E6420 Owner's Thread

That definitely is a good reason to return it. I have to wonder if the motherboard flexes when the bottom chassis separates from the top? In my long, long experience, if it has a noticeable issue out of the box, it's post to return it.

At this point, I'm starting to wonder about the ruggedness of this business rugged notebook?

 

Dell must be knowingly dumping a first run of bad parts, hoping some won't come back. They have got to realize that the chassis popping apart is not going to cut it and will mean a very high return rate.

GK

 

Yes, it keeps the Outlet stocked. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that the Dell outlet allows for painless returns, and it allows Dell to dispose of returns for almost the same price as the new inventory. It's great business model. People will pay just about the same price for an returned unit at the Outlet that a I paid for a new unit after negotiating.

 

That got me thinking...so I connected a VGA cable to the notebook while docked and connected it to a monitor. At the same time I opened the lid on the computer, guess what happened? This:

Even though the picture appears incredible promising, the end result was a bit less. The monitor connected via VGA stayed blank no matter what options I selected, so the capability appears to be:

2 external monitors plus the LCD panel, so 3 active screens.

Yes, the replacement also has artifacting on the window edge while moving around. In fact, I even disabled OPTIMUS (therefore enabling the NVIDIA card) and the problem persisted.

One interesting thing about it however, it only appears on the notebook LCD. When docked, this the artifacting does not appear on the external monitors.

Yep, my replacement notebook has issues as well: chassis separation, loose latch and bad battery clips.

Dell has a total of 7 screws holding on the back panel of the e6420; 5 of them are in the back, and 2 connect to the hard drive. The front is held on by only clips. If Dell would have used 2 more screws for the front, the chassis separation would be a non-issue. Though a better design would be preferred, as the e6410 was successful with only 1 screw.

The keyboard flex is also noticeably worse on the e6420...and keys 4&5 and 9&0 pitch in toward each other...lol.

I am sending both e6420's back for a full refund and am sticking with my e6410.

Dell has made some critical errors with the e6420 and the result is a refund.

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BUILD QUALITY: e6410 > e6420

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What is the model number of the DVD drive used in the E6420 and what is the height (9.5mm vs. 12.7mm)? And does anyone know if this is the same drive used in the E6520?

 

To everyone complaining about the bottom cover popping off, try removing the cover completely and making sure the catches on the front are properly placed. I did that on mine when I got it a week ago (it was initially popping off if you looked at it wrong), and it hasn't acted up since. I love this laptop, except for the speakers, and I'm coming from a 15" Sandy Bridge MBP.

 

lol popping off if you look at it wrong. I get mine on Wednesday and shall give it some real dirty looks just to be sure.

 

Thanks for the tip! Try some Audioengine 2 desktop speakers! Not portable but great sound.

GK

 

Given all the discussion of the bottom clips, I just realized I have no idea how they were when mine arrived - literally the first thing I did on arrival was pop the bottom off and upgrade the memory ... it's definitely a little tricky to get it installed right after taking off,

After 5 days, I remain very pleased. VERY, very fast under Linux if you have the kernel set up to handle turbo properly - this matches pretty nearly the speed of my i7-960 desktop at work doing compile jobs. And unlike some other models (E6500 worst of all) I've yet to see ANY sign of thermal throttling or even dipping all the way to rated speed - seems to stay at 26-28x/2.6-2.8ghz even in 10+ minute compile jobs with all 4 cores going.

I haven't had a chance to Windows games on it but if it's half the gaming machine. The speakers are the only bad part, and I keep hoping I will find some software tweak to boost volume that will fix it. Ah well; having come from the D6xx series with their mono speaker (albeit a loud-ish mono one) it is not all bad.

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For the questions re: Optimus up-thread -

with Optimus enabled - Xorg sees only the Intel card and uses Intel drivers but Nvidia card is visible in lspci, so not entirely powered off.
with Optimus disabled - intel card is entirely invisible. Xorg sees only nvidia card, lspci sees only nvidia card.

 

I just ordered my own E6420 and have a few questions for lucky owners:

1. I ordered the 256GB SSD option - which model did you get ?

2. I currently own a E6400, will the docking station be compatible with the E6420 ?

3. I currently own a non-dell 2nd drive bay hard drive, used in my E6400 (Seagate 500GB 2nd drive). Will the bay be compatible with the E6420 ? If not, did you find compatible ones ?

4. Is the Dell 5540 WWAN mini-card compatible with the E6420 ?

Thanks a million.