E6410 Owner's Thread

I just picked up a DisplayPort to HDMI male cable a couple of days ago, and it should be arriving in the mail sometime soon. If no one provides you an answer to your question, I will inform you of my experience and how/(if) I manage to configure the adapter with my LCD TV.

Edit: Having no knowledge of your experience with configuring external displays, ensure that you attempt to set up the display via the nVidia Control Panel, under the " Display -> Set up multiple displays" menu option. At my university, numerous times I recall the instructors and other students having issues configuring external displays, who neglected to address the issue via the nVidia Control Panel. Once someone with a little intuition spoke up and traversed the menu to configure the devices, external display support worked perfectly. Of course, I could have offered up that solution, but sometimes it's more fun for me to watch other engineers struggle with mundane computer tasks

That may have nothing to do with why you are having issues, but I thought I would suggest it just in case. We all have those face palm moments with ourselves every now and then.

 

I have not installed any Control Point software and my ambient light sensor
works fine. I did install the driver for it though.

Paul P

 

From the Dell E-Series Image Guide:

"For Ambient Light Sensor (ALS), install the Dell Ambient Light Sensor Utility component of Control Point in addition to the System Manager Module. This component is applicable to Vista 32 & 64-Bit only, and is not required for XP 32 & 64-Bit and Win7 32 & 64-Bit

Note: Customers can obtain ALS feature by installing ALS utility in case Control Point System Manager is not desired and under Microsoft Windows Vista only."

This suggests you are running Vista?

GK

 

Thanks, Jakeworld. Please inform me of your experience when you receive it.

Yeah, I also went into Nvidia Control Center and the only thing it detects is the Laptop Display.

 

I mispoke. The driver I was thinking about was for the free-fall sensor.
I didn't install anything for the ambient light sensor, though I did activate
it in the BIOS (can't remember what the default was). If I set my screen
to auto (FN+left arrow) the brightness changes with ambient light so
something other than Control Point must be controlling things.

I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit.

 

I got this one.

I couldn't get my E6410 to work with my tv and I found out it is related to the Dell provided NVS 3100M driver (8.17.12.5729, A07)... I uninstalled it and installed the Windows provided driver (8.16.11.8974) and it worked after that. I don't think Dell tested the A07 driver very well.

 

Just in case anyone at home is playing along on the Linux front, here's what I found is working on Linux Mint (and probably Ubuntu):

- Webcam (out of the box)
- Sound (out of the box)
- nVidia graphics with Compiz (once drivers installed, yup)
- Touchpad and pointing stick (out of the box)
- Wired NIC (out of the box)
- Wireless NIC (Intel - out of the box)
- Bluetooth (out of the box)

What's not working:

- Internal Microphone (works on Windows, doesn't seem to work on Mint. I haven't fiddled with it yet though)
- Suspend (hangs the machine, goes to a plain white screen, hard disk spins down and then just sits there - had to hard power off to reboot)

What I haven't tested:

- Fingerprint reader (mainly because I won't use it)
- Memory card reader
- Smart card reader

If anyone has any advice regarding getting the internal microphone (so I can properly use Skype without booting back into Windows), I'd be appreciative.

 

Thanks for the clarification... good to know for anyone debugging ALS and/or preparing a clean install, which Dell prefers to call re-image.

GK

 

My E6410 Win7 x64 Re-Image Notes

6/10 Dell Latitude E6410 Core i7-620M 2.66GHz… nVidia Quadro NVS 3100M w/Express Card… 2x2GB DDR3-1333… WD 250GB HDD 7200RPM… TSST 8x DVD+/-RW… Intel 6300 802.11agn 3x3… Dell 375 BT… Modem… LGD0257 WXGA+ 14.1" 16:10 1440x900 LED LCD… Cam… Mic… Lit KB… 6-Cell… 3y Basic+Accidental… OEM MS BT Mouse 5000

References
o Dell Latitude E6410 Manuals
o Dell E-Family Re-Image Guide
o Mobile Intel QM57 Express Chipset
o nVidia Driver Downloads
o Intel Ethernet Controller 82577LM
o Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300

Hot Keys
o F2 boot to BIOS.
o F12 boot device menu.
0 Fn+F1 sleep/hibernate per power management setting.
o Fn+F2 battery charger ON/OFF.
o Fn+F3 DCP Power Manager Battery Status.
o Fn+F4 numlock ON/OFF for embedded Fn+numeric keypad.
o Fn_F5 scroll lock ON/OFF.
o Fn+F7 DCP.
o Fn+F8 display device.
o Fn+D display OFF/ON (conserve battery without shutting down entire system).
o Fn+Z reset fan temperature table and sensor.
o Fn+Right-Arrow keyboard illumination OFF/ON Auto ALS (lit upon input in dim lighting)/ON (lit upon input). Use DCP to set input device, brightness, and auto OFF delay.
o Fn+Left-Arrow display Ambient Light Sensor OFF/ON (brightness varies with ambient lighting).
o Fn+Up/Dn-Arrows override display brightness until boot to BIOS setting and/or power mananagement setting.
o Alt+Fn+F11 screen shot.

