E6420 Owner's Thread

on some dell laptops they use thermal adhesives on the CPU heatsink/pipe combination, so you may find it quite hard to get the CPU out without wrecking something

 

I don't think it's possible at least without any modding, but I haven't actually heard of anyone trying. In general you aren't supposed to be able to put Ivy CPUs with Sandy chipsets (in the mobile space), even though the other way around works fine...

 

That's what I thought. Even with it being two generations old, Sandy Bridge still holds its own. First upgrade though will be the screen. I can't do 1366x768 anymore.

 

Looking at upgrading CPU in my 6420 and have some questions.

System has a i5-2520 currently. I presume this is second gen i5. I believe I can put in any second gen up to i7 but would like confirmation and any comments about relative improvement and risks. Am I right in looking for any i7-2xxx CPU? Would I be better off with a faster i5? I am not necessarily looking for the max CPU, just a good bang for the buck upgrade.

I just had a fan replaced under warranty and updated the BIOS whil I was at it. Seems to run a bit quicker now.

I noticed online that there are a couple different cpu heatsinks for the 6420. Mine has a single copper pipe to the fan, I saw one on an auction site that had two copper pipes. Are these required for higher CPU's? The two pipe unit I saw did not appear to be configured for discrete graphics

Also my unit has integrated graphics, I presume that means I cannot install discrete graphics?

Running Win 7 Pro 64 bit, A08 BIOS and want to increase RAM. manual says 8 gig max. Is this truly a hard limit? I have seen anecdotal info on other dells that they would actually see and use more than the max RAM specified by Dell.

I did a cursory forum search for CPU upgrade threads but did not see much, may not have used right key terms

Thanks in advance for any info.

PS One last comment.

I used to use notebookforums but have not been able to access them for a couple of weeks. Any insight as to whether they are they closed for good?

 

You can indeed use basically any i7 (unofficially including quads too, I think). That being said, the 25x0 parts are basically the sweet spot in the SB lineup as far as price/performance goes... you really can't get much faster without rapidly diminishing marginal returns.

There are dual and single heatpipe heatsinks for dGPU... I don't believe such is the case for IGP. I also don't know whether one is better and/or the two are just made by different ODMs.

Yes, you would have to replace the motherboard to get discrete graphics.

Typically yes, these limits are typically just the maximum amount for which the system has been validated... ie 8GB DIMMs were not widely available at the time of development.

 

Presumably the two pipe heat sink would fit in my unit, even though I have IGP, if I decided to bump the CPU to something like a 2760QM. It looks like the GPU portion of the sink would just be hanging in the air

Is that yes the max in the manual is correct, or yes you can put more in and it might work?

Thanks very much for your comments, I appreciate the info. Going to try RAM first, the 2760QM is over $120 used at the moment. If it comes down it might be worthwhile. Maybe next year when the warranty expires.

Realized that the reason I only saw BIOS A08 on the download list was that I was on A06. I went back to the site after installing A08 and found A21 so now running that.

Thanks again for all comments.

Blueman2

 

That may not necessarily be the case: you can use the E6400 IGP motherboard with the dGPU heatsink, but the E6410 IGP motherboard has chokes that interfere with the dGPU heatsink.

Yes, you can probably put in more and it should work.

 

Commander Wolf,

Thank you for sharing the benefit of your knowledge and experience.

If necessary I could probably trim the GPU sink a bit with ye olde Dremel. Won't have to worry about it till next year, if then.

Thanks again.

 

Well, it's been almost 3 years since E6420 came out, since my 3 yr warranty is almost up. How is everyone's units holding up?

- My 9-cell 87Whr (3-yr warranty) battery only reads 20% wear. Not sure if they're offering the good battery in the bundles anymore.
- Some of the black paint from the backlit keyboard has been flaking off on the orange number keys.
- (aftermarket upgrade) Crucial 16GB RAM (2x8GB) DDR3-1600 working great.
- (aftermarket upgrade) Samsung 830 500GB drive in the system for a bit over a year, though it has weird intermittent lockups once every two months
- Since re-image, Optimus is still not working right.
- Minor scuffs and scratches, mostly along the metal band that goes around the case (silver paint being scratched off).
- Top surface of the service tag sticker has flecked off.
- E-Port Plus docking station still works fine (no weird dock problems with DisplayPort or other stuff).
- Still never configured the fingerprint reader or the smartcard reader.

All in all, still works great and holds its own. Shooting to keep it for 5+ years before swapping it out.

 

Well, mine has been doing great until my trip to Europe in March this year, almost 3 years since I first got my e6420.

I left the Dell charger at home by mistake. Ended up buying a non-genuine one at Heathrow airport. It came with a bag of adapter ends that you interchanged depending on the brand of notebook. I used the Dell-style one. Only thing is, there were only two prongs in the plug, not 3 like the standard Dell adapter. I was desperate at the time, so I gave it a go. It worked fine for my three week stay in Europe, then on arrival back home in Australia, something happened. The non-genuine adapter plug was loose, and fiddling around with it to get it to stay in the laptop, I must have shorted something (but not sure). My battery would no longer charge.

I took the e6420 and docked it into the e-port replicator. It charges the battery fine, but I get the message in Windows 7, to the effect, that I have 2 adapters plugged in, one on the charging port of the laptop and one in the e-port docking station. It says the one in the charging port of the laptop is not a genuine adapter.

Funny thing is, there is no adapter plugged into the charge port of the laptop when this message comes up. It happens every time I dock the laptop into the e-port replicator.

Now here is something else. If I have the genuine dell adapter plugged into the port replicator the battery charges when docked. If I take the same adapter and unplug it from the port replicator and instead plug it into the laptop charging port (on the laptop) and only while the laptop is docked, it charges the battery. The moment I undock the laptop, it fails to charge the battery from the charging port of the laptop, even though the adapter is still plugged in.

The only way to charge my laptop on the road, is to carry the port replicator along with me, which is a bit ridiculous.

I am just wondering if this is a repairable thing?

Cheers,
PaulC