly from nVidia.
2) Run the .exe to extract the contents, but do not attempt to install the drivers.
3) Download the nVidia drivers for the E64xx/E65xx at the Dell driver section.
4) Run the .exe to extract the contents, but do not attempt to install the drivers.
5) Find the directory with the extracted Dell display driver contents and locate the two nvdm files, as well as the nven****_dl (can't remember the exact name) file which should follow these files if the folder is set to sort by name.
6) Copy these three files to the 'display' folder within the extracted nVidia display driver contents. You should have to overwrite the preexisting nvdm.cfg file.
7) Uninstall the default driver (if a display driver has already been installed)
8) Turn off your wireless (to prevent Windows from querying a driver) and reboot the computer.
9) Once the computer has fully loaded the desktop, go to the device manager and right click on the display device, which should read as 'Standard VGA', and select 'Update Driver".
10) Direct the install wizard to the extracted nVidia folder by browsing your local hard drive, to where you had copied the three files from the dell driver.
11) At this point, Windows should immediately locate the driver, and after a few moments, confirm whether you would like to install the 'unsigned' driver. Confirm that you will allow Windows to install the driver.
12) If you have followed all of the above steps, you should now finally have an updated driver, without any errors along the way. Reboot the computer and enjoy.

I have never had as much trouble installing new display drivers on any computer before the E6410. Then again, I have been using Windows XP for quite some time, and am not as familiar with workaround solutions such as this. I picked up this procedure by combining various tips from LaptopVideo2Go, much of which reiterated my original ideas for a workaround. This worked like a charm for me, after about 5-6 previous failures with slightly different procedures.

While I do not believe this process is news to most people here, I thought it could help someone who is having the same type of problems I experienced when trying to install a non-OEM display driver.

 

well i didn't get quite as hot of a deal as idunno's e6410, but i just bit on the following "Scratch & Dent" from the Outlet:

$659 before tax | $705 after tax

what do you guys think? i chose this over a Lenovo x301 that was going to be $1164 (older/slower HW but more portability) and a HP dv6tse that was also $1164 (although with a lot more HW in it). i have a 60GB OCZ Agility 2 SSD that i will put in it for the OS.

this is the first Dell I've bought for myself, and i'm a little leery about what to expect. my family has had Inspirons before and they were OK, but nothing special.

 

I think it's still a great deal, especially that you have equipped with the Nvidia solution.
If I had the Outlet in Canada: What I would have done is to get one like yours, assuming one with minimal damage, else I would return it. And replace wtv part that is scratch or dented to have it like new. Yes, Dell would sell the parts at a high price, but it would still come cheaper than buying it new. And add 3 year next business day in home service, if I would need the computer to be in my hand all the time, like now as I am a university student.

Excellent choice for the OS, and the rest of the specs.

I can't comment on HP business line systems, but Home HP system are vomit in quality, not to mention the whole set of crapness that comes with the system, and the lack of the OS disk which you purchase.. Oh sorry, to have them, you need to spend an addition 25$ for an IMAGE disk. Brilliant.

I don't know about Dell outlet systems, but my Dell (E6400) came with Windows Vista 64-bit (7 was not out, not even in Beta stages when I got my system) and driver/software on a separate disk. That was soo nice. And the system was junk free, which made me not require to re-install.

I hate you, I hate you very much

Inspiron is the very low end of Dell.. if you said they are OK, then getting this Latitude would be a nice step increase in quality and performance. Of course, don't expect invisibility and a super computer, but you know what I mean.

 

thanks for the comments GoodBytes! it is very reassuring. i look forward to getting the laptop by the end of the week and giving it a trial. i suppose if i don't like it, i'll have 21 days to send it back

 

Sorry for the poor English on my part on my previous post, I made it better.
I don't know the return time and policy (restock fee?) for Dell Outlet, so this is something you need to check. I know that for Dell purchase (new systems) in Canada, you have 21 days for return, and there are restock fees, but they wave it if you do an exchange, or have a valid reason and nice on the phone with them.

 

are there any threads or posts regarding mods for the e6410? i see there is a thread about adding another hard drive bay into the e6400, etc...

just curious about what i can add to the e6410, for instance, bluetooth, etc...

 

Congratulation on installing this driver.
Will this fixes the mouse jitter this laptop have?

Thanks

 

If you're referring to the touchpad, I do not recall having any of these issues since I reformatted the machine. I am using the latest input drivers from Dell, and have not noticed any jitter, though I certainly did experience this with factory settings. I honestly would be surprised if updating the display driver would have any impact on the touchpad performance, since the Dell nVidia driver seemed fairly stable, though I admittedly did not use the Dell driver post-install.

My personal recommendation for any new computer is to reinstall the operating system to save yourself from the potential for numerous headaches, and so far I have not encountered any particularly strange behavior. Another issue I did experience, however, involved Photoshop CS5. I have noticed that the program is highly unstable and will frequently produce errors when Preferences -> Performance -> GPU Settings has "Enable OpenGL Drawing" turned on. If anyone else has seen "disk errors" or "insufficient RAM" messages, it appears you will need to turn off GPU acceleration. I have thus far been unable to find a solution to reenable this option without compromising the performance and stability of the program, though if anyone else has any suggestions, please do let me know.

 

I am getting ready to purchase a new laptop for college and I think I have it narrowed down to a E6410, E6510, or a Vostro 3400/3500. What kind of battery life does the E6410 have? I have also read complaints about the screen. Is the screen that bad? What is the case made of?

Thanks in advance for any help.