E6420 Owner's Thread

The 5% is potentially idle/halt time, not clock speed; the minimum and maximum clock speeds on the 2720QM are 800mhz and 3.3ghz (3.4ghz is the dual core 2620M)

 

1) I use a usb hub to connect mouse,keyboard and tvtuner when I use my laptop as a desktop and I see that full power consumption is about 700ma from one usb port.Is there any potential danger when consuming more than 500ma from one usb port?

2)I use my battery alot and in 1 month I already have 13%wear.Is this normal or does it calculate the wear level wrongly?

 

Is there a consensus on how to resolve issues with the speakers "popping" after playback stops?

I encounter this when using Dell's IDT audio driver, and really it's only noticeable when the machine is docked. I've tried messing with the power management settings on the driver, but no luck.

It doesn't seem to happen if I uninstall the IDT driver and use Microsoft's High Definition Audio driver, but with that driver I occasionally get crackles in playback (wonder if that's a hardware acceleration issue or something like that).

I probably did not install the drivers in the Dell recommended order since I wasn't aware of it at the time.

Also, does anyone else have the 500GB WD drive and find it to be rather loud for a laptop drive?

Thanks for any insight!

 

While I didn't have any issues with the internal speakers, I do have some sound interference with the dell branded Harmon/Kardon speaker system I have. I used it without issue on the D630 but there's always a undertone of electronic interference on the E6420 especially noticible when one scrolls or moves the mouse pointer...odd cause headphones sound fine.

 

New Bios has been released for E6420 supposedly fixing the turbo boost issues.

Drivers and Downloads | Dell [United States]

 

Christmas gift from Dell, they finally fixed the turbo boost issue. Tested under linux and now it goes freely from 800 to 3200 Mhz depending on the load. Finally.

As a side note, the cpu microcode is update at version 0x23, even newer than the one available from intel.

 

I've ordered LG LP140WD1TLM panel from laptopscreen.com. Panel just arrived (they've actually sent LG LP140WD1TLD2 model).

Panel quality is almost the same as my current Samsung LTN140KT, may be just horizontal angles and black color are a bit better.

There is a huge white stuck pixel just in the middle of the screen, so, I'll be back to my original panel.

 

Well Dell was very quick in returning my e6420. Shipped it out on 12/2 and received it back on 12/6.

I asked them to address two issues:

1. CPU heating to 95-100c under load
2. Bottom cover - loose, popping, creaking

The returned it saying they replaced the CPU heatsink fan. So far so good. It hasn't broken 90c under load so far. Idle in the 40s now vs, 50s.

They did nothing whatsoever about the bottom cover.

I did a chat with their support asking about the bottom cover. They seemed to have no explanation as to why the cover to overlooked. They dispatched a tech to my house the next day (today). He replaced the bottom cover. It is much better. Not perfect, but much better. No more creaking and loose fit. It is tight. The typical corner is not as perfectly flush as the other corner, but I can live with it.

 

I'm new to the forum and also to the E6420. I just ordered an INTEL Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 633ANHMW wireless card and have read a few posts on the web about it being hard to get to work. I would classify myself as an "average" laptop user, but know absolutely nothing about half of what I have read on this thread. Is it above my skill set to get this thing working when it comes in? I have read it gives a speed advantage over the one that comes with the laptop... Also does anyone have any info on what it takes to get the SIM card to work here in the US? I use T-Mobile and don't know if the 6420 is "locked" or not??? I did read I would have to install a WLAN card and driver. Thanks for any help.

 

So found this board and am hoping someone can help confirm either I missed something or my SSD is bad. I got an e6420 a month or so back through dell outlet and it has been running nice but I decided I wanted to switch an SSD into the main drive and get a caddy for the secondary. Stats on the laptop include i5-2520M and utilizing an intel series 6 chipset (which I would assume all e6420s do). I have updated to the most recent (A08) bios found on the dell site along with all the other firmware updates recommended. I have changed my bios to AHCI and updated the RST drivers as found on the intel for 64bit W7. I have done a fresh install of W7 with nothing else just to check the drive before I clone my old system over and with these updates and testing with CrystalDiskMark I am still only getting 200write/100read on the drive (I also tested with AS nearly same stats). Am I missing some important firmware update, where can I look to check/what should I post to help confirm, or is this just a bad SSD and I should RMA it?

Dang forgot to add I am using a Mushkin Enhanced Chronos 120GB drive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226236 and it has been updated with the newest firmware per their site

thanks

Also on the note of AHCI switch over, I was able to switch fine in the bios on the fresh install of W7, but when following the online guides of registry changes to force W7 to install the AHCI drivers from an old install of OS using RAID/ATA I still get BSOD. It isn't important yet as I am still looking to confirm the drive is even worth doing a clone install but at some point I am hoping to clone over my current partition into an AHCI format and will need this to work. Is there some way to force windows on reboot to recognize the registry change/load the intel AHCI drivers from the rescue console? Per to online info I changed the registry start to 0, restarted it, changed bios, let it restart, bsod, restart and still bsod. I don't think I am missing anything as the online tutorials make it appear strait forward but I must be. Any help here is also greatly appreciated but is still secondary to finding out if the drive itself is good.