E6420 Owner's Thread

I am need a bit of help/advice.

I own a e6420 with the Intel HD 3000 video card. Last winter (Dec2011) I attempted to improve the video performance for games and updated the Intel HD3000 video drivers with drivers from Intel directly(not the Dell drivers). Within a few minutes of the driver install my back light burned out. I was able to discover that the drivers were indeed the problem thanks to other users on this forum. (Link to Thread) I rolled back to the latest Dell drivers and was able to get a replacement screen installed and all has been fine since. I have since updated with only offical DELL updates.

The problem is a common one with Dell. Dell has not provided a HD3000 video driver update since Feb2012 which brought the Intel driver up to version 2418(a 6month old driver at the time). Intel has made massive improvements in the driver over the last year with the latest driver being 2875(Oct2012).

A co-worker with the same laptop has installed the Intel sourced 2875 driver and, as of yet, has not experienced a back-light problem. My google-fu has not been able to confirm that the Intel drivers are safe to use. I would very much like to update the video drivers so that I can gain the improvements and actually play some games that are currently full of errors on the 2418 drivers(Guild wars 2) but would like a second opinion on the risk of burning out the back light again.

Can anyone confirm if the intel sourced HD3000 drivers are safe/risky to use on the e6420?

 

I can't confirm it, but I don't see why they wouldn't be safe to use. The driver doesn't dictate how the backlight behaves as far as I'm aware. I'd wait for other opinions before proceeding though.

 

I don't see how a driver could possibly burn out a backlight. I'd say it's a coincidence unless someone knows something different. I work in corporate IT and have rolled out a bunch of E6420's with Intel graphics and not one has had this issue. If it were a driver issue. I'd think I'd have seen it by now. I wouldn't worry about it. Unless the performance is terrible, I'd say to stick with Dell's posted driver because if it did have some sort of bad impact, you can blame Dell directly if you're using their driver.

 

About to get a refurb e6420 delivered.

First time with a refurb and a business class laptop. Any ideas on what I should do first?

Clean install + new drivers?

 

When I got both of mine, there was very little in the way of bloatware, so I'd say keep it as is and just uninstall the 1 or 2 unnecessary programs there might be. For me the worst was Roxio which is basically adware so I installed CD Burner XP instead. You might find a Trend Micro demo or Dell Backup or something like that but that's the most I can remember. The E6420's I have came pretty clean out of the box. I wiped out Windows and installed Linux after playing with the Windows install, but I was happy with how clutter free it seemed to be for me.

 

Dell's business notebooks are pretty clean as far as bloatware goes, my precision had the trend micro trial and the premier color software (which is useless for the non IPS display). I still did a clean sintall, but mainly because the first thing I did was swap the HDD for a SSD.

 

Thanks! Just got my xps 15 l521x for school back in September and it came with so much bloatware but I ended up swapping the HDD for an SSD and doing a clean install.

Used the promo card from the l521x to get a e6420 for a total of $518 shipped. It's already coming with a 256gb Samsung P830 ssd so I don't have to replace the HDD. :thumbsup:

I've pretty much read through this entire thread but still can't figure out what the intel driver problem was? This was pretty early on in perhaps December 2011/January 2012. Someone said they installed an intel driver and it was bad for the e6420?

So I'm just wondering what drivers I should update and what bios I should use. Any drivers I should avoid?
Newest bios is A15. Not sure what mine will come with yet but I'm just hoping it comes with a bios that allows me to turn off expresscharge.

 

I recommend to use the drivers it comes with as-is. Windows Update may upgrade your drivers, and you can let it. I've never had any issues with the drivers on this model. If it works fine, don't bother updating anything.

I upgraded to BIOS A15 and now I can no longer turn my wireless off. The wireless stays on even if the switch is off. This may be because I'm not using the wireless card Dell provided, but it worked fine before A15. That's the only issue I've ever had.

 

I've found for my xps 15, windows update doesn't update the drivers even though there's a newer version out. I had to manually install the drivers.
I was probably only going to run the intel auto updater and maybe install new video drivers

 

Right, Windows update may or may not have updated drivers for the machine. But my question is, why bother upgrading the drivers anyway? If you're laptop is running fine, I say let it be. If it isn't broke, don't fix it. I've seen newer drivers have issues, newer isn't always better. Out of the box, the E6420 is solid.