E6420 Owner's Thread

^yeah, its super easy. Just pop off the bottom cover and the card goes right there...impossible to miss.

I found this card here.

Its on ebay, pretty cheap, its the Intel 6300 which is the best one you can get.

Get either the Intel 6300 or 6250 wireless card.

 

I got my E6420 with NVIDIA Quadro 4200m two weeks ago. I had a motherboard replacement after one week because I couldn't boot without the DVD in the mediabay (and with media bay batt). Dell service guy mentioned that numerous screws were missing, that also solved my "loose" left part of the chassis. Ok, problem solved, but new problem arised: heat buildup and thermal flip shutdown when using only minimal graphics.

Reading Neotrino's post (quoted below), i figured that his Heatsink-GPU connection was exactly my problem. But, instead of opening the case I decided to put pressure the keyboard... And to my surprise, voila, I could solve heat buildup manually. See my video YouTube - ‪My Dell Latitude E6420 with NVIDIA Quadro 4200m: Manual heat control‬‏
And voila, you immediately see the effect on temperature when pressing the keyboard around the letters SDF. In Ubuntu NVIDIA control panel, the Idle temp went from 65C to 51C, temp in high loads from 100+C to 65C. Fan noise immediately reduced...

Pretty funny: I have to press keys to prevent my system from overheating and shutting down when doing only minor OpenGL stuff.
But now I have to open up the case and hope that new paste will fix that issue...

 

Thanks, man. I really appreciate it.

Does anyone know if the graphics card on the E6420 can be upgraded?

 

^No, it cannot.

 

Finally got around to identifying the chips. Here is a photo for reference.

Thanks for all your help.

 

I would actually recommend purchasing from a vendor with a reputation rather than from Ebay, but it's up to you. Also, the 6300 chip isn't required; no one needs 450 Mbps and I doubt the 3x3 antenna makes much of a practical difference.

 

Damn. Well that's ok, I guess. It's actually been running some fairly demanding games with no hitches so far.

Yeah, I ended up getting the 6200 chip from Newegg. Thanks though.

 

I get 50C idle, one quick round of Furmark made it go up to 80C (though I didn't try to push it any further). Pressing ASD on mine doesn't seem to get the huge temperature delta you're seeing. It sounds more like it's missing a screw to hold the HS to the GPU, or maybe the main board isn't perfectly flat in the chassis or something. I would call them back and have them look at it.

 

Does the E6420 have an SD Card slot?

 

I am considering either purchasing this Dell e6420 laptop or the HP 8460.
For those who have used both or are familiar with both, do you recommend one over the other. If so, why.