E6420 Owner's Thread

Thanks for replying to my question.

The reason I wanted to know the model number of the panel that kevhuynh ended up using is because the guy in this post had an issue using an LP140WD1-TLA1. Perhaps it's because the original panel in his laptop was the lower resolution 1366x768 one? (Different cables?)

Id hate to order that panel only to have some of the issues he was having.

 

So.. after more than half a year how do these laptops hold up? Creaky, cranky, cracked ? Anything?

 

Sorry for the late response. I had this LP140WD1-TLA1 panel.

I ordered 4 of these laptops for work (go, go 25% off outlet). Three hadthe 1366x768 panels, one had the 1600x900. I tested it out on the 1366x768 laptops and it didn't work. The colors were just "off"...like it was only dispalying a VERY low # of colors.

I replaced the LG on the laptop with th e1600x900 screen. Yes it was the TLA1. It was a pull I used for an XPS 14 swap that was running along fine for a few months. Everything was roses for a few days.

Anyways, it worked perfectly. Then something odd happened. About four days later, the screen stopped working. I tried swapping it back into the XPS 14 to see what occurred and unfortunately it didn't work back in either laptop. The vendor I had was really understanding and had me send it back for a replacement (gogo 1 year warranty!). I switched it out again. I plugged the panel in, fired it up without reinstalling the bezel. Everything worked fine with the replacement. I turned everything off, screwed everything back in place and powered it on. Bam, nothing, the replacement panel didn't work after putting it all back. Could it be a short with this particular panel and something in my lid? That's the only thing I could think of...

Somewhere from when I closed my laptop lid to driving 8 miles to work and turning it back on, the LP140WD1-TLA1 refused to work with my laptop. No idea...


In any event, if we see here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/com...itude-e6420-lg-phillips-1600x900-led-lcd.html

This guy sold a fresh pull with the Dell Part # GJ494. Googling it came up with THIS panel: LP140WD1-TLM1.

I'm currently back on the stock Samsung panel and it's working fine but I'm not pleased.

Btw, taking this laptop apart is absurdly easy compared to the XPS. It literally took a few minutes to do a swap.

 

It works with an 8GB dimm - we tested mine with a spare at work, only to a total of 12gb, not 16 (didn't have a second spare) but if 12gb works, so should 16gb.

BTW, I tried the A07 bios and still have the same power management bug:

with kernel 3.0.4

Haven't tried the latest kernel (3.1.0) or Windows yet, but am about to. Will roll back to A05 if turbo is still broken in Windows, may wait for a later BIOS (or for a fixed Linux implementation) if it works in Windows

edited to add: back on A05, it's broken under Windows and kernel 3.1.0 as well

 

Just to inform you, A07 is still broken but it offers much better 3d performance for the Intel card. It is very unfortunate Dell did not fix the turbo boost issue.

In any case, I am also still using A05, 3d is less important for me than turbo boost.

If any of you is interested, I opened a thread at dell:
Re: Turbo boost disabled for Latitude E6420, bioses A06 and A07 and i7-2720QM - Laptop General Hardware Forum - Laptop - Dell Community
to see if they have anything to suggest. You could post there just to inform them how many people are affected.

 

Thanks for your replying.

I'd rather not buy a TLA1 panel if there is a (slight) chance of it shorting out somewhere internally.

I know you have no way of answering this, but I wonder if the image quality between the TLA1 and a TLM1 would be comparable. I have my doubts though since that seller swapped it out with some other panel after only one day...

I guess I need to weigh my options and see if it's worth risking ~$100 to find out if the TLM1 panel looks better than my current Samsung panel.

 

I'm going to get a TLM1 one of these days.

I'll let you know how it goes!

 

That would be great!

Please keep me posted on the results whenever you get around to ordering one.

 

my eSata raid5 is not working on the 6420.

below is an excerpt event log - reverse chronological order - at the "failed to flush" the raid is ejected from the system, the other messages appear a few times before getting to the "failed to flush":

The system failed to flush data to the transaction log. Corruption may occur.

An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk1\DR1 during a paging operation.

The device, \Device\Ide\iaStor0, did not respond within the timeout period.

i'm almost sure that nothing is wrong with the motherboard and it's some device conflict. the symptoms are exactly the ones i used to see on some other systems that got removed by removing the registry keys related to intel RST's LPM. but those keys don't seem to exist anymore on the iaStor service, only at iaStorV that is for intel's raid as far as i know - my bios is set to AHCI.

anybody see similar symptoms? your cure? and yes, the internal HD works just fine...

RESOLUTION: dump current iaStor and use some ancient one from 2009, or microsoft's sataAHCI drivers that come with win7/64

 

Can someone post the US part numbers for the:
-modular bay 3-cell battery
-modular bay USB 3.0 adapter

I saw the EU part numbers in an earlier post in this thread, no results when searching on the US dell.com web site
thanks