E6430 Owners Thread

Just wanted to confirm... I had been doing a ton of research on the screen upgrade, no one anywhere I could find after hours had posted conclusively on whether it worked. http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/p/19605767/20717224#20717224

It DOES seem to work according to one guy who responded to a necro-thread response/request, who claims he did it. It DOES require a new cable (part: CYM5C, best stable price I see is $25 here, right out of Austin, TX, home of the Dell: http://www.parts-people.com/index.p...ssty5um0cp8pylszvf_z3k2xrvv-plqfq4aaixr8p8haq) though.

Luckily, from videos I've watched, it seems that this cable connects to the motherboard on the back in plain accessible view from the main back plate, and the screen seems to be super easy to take out and put in. I might try and do a video of the upgrade process.

I have a little personal list of upgrade research I've done here...

healthfact.wikidot.com/e6430

Bought an E7420 and an E6430 off a girl for $700. Sold the E7420 to a friend for $850. So the E6430 is basically a free laptop for me.

Big upgrade from a D830, though the screen does suck. I didn't realize how much it sucked until I plugged it into my girlfriend's cheap 720p flatscreen to watch netflix. Mirror images, you realize how washed out this screen is.

Still, at least getting some more real estate on the screen would be nice. I do wish there was some 1920x1080 option out there, but I think I'll be happy with 1600.

Only thing this laptop lacks that isn't upgradable is the nvidia. Not sure if I'm bummed out about that or not. I mean, I like having options. And while part of me considers upgrading to the quad core--I am a hobbyist video editor, and I edit 1080p--the battery life probably just means it isn't worth it.... Though how often do I really need all that battery life? Anyways, I don't have the money for it right now, though when I saw a used i7-3740QM on ebay for $220 the other day, man was I tempted... (That seems to be the highest one that userbenchmarks.com has seen one configed with, so I assume that's the highest one supported. Anyone know if we could theoretically use 32gb of ram with a quad core like that?)

Scavenged a 750gb HDD off of a samsung ativ book 4 I had briefly (which I swapped the 320 this thing came with into, and a 2gb ram card this thing came with, and still sold at a profit, while boosting the specs of this one up). Now I've also got 8gb of ram, sold that ativ with 2 2gb rams kept 2 4gb's for this one.

Ordered a 240 SSD with good reviews on userbenchmarks for $85. I still see several of them for $90 on ebay, if you want one too: "OCZ ARC 100 240gb"

Got a hd caddy on the way, $10. found an N6300 3-attena for $10, that's on the way too.

Gonna stick 8.1 on the new SSD when it gets in, move the 750 to the caddy, was thinking of putting crunchbang on a 32gb usb 3 so that I could boot it either separately or load it in vmware in windows or something, so I wouldn't have to reboot if I needed it while in windows.

The huge bezel sucks, but it's a minor issue. The backlit keyboard is awesome, a joy to type on. I don't give a damn about weight, wish I could justify the 9 cell, but frankly I almost never find myself away from a socket and needing to use the computer for 4+ hours.

The msata feature would be nice, the E7240 had that. But the E7240 didn't have an upgradeable processor, required low voltage ram, didn't have room for a cheap hdd in the modular bay, didn't have a 9 cell battery option, and was technically a lower speed unit. Yes, lower power consumption, but weaker processor and smaller battery, so you've turned your benefit into reduced size and weight... I don't care about weight, and the size just meant that the super high res screen was almost too small to look at at full res (though I grant you it WAS beautiful, jesus what a screen.)

But yeah. This is a sweet laptop. If anyone has info on modding this to an even better screen, even more involved mods, I'd love to hear it. I talked to tech support for hours today, and a tech told me that in theory the board should support 1600x1900 display, but I really couldn't tell if she was competent enough to know the different between supporting an external display vs a native display, or if there is a difference.

 

Did a little more reading, apparently at least the 3940qm (and presumably other quad cores, being lazy because I can't afford that upgrade right now anyways) does support using up to 26~gb of ram.

I also saw an i7 3820qm, virtually identical specs (except 10w lower power consumption) to the second most powerful processor that fits (a 3920xm) for $188, buy it now, on ebay today. Man I wish I could justify that cost... Very tempting. But I don't even have the nvidia, so it seems silly...

 

Funny dat. I do have an E6430 with an HD+ screen came preinstalled. So it must be compatible.

