E6420 Owner's Thread

Hello all;

I'm sure someone here must be able to answer my questions. I have a Dell E6420 XFR. I run my own company fixing heavy equipment on location, all of which is offroad in the logging sector. I chose the XFR for it's durability, as I was wearing out a normal laptop in less than a year. The laptop sits in a dock in my repair truck and I pull it out all the time to perform disgnostics on the equipment I work on. The XFR is pretty much a must for my application. With all that said I still find the XFR lacking. I have the i7 processor, but unfortunately I am running out of video ram all the time. I should have ordered the nVidia card in it, but I didn't. I also hate the screen resolution! So now I have 2 questions. 1) Will the E6420 regular motherboard fit in the XFR chassis? If so I would just order a new E6420 with all the options I need and stuff it in the XFR chassis. 2) The XFR is only available in the 1200 x 750 resolution, but if I order a E6420 with 1200 x 900 resolution will the panel fit in the XFR lid?

Thanks for any & all replies.

 

The regular E6420 mobo will not fit the XFR structure. The XFR has specialized ports and waterproofing at the port openings which the regular e6420 does not. Unfortunately, there the screen panel is also not a compatible fit with the regular E6420.

Let me know if you need info an a new system.

-Mourin

 

Thanks Mourin,

All the waterproofing appears to be just the XFR chassis/structure. Once you open the port door there is no additional protection on the main board. All the cards (bluetooth, wifi, gps etc) are the same and upon looking at closeup pictures of both main boards they appear identical. It's hard to believe they would make a different run of boards for such a small niche market that the XFR represents.

Mourin would you have a part number for the nVidia main board? Does Dell have a 1200 x 900 panel that would fit in the XFR lid? If so would you have a part number for that?

 

Sorry if this has been covered, I tried searching the thread.

Is the E6420 limited to 8GB of ram, or was this just listed as the maximum at the time of release, and now 8GB sodimms are possible it would just work.

Thanks.

 

The Intel QM67 chipset used in all the Dell E-series systems will support the 8GB sticks, but you also need to make sure your processor will do same in regards to speed/size as that is where the DDR3 memory controller resides.

Scott-

 

Thanks for the info Scott.

Just checked with Intel and the i7-2760QM is good for 32 GB.

 

Yes, that is a nice processor.
Just remember, the E6420 only has (2) DIMM's and I do not see reasonably priced 16GB sticks happening any time soon. Then again...that is what people were saying about 8GB modules just 12 months ago...

Scott-

 

It's back up.

 

My e6420 has 2GB RAM (1 x 2GB)

The specs on Dell's web site says the e6420 has two SODIMM slots.
However, the owner's manual pictorial instructions to install RAM only shows one slot.

I'd like to upgrade to 4GB, but the Dell parts site only shows 1GB and 2GB sticks when I pick the e6420 model. I'm aware that in Windows 7 32 bit I'll only have 3.2GB usable out of the 4GB. It's still more than 2GB and to be honest, RAM is quite cheap nowadays.

Two questions:
1-Does the e6420 have one or two SODIMM slots?
2-If only one slot, which 4GB RAM stick Dell part number should I look for?

Thanks

 

E6420 has two slots.

Mine has this inside.