Notes
o Backup user files to another PC.
o Ensure all internal devices are installed and enabled; switch ON the Wi-Fi switch to enable those devices.
o Survey existing Device Manager to identify main devices you will be installing drivers for (SATA devices will vary for AHCI and IRRT modes).
o Place Dell downloads (drivers only, no optional apps/utilities) on a USB flash drive using install order folder structure below. Add steps/folders for any additional devices your system may have per the Dell re-image guide. Install order can be more critical from beginning up through networking. For older system, consider downloading select drivers directly from OEM website (Intel, IDT, nVidia) to get the latest greatest version. Note that Dell adds an audio component to their nVidia download to support audio out on the Displayport.
o Extract SATA AHCI drivers (using the drivers-only download package) to USB flash drive and load during OS install (select option to load driver). Otherwise, Win7 installs a default AHCI driver that must then be updated manually using the drivers-only download package. Note that the drivers-only download package does not auto-install the drivers... just extracts.... but the full drivers-and-IRST-application package auto-installs both drivers and application. So if you use the later, you cannot avoid installing the IRST application (which is not used in AHCI mode).
o Flash BIOS and any device firmware.
o Set BIOS SATA to AHCI (no RAID/IRRT and avoids installing IRST app). Also set BIOS battery charger to Standard... may help battery life.
o Boot F12 to Dell Diagnostics CD and run ALL tests to be sure the hardware is solid.
o Boot to Dell OS DVD to install OS, load SATA driver, delete any existing partitions, select 'ask me later' on Windows Updates. No key or activation is required with Dell OS DVD.
o Install device drivers in order. Reboot liberally to be sure installs are complete and to avoid compounding an install glitch with another installion. No TPM, no vPro, no fingerprint reader, no smartcard reader, not using AMT, not using Control Vault. Right-Click disable Broadcom USH device in Device Manager to dismiss yellow bang.
o Run Windows Update; select only device drivers first (there should not be any and beware/hide any older versions offered).
o Run drive cleanup and defrag.
o Install anti-virus.
o Run Microsoft Updates (Silver Light).
o Install remaining apps (Adobe Flash, Oracle Java, Adobe Reader, Cobian Backup, printer drivers, Office, Microsoft Updates, Windows Live Essentials e-mail client, etc). Note that Win7 does not required any add-on media player codecs.
o Tweak software preferences. Consider NOT allowing automatic Windows Updates... instead, do these at your convenience.

Install Order
0 BIOS (none, up-to-date)
0 Device firmware (none, up-to-date)
0 OS Win7 Pro x64 (Dell OS DVD; select option to load pre-OS SATA AHCI driver from USB)
1 Chipset Mobile Intel 5 Series (QM57) (plus Ricoh SD driver)
2 Dell System Software
3 PCMCIA SmartCard (none, Express Card)
4 Intel Storage (none, installed AHCI mode drivers during OS install above; skipped IRST app)
5 Audio IDT 92HD81B
6 Video NVIDIA Quadro NVS 3100M
7 Intel Turbo Boost (run setup)
8 LAN Intel 82577LM Gigabit Ethernet
9 Dell DCP Security Drivers (prerequisite for 16 below) (skipped, no readers)
10 WLAN Intel 6300
11 WPAN Dell 375 BT (used custom installer package)
12 WWAN (none)
13 Touchpad
14 Free Fall Sensor (on MB)
15 Modem
16 Intel vPro or AMT (no vPro, skipped AMT)
17 Dell Control Vault (skipped, not used)
18 Dell DCP Managers (DCP System Manager only)
19 Dell Webcam Central (Dell application CD)

WEI 5.1, CPU 6.8, RAM 5.9, GPU 5.1 (5.9 gaming), HDD 5.9

GK

 

Using Fedora 13, I found that sound worked immediately using pulseaudio if I used the default graphical login (at runlevel 5) in gnome. When I switched to a more 'lightweight' system, starting at runlevel 3 and running startx, using openbox or ctwm as window manager, I had to use packagekit and gstreamer, neither of which I understand, and run gnome-volume-control to get sound started after booting (but not after hibernate/resume). There's more on my linux-laptop web site
here.

However nothing I have done on linux has got the built in mic (part of webcam I think) to work, though the webcam worked immediately (running 'cheese'). So I use an external mic (part of an old headset), which probably is better for noise anyway.

I have intel graphics working (caution needed if using external monitor or projector), as mentioned previously. I think not all linuxes have the required driver at present.

For me touchpad and track-stick work in F13, except that I can't use a sliding movement to scroll, which works on touchpad on Dell D610 on linux. Maybe a new driver is needed and will be added. Does scrolling work on mint or Ubuntu?

I have not tried bluetooth (never used or needed it).

I don't use suspend, but had problems with hibernate (pm-hibernate) and switched to tuxonice kernel plus hibernate. (Software-suspend 2).
That works, but I had to increase swap size. Twice as much swap as RAM wasn't enough, so I went to 2.5 times and so far that seems OK.

On my configuration (described in more detail on my web site) Skype works nicely with external mic (from an old headset). I had to reduce the default level as indicated by gnome-volume-control to about 30% or 40%, otherwise it's very noisy. That may also depend on the mic. I found it easer to use gnome-sound-recorder than skype's test call to get the settings right, then checked with skype.