E6420 Owner's Thread

It should work. SATA II/III are pin-compatible. It will just run at SATA-II (HDD) speeds.

 

Could anyone tell me if it is possible to replace motherboard in E6420 with motherboard from E6430 (QAL80 LA-7781P)? Does ports are in the same place etc.? Someone did this swap?

 

Hey guys, so I recently tried upgrading my screen for my e6420 from the 768p to 900p. I bought a dual channel ribbon cable code XJJFC purchased from http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-OEM-La...629?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5b133333c5 and the WJ139 screen. I got everything hooked up and my screen is really distorted as shown in the image I've uploaded. Anyone have any idea as to whether this is due to the ribbon cable or the screen? I have tested my original screen with the new dual channel ribbon with my old screen and it works just fine. I did notice that the webcam no longer works though. Anyone have any suggestions?

 

My daughter inherited my E6420, and has damaged the power socket. It looks like a replacement socket is less than $10 or so.

I've googled and a few tear-down guides go as far as to strip the E6420 down and remove the motherboard to get to the power cable, but that seems excessive!

Has anyone changed their power socket and can give me an idea of the difficulty before I start? Thanks!

 

Hello,

Does anyone have experience with upgrading or replacing the speakers in this laptop? Since I bought it, the volume has been so low that you can barely hear some videos. I am assuming something is wrong at this point, and that the speakers need to be replaced. Is that the issue or is the volume just really bad on these? Thanks

 

The speakers are not super loud, but definitely quite usable and of adequate volume in a domestic or office environment.

 

P.S. I would check the wiring to make sure the wires aren't broken or shorted

 

Just got an E6420 with a 1366x768 screen. To update it to 1600x900, do I need anything other than the new screen and the correct cable? Is the bezel the same for both screens?

Update: Figured it out from other posts and some net research. Screen and cable are all that's required, other than a couple hours of work. Was easy to do, and the results are excellent. I also added a backlit keyboard while I was at it.

 

Hey everyone, just added an E6420 ATG to my collection. Two questions: Does anyone know where to find the handle that attaches to the ATG? And if the ATG is supposed to keep dust out, isn't it odd that Dell would leave the DC jack exposed and not covered? Otherwise, it's a beast of a machine!

 

Just FYI:

Dell released a new BIOS for the E6420 models on September 30, 2015 labeled as BIOS revision A22. The info presented when you run the installer appears as follows:



The specific fix is listed as:

Installed without issues on my E6420, I noted its existence because I just did a clean fresh install of Windows 7 Pro x64 earlier and was checking for any potential updates and voila, there was one.

Here are the direct links to the pages for the given models (not direct to the download itself):

Dell E6420 model series - BIOS revision A22 released September 30 2015