E6420 Owner's Thread

Yeah I agree newer isn't always better. There's some things I don't update anymore such as wifi drivers if they work well. Made the mistake of updating my l521x wifi driver and it's been terrible ever since.

But updating graphics has always been good to me, I see a lot of improvement in battery life/ fps when I update. Also updating drivers for chipsets/controllers are usually good too.

But I guess I'll just have to wait until the e6420 comes in. If it's solid then I'll probably not do anything except remove bloat.

BTW, does your A15 bios have an option to turn off expresscharge?

 

Yes, from what I remember A15 allows you to turn off express charge. What's wrong with expresscharge, if you don't mind my asking?

I've personally been burned several times when it comes to updating GPU drivers. For example, at work we have several workstations where if you use Remote Desktop to connect to them, you will not be able to wake the screen up. The problem was introduced in a newer driver.

Either way, I recommend taking an image of the computer before you actually boot into Windows, that way you have the factory image backed up. If you have an issue you can just restore the image.

 

Usually batteries lose about 20% capacity per year but these "1 year warranty" batteries tend to wear even faster than that.

I don't think the battery charger will try to charge it unless it drops below a certain level.

Mine is reading 48~53C idle.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...-backlight-syncing-issue-cause-blown-lcd.html

Looks like a software brightness switch problem, maybe sets it too high and blows it up?

Use the stock drivers from support.dell.com. I just flashed A15, seems to be working. The earlier versions had that function and A15 has that function, though I'm not sure why you'd want to turn it off unless you were using a battery that didn't support it.

That is exactly why it doesn't work. You need to use the manufacturer-provided Intel drivers, otherwise the switch won't work.

 

I appreciate your reply (especially about the GPU temperature) but I have to disagree with you on the above point. The wireless switch worked fine in BIOS A14 and below, but not with A15. So it's not driver related, it is something with the BIOS. My guess is that the wireless switch doesn't work with the WWAN port in BIOS A15 but it does with the WAN port. Same issue in both Windows and Linux.

 

Kill the battery faster. It's going to stay plugged in most of the time so i don't need express charge. Trying to get this computer to last at least 4 years. But with a 3 year warranty, who knows, it might even get replaced

 

Hi guys!

I would like to ask about quad upgrading. I have an E6420 too with a 2430m and I would replace it. Right now I have A15 bios. Will it have any issues with the non familiar quads? I found it comes only with the 2760qm from factory, but may be it is easier for me to get an other i7 (2720qm or 2820qm).
So can I use them too or I should stay with the 2760qm?

Anyway is there a list anywhere which cpus could I use?

 

E6420,,, I updated my driver and that back light did go out. If you have a Dell laptop, stick to their recommended drivers. Mine lasted about 3 hours before the loss.

 

was able to snag a e6530 for next to pennies, so i plan on selling the e6420

What do you guys think it's worth(street value)?

specs are

i5-2520
750gb seagate drive
nvs 4200m
1600 x 900 led
8gb ddr3 ram
win 7 pro 64bit
microsoft office professional 2010
Adobe cs6 master collection

 

$480-$525 without software disks / $650-$750 with legal software disks.

Scott

 

I should probably ask the same question. I'm thinking about selling mine too. I wonder what mine is worth? It is MINT, kept in pristine condition.

I have:

Core i7 (dual core version)
HD+ screen
Nvidia graphics
8GB RAM
500GB hard drive

I also have an official OEM 320GB bay hard drive.

The warranty is Next Business Day + Complete Care + Gold Support good until 2/14/2015.

I don't have any special software installed, it has Windows 7 Pro 64-bit with the restore CDs.