E6420 Owner's Thread

Well, I've used touchpad scroll for many years and it's a must for me. You can't configure any other settings you'd like either, maybe except sensitivity.

 

Yes they have. But this one is better.

 

Hi Dreamliner330,

Did you get refund (or did they promise that you get it, is there a restocking fee)? What problems have you mentioned to Dell?

I do have the same problem on the window edge while moving around. (I have tried to enable/disable the OPTIMUS function. I got the same result, so I guess it is independent from the video card /at least from Intel HD 3000 and 4200M/.) I have not experienced this problem on external monitors as you described.

I have reinstalled the OS. Windows 7 does not recognize my external hard drive, when I connect it. If I restart the system (the external drive still connected), everything is working OK. I can access my data.
(I do not have any problems in the device manager.) Does anybody has the same issue?

If you reinstall your OS, the Undefined Device is the Free Fall Sensor. If you install its driver that problem will disappear.

What I like:
+ fast (i7-2720QM) (Notes: I have only 2 GB ram, but i am waiting for 8GB, and I do NOT use SSD)
+ silent /you can use dell's predefined power plans, battery life is good NOW/
+ built-in mic is better than in the E6400
+ WebCam: I can capture 1920*1080 resolution videos with dell webcam central (see -)
+ speakers are in the front (I usually use external display, and I close the lid.)
+ lid quality is definitely better than E6400

What I do NOT like:
- some quality /quality feelings/ problems - except lid
- chassis separation.
- does not have the option to switch OFF the battery charging. (My 2 years 'old' laptop E6400 still have around 5 hour battery life, because I usually disabled the battery charging, and I tried to keep the battery level around 60-80%. Sometimes I fully charged /let's say every third week/ and used it while dropped down to 30-40%.)

- Unfortunately, I guess Webcam central driver/software has some bugs. I did have a skype call it worked fine, I turned it off after a few minutes I tried to turn it on again and it did not work.

- wide space around the screen, and the screen is smaller than e6400
- headphone mic combo

Thanks,
-- L.

 

Does everyone have this issue? This seems really strange, as if there is some kind of jpeg compression going on in the internal screen.

Hmm perhaps I should buy a used E6410 or a Vostro after all...

 

Yes; the E-docks we have at my work (purchased with E6500s) work with the E6420.

I would not expect it to; the optical drive from either the E6410 or E6500 will not quite fit. The slim drive fits but the latching mechanism does not. Given some work you might be able to swap the latch unit. Also the faceplate profile is different but it looked like that would more be an issue with an E6x20 drive on an older machine than from an older machine on an E6x20 (where it would be a bit too short but that would just be a visual defect.)

No idea, but we have a lot of extra E6500 AT&T wwan cards (not sure of the model) at work and was planning to borrow one to see if I could get it working for GPS. Please do report back what you find.

The out of the box CentOS 5.5 kernel, and the one on the systemrescueCD 2.1 beta both did not seem to get into any turbo modes, and maxed out at 2.2ghz (even manually powering down cores.) It may have been as simple as having been set to the "performance" governor. We have a lot of Nehalem (Xeon X55xx) servers at work and I know we've been able to get Turbo working well on those on CentOS but I don't remember what if anything we needed to change or if it's simply a matter of the Sandy Bridge chips being too new for those kernels (heavily patched 2.6.18.)

I like i7z for reporting turbo speeds on Linux.
https://code.google.com/p/i7z/ - note for the Sandy Bridge you will need to compile the beta version from https://code.google.com/p/i7z/source/checkout

To mess with the governors, in case you aren't familiar (or for others who aren't) eg:
cat /devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_governors
cat /devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor
echo ondemand > /devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor

Using my home-compiled kernel on Gentoo, it worked great; am not sure whether I get better results with ondemand or conservative governor but both seem to work pretty well and depending on how long the CPU stays maxed out seem to sit in the 2.6ghz to 2.8ghz range even with all 4 cores going.

I can post a .config file or a few of the more important options, but I would hope an up to date version of debian would already be set up for turbo (then again I would have said the same thing about systemrescueCD which is Gentoo based. Was very surprised.)

I have not tried much more yet; I mostly run Windows for personal stuff when mobile and use Linux for development work docked. Thank you for passing on that URL, I will definitely try it out further.

I use Gentoo, and am building out a fresh install rather than upgrading an old one. I also did some initial tests with CentOS 5.5 because it was handy - it is what we run on all the

Backlit keyboard works with the usual hot key.

Wifi card (intel 6300, can say the same about 6200 in my wife's E6410 and 4965 in my old D630) works beautifully under Linux with the stock kernel driver and wpa_supplicant. If the distribution does not have the right firmware already (or a package along the lines of iwl6000-ucode) you can download it from http://intellinuxwireless.org/?p=iwlwifi

SD card reader and TPM both work.

Bluetooth and webcam both are recognized by drivers but I have not tested either.

I do not have the smartcard or accelerometer drivers loaded yet to see if they works.

I do not have WWAN.

I am not sure if there is any way to get the fingerprint reader to work under Linux or any of the other USH features (

Hotkeys for screen brightness does not seem to work. It seems to load the "dell_laptop" and "backlight" drivers which probably put these under software these with the right other settings in X; I am still getting my X environment set up.

No guarantee of how accurate my wife's scale is, but:

E6420 w/ 6 cell and DVD-RW: 5lb 7oz
E6410 w/ 6 cell and DVD-RW: 5lb 1.25oz (w/ 9 cell and DVD-RW: 5lb 6.25oz)
D630 w/ 6 cell and DVD-RW: 5lb 6.25oz (w/ 9 cell and DVD-RW: 5lb 12.5oz ...)

Somewhere around I have a dead 6-cell modular bay battery, which would be how I usually carried my D630 (9cell+6cell, no optical) ... pretty sure that would put it over 6lb for sure. Sorry no 9-cell for the D6420 yet, was hoping it would still use the E6500 batteries we have a ton of at work when I ordered it.

 

Am I missing something? Or is there no light sensor for the keyboard? I put the backlight at 50% and anytime I type it comes on. I'm in a well lit room so it should not come on. I would think it would only come on as needed.

 

Sadly, I do not think you are missing anything. As far as I can tell there is no "auto" mode for either the keyboard backlight or for the screen brightness.

 

I am seriously torn here. I am trying to like this new machine. The 1600x900 screen sealed the deal for me....and the two finger scroll is awesome. I keep coming across little "gotchas" that are irritating me and will drive me loony toons.

Dislikes so far:
1) The backlit keyboard either on or off is just LAME.
2) It looks more like it should be Vostro branded opposed to Latitude. My E6410 is just so much more "business" looking.
3) Fingerprint reader does not work quite as well as my E6410.

 

^all shall come to the same conclusion as me...in time.

 

No quad core makes the E6410 a non-starter for me.
E6420 = fast enough to replace my work desktop.

Only other options were 15". Had Lenovo produced a 14" model with an i7-2720M (or higher), Dell would probably have lost a customer to them.