E6420 Owner's Thread

^its probably not a compatible screen. This is why you dont mess around with laptop screens.

 

I'm an engineer. "Messing around" with things is what I do and I wouldn't discourage anyone from doing it. The XPS forum has multiple threads full of people who have successfully upgraded their laptop display to the one I bought, which is ironic since the 14" XPS doesn't even come with a 1600x900 display option!

I can confirm that the E6420s with the 1366x768 panels do indeed have a single channel LVDS cable. At least the European built models do. I guess DELL thought it better to save some fraction of a penny on the cable than offer a legitimate upgrade option to their customers.

I'm going to look into getting a dual channel cable but it seems the complexity of routing it to the MB may be prohibitive.

 

That's if you don't mind voiding your warranty and living life on the edge. And if you can afford the downtime if it falls over.

Now that I have a new laptop, I've been finding myself looking at potential ways of upgrading the old one. Wouldn't think of trying that on my new one, though.

It's not really intended to be upgraded after it leaves the factory, so you can't really blame them.

The 1600x900 panel I got when I order my E6420 was a Samsung SEC544B, IIRC. Not sure if it's single channel on mine, but if it were I'd suspecting that might be partly the reason for not offering higher than 1600x900.

 

Hello,

i have a Latitude E6420 with dell ush w/swipe fingerprit sensor and Win7 x64

unfortunately can use this just for the windows lgon, not for the other programs with password query.

Is there an alternative for the dell software or is it just wrong configured?

 

I've talked to Dell Tech Support about this, they said that upgrading the screen or CPU won't void the warranty, they just won't help you with any problems regarding those parts unless you put the old parts back in.

 

That's good to hear.

Though the next question would be, where on earth do you find a 14" 1920x1080 panel? Appears Samsung doesn't have and 1600x900 is far as it goes:

SAMSUNG's Digital World

 

Current E6420 build:

Processor Intel® Core™ i5-2520M (2.50GHz, 3M cache) with Turbo BoostTechnology 2.0

Operating Systems Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, No Media, 64-bit, English

Productivity Software Microsoft Office Starter: reduced-functionality Word and Excel with ads. No PowerPoint or Outlook


Hardware Support Services 3 Year Basic Hardware Service with 3 Year Mail-in Service

System Recovery None

Security Software None

Memory 2.0GB, DDR3-1333MHz SDRAM, 1 DIMM

Primary Storage 250GB 7200rpm Hard Drive

E-Modular Hard Drive None

Primary Battery 6-cell (60WH) Primary Lithium Ion Battery

Additional Power Options 3-Cell (30WH) E-Modular Lithium Ion Battery

Primary Optical Device 8X DVD+/-RW w/Roxio and Cyberlink Power DVD™, no media

Wireless LAN (802.11) Intel® Centrino® Advanced-N 6205 802.11a/b/g/n Half Mini Card

Systems Management No Out-of-Band Systems Management

Camera/Microphone Light Sensitive Webcam and Noise Cancelling Digital Array Mic

Bluetooth Dell Wireless® 375 Bluetooth Module

Fingerprint and Contactless Smartcard Reader No Fingerprint Reader and No Contactless Smartcard Reader

LCDs 14.0" HD+(1600x900) Anti-Glare LED-backlit with Premium Panel Guarantee

Internal Keyboard Internal English Backlit Dual Pointing Keyboard

Graphics nVidia® NVS™ 4200M 512MB DDR3 Discrete Graphics for Dual Core

Questions:


Drop $75 for Intel® Core™ i5-2410M (2.30GHz, 3M cache) with Turbo BoostTechnology 2.0?

Will buy separate RAM from newegg to upgrade to 4 or 8GB? Hopefully, someone posted this in the thread, so I'll search it.

Got the 6 cell battery because I didn't want a bigger one to stick out. I'm assuming the 3 cell battery in the optical bay will add to my battery life. I only need about 5-6 hours away from the plug.

Is the lack of USB 3.0 a dealbreaker? The reviews have been solid on this computer, any negatives besides the price?

Please help before I pull the trigger.

 

^You could get a lot more for your money by buying one of the e6420s that I have (see sig). USB 3 is available with the 'USB 3 E-Module'...but so little uses USB 3 plus, the e6420 has eSATA.

 

I would like to know as well. If I can swap out my 1600x900 for a 1920x1080....oh baby!

 

Anyone here who has installed copper shims and replaced the classic cooling pads on GPU and Chipset? If yes, is it worth the money and which kit have you bought? Thank you!

fleischy