E6420 Owner's Thread

Got my screen issue fixed apparently something inside put pressure on the back of the LCD...anyway all is well I'm just glad to have it back.

I don't think it's sim locked. I'd give Dell a ring just to be sure. As far as swapping wireless cards, Dell's site has a pretty decent repair guide for systems that you can use to help you take apart/put together the laptop:

Dell Latitude E6420 and E6420 ATG Owner's Manual

I don't have a SSD but sometimes I wonder if my HDD's speeds are low, sometimes it seems a bit slow for a 7200 RPM drive. *shrugs*

 

I encountered a rather interesting thing with two E6420s. Has anyone in the course of swapping out HDDs ever seen the plastic on the SATA plugin on the Mobo break? I have seen it happen on two today, one of which I actually broke with basically zero insertion force. And before I performed the work, I even double checked and followed the procedure as detailed in the Dell Service Manual.

I think, like several others have mentioned in the 78 pages of previous posts, that the construction quality is sub-par. If you re-insert the drive with the bottom of the chassis facing up, which is normal, since you have to insert the four hold in screws, then you face the issue of the drive SATA connectors not lining up properly with the Mobo ones. Also, I feel the quality of plastic used in construction of the SATA connectors was/is bad, either this, or else a bad batch of improperly made ones. Also contributing to this is the caddy construction. I've not seen many caddies that attach to a HDD with ONLY 1 screw.

In my several years of working on laptops, I've not encountered this type of issue, and I've not seen anyone else speak to it here yet. So, with that said, has anyone else encountered this?

Thank you.

 

I had to pull out my hdd for my latitude's trip to the repair depot. Beyond having to use way too much force to remove the screws holding in the drive to the chassis: I ended up using vise grips on the damn screwdriver, I didn't notice much fragility or if anything broke during the process.

When I got the machine back, everything seems to have fallen back into place. I popped in the drive and tightened the 4 screws and she works. I can't help but wonder if something's broken now though haha.

About the caddy, I was kinda surprised at seeing one screw holding the plastic cap on the end of the hdd on, but there's a dotted part where the other screw would go that "snaps" into the screwhole on the drive. It likely makes the manufacturing process easier.

 

hey guys. Dell is thinking of replacing my vostro with a e6420 or e6220. My main uses are for school. I am wondering if the e6420 will be good in a classroom environment. My main questions for now are:

How is the heat? Will I feel it on the wrist wrest, keyboard or touchpad?
How much noise will it make? I would not want the fan spinning out of control. I will be using office programs, firefox (1-3tabs open during class maybe) and maybe steam to chat
Most importantly how much battery life can I expect with the different options? I read there is an extra battery bay option to replace the optical drive (I would want to do this)

If you know the same things about the e6220 I would really appreciate the information.
Thank you

 

E6420's great for classroom environments, actually every 14 inch Latitude I've used, including the D630 has. Right combination of size and power and battery life, especially with the 9 cell battery. That and unlike most consumer notebooks, it has a matte screen which is important for the various lighting conditions (bright sun while on the quad, fluorescent lights inside classrooms, etc.) that college students face.

As for your questions:

Very little heat, my i5 system with Optimus graphics get's slightly warm around the palmrest where the hard drive resides. If you get a 5400 rpm drive im sure this spot would end up being cold as a cucumber.

Very little noise as well, I really don't notice the fan spinning up unless I'm gaming. There's adjustable profiles in Dell Power Manager, including a "quiet" setting that can help keep noise down. I haven't used it though, I'm using Windows 7's "balanced" profile.

The 9 cell battery gives me about 7 hours of battery life on a full charge with around full brightness. If you adjust your LCD brightness, and switch Windows 7 to power saver (or use the "extended run time" Dell profile..which adjusts more settings) you can get a bit more time out of it, I'd guesstimate a hour or so. I got the 9 cell based on my usage patterns with my D630 on campus...that thing was a trooper and I've been impressed by getting similar numbers on the E6420.

Base systems typically come with a 6 cell battery, with the 9 cell, a battery slice, (that hooks onto the bottom of the system) and a E-Bay module battery as options. I'm only familiar with the 9 cell, but I'd assume that you'd definitively make it a full day if not longer with the battery slice, about 3.5 to 4 or 5 hours with the 6 cell, and probably 8 or 9 hours with the 9 cell + module battery.

Personally, I'd stick with the 9 cell battery, unless you really need 12 hours of battery life. Remember that battery replacement costs aren't cheap either!

 

Hi Guys,

Can someone please enlighten if e6420 is capable of Remote Data Delete Service, lost my barely month old laptop to burglary last night. I'm from manila Philippines by the way.

Thanks

 

If you ordered it with lojack for laptops yes, otherwise, not that I'm aware of.

 

Ugh. Thanks for finding out for the rest of us.

 

I'm sorry, I should have been more clear about the wireless card swap. I am 100% confident I can install the card itself, I am not sure if I can make it work. After Googling the swap, I have found several E6420 owners that have had to go to lengths to get the drivers to work.

Anyone with any experience with this?

 

Wireless cards are not whitelisted as far as I know.

I am using a non-offered Killer wireless card in my M4600 and it works great, better than the Intel 6300s.