E6420 Owner's Thread

Anyone here try Windows 8 yet?

 

Has anyone else had trouble with the headphone jack making a squeal sound when transitioning from the end of music (or something) to silence? It almost sounds like the sound card is turning off for power management, but I haven't had a previous laptop do it.

 

Yes.. I have exactly the same problem with my E6520
Have you found a way to fix it?

 

No idea how to fix it... I'll let you know if it persists since I'm exchanging this unit (the motherboard was getting noise and there was a dead pixel on day 2).

 

When the CPU shifts states, it can sometimes make whinny noises. Laptops with more aggressive power management will do this more and it'll be more pronounced, while budget laptops or older laptops will see it less.

Electrical noises from things like that can't be easily fixed, though you can try getting USB headsets or a USB sound card and see if it makes a diff.

 

Question for the owners - I'm really wanting to get a second HDD E-Module for the E6420. Unfortunately, Dell has been giving me the runaround on getting this part. If you CTO the laptop, there is an option for:

However, I got a preconfig w/FastTrack so this wasn't an option for me. I'd like to get it after the fact, but none of the sales reps or ProSupport people can find it. They did find the USB 3.0 Module for me though, which is interesting. I don't particularly want the drive (I'm going to put the 500Gb 7200 RPM drive that came with it in there), all I need is the caddy. I was told that the xx2x series all got a new style on the caddies, so the older ones won't work. I would like it to look correct - not a hacked together cover that barely matches the bezel.

I found this, but I'm not sure I trust it considering they have an identical listing with the wrong picture up, and I don't really want to pay shipping from AU to USA.

2nd Hard Disk Drive Module 4 Dell E-series E6420 E6520 | eBay

Thoughts? I was going to try calling Dell Spare Parts on Monday as per the sales reps suggestions, but I'm still not sure I want to pay for the caddy + drive at that price.

Edit: If anyone is interested, the USB 3 EModule is the following:
342-2996 1 E-Modular Bay, USB 3.0, Dell Latitude, Customer Kit $43.99

It's not available on the store itself, but ProSupport or SMB Sales can get it quoted for you.

 

AFAIK the official caddy only accepts 7mm HDDs. Not sure if the one that comes with the laptop is 7mm (the Dell service manuals seem to imply it, but mine looks like your average 9.5mm one).

Not sure if that's the right one.

There was a third-party HDD caddy made specifically for E6x20 that was discussed here earlier:

2nd Hard Drive Caddy DELL E6520, E6420, E6320 E-Module Bay [DELL-2BAY-E6520] - $48.95 : NewmodeUS, Hard Drive Caddys for Notebooks

I don't know if anyone reviewed it yet, though. Still need to order one myself. This one is a third-party unit designed to have the Dell look and feel and accept regular laptop HDDs. It's more than the eBay price, but it *should* work from what people have been saying.

 

Very intriguing indeed. The fine folks at Dell had absolutely no information on the official one, and from what I gathered it's extremely difficult to get after the fact from them (for reasons unknown). Apparently they will eventually make these parts available for purchase individually, but for now they consider the laptop too new. I wouldn't be surprised if it was 7mm only, and I guess it wouldn't be too much of a problem - I could just put the SSD (Intel 320) in the EModule bay and take the shim off to make it 7mm.

That alternate drive looks very interesting - in fact, it looks just like an OEM part. I can't imagine there being much to review... the only thing that they could possibly screw up is the face plate.

 

I just ordered one of those caddies, I'll let you know how it works out (should be here in a couple days). It's not a bad price, and from what I've seen they're caddies look like they fit perfectly - this one even had the ejection spring which impressed me

Here's hoping! Otherwise it's going on eBay lol.

 

I can confirm that the drive in the optional bay is a 7mm one. Mine has a hitachi drive. The rest of the enclosure is filling material. It's a very quiet drive.