 

At first that was my assumption, but I wanted to be sure. All I could find before was two people who had tried and said it didn't work, they got weird colors and wrong resolution. One person had responded to one of them, saying they also needed an upgraded cable; apparently the cable that is used can either have half of the innards or the full innards. The half innards version supports a max data transfer rate that is just enough for 1376x768 or whatever, while the full version of the cable supports twice as much data and so can handle 1920x1080 (or more, presumably).

The 1600x900 monitor laptops come with the nicer cable, the 1376x768 versions come with the gutted cable, so you need that.

I hadn't seen anyone actually verify that that worked, though, so I wanted to make sure there wasn't a chipset difference, or maybe a plug difference for the cable, or something unforseen, or maybe only the nvidia motherboard models can support the HD+, etc.

Just ordered the screen, was able to snag a cable for $20 and a screen for $40 (ebay ftw!), so I'll post to verify it really works once they both come in, hopefully complete with video instructions. I've only got the intel built in video, so we'll see if that works. If that ends up being the bottleneck and the intel card can't support it for whatever reason, I know of an nvidia motherboard for sale on ebay right now for $109, so I'll probably just use that as an excuse to do the full tear down and bite the bullet for the nvidia.

 

Wanted to confirm that everything went smoothly. Filmed it, but have been too lazy to edit. Was kind of a ***** to replace that cable, but only because I was flying blind. Could be done faster next time. Just noticed after a month that my webcam isn't working... Probably my fault and need to plug something in somewhere.

 

Aaaand, no, I did connect everything just fine. Weird driver issue? I followed what was on this video:

And it worked. I was kind of shocked, actually. Stuff is usually never that easy. This time it was, I guess.

(In case video is taken down in the future: I had a 'device is not recognized' in my hardware manager USB section. I right clicked on one of the main USB hubs, and just reinstalled the built in microsoft driver for the composite USB hub (that didn't appear to have any problems) by selecting the one already on my computer. After it reinstalled, my computer showed my webcam, no more problems.)

 

so ill take this in parts.
Well um yeah, you are going to run hot!..hotter than most. you see, dell, like ibm, uses 1 fan and one big heatsink/heatpipe network to dissipate the heat for its cpu, chipset, and videocard. unlike ibm, this model has everything inline and relitively close, rather than across the length of the system; combined with the nvidia video card, the heat is much higher and the heatsink cant keep up as fast as we would like.. it does well though...
if your that worried, find out wat the cpu tpu is, or back it down to an i5. another option i wouldnt really recommend is messing iwth thermal paste, but that is more trouble than its worth taking this off as it will mess with the pad on the gpu, which is a really BAD idea... <_<''
my i5 3320m with same gpu as u (its a e6430 after all) on idle cpu/gpu, gpuz reports nvidia gpu at 53c atm, but as HS catches up, temp drops. try running sys in balanced power mode, and let the sys manage fan. it actually does well.. usually. i run 8.1 and its usually pretty good about wen to kick fan on or not, and at what speed.
if its a used sys, get a mini driver, and a can o air, and open the bottom up and blow out the fan, the blow ou the radiator, than back the other direction, then close it up.

cannot help your answer on the ssd, but i took my 320gb black out and put in a samsung 840 a few years ago
as for the caddy, i use my e6400 caddy now and agian, but i just found this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/301014846496
o.0 your version didnt come with a dvdrw? thats a first. thought it was standard. anyways, yes you can get it off ebay (along with everything else). this id buy new on ebay if your worried, dont buy used.
one possibility: http://www.ebay.com/itm/151196403211
ah yes, the infamous backlit keyboard! do not know how id get by at night without it! ^_^
http://www.ebay.com/itm/251868186287
additional items id look at:
97Wh Battery: http://www.ebay.com/itm/151497558794
65Wh Battery: http://www.ebay.com/itm/191538648624
90watt Slim power supply: http://www.ebay.com/itm/141025737642
whoever said bezel is massive should be shot.
1: houses camera and microphone
2: houses several antennas (wifi/bluetooth/future 3g/4g/wimax)
3: houses led inverter at base
anyone who actually bothered took the bezel off would notice its a bit more cramped than they think it is
you need a rfid smart card. if you have one then yes, you can use your own rfid card. it has to be a certain type tho, you can look that up on your own.
in my own personal ebay shopping wishlist are a higher res lcd (1680 x 945...which model numbers are within spec, but res is higher than spec), camera, and bluetooth 4.0 radio
hope this all helps clear some things up

 

That sure makes me feel good about hoarding an i5 6430 with HD+ screen. I have an old 6320 running on dock with Dell IPS monitor and I have a 6230 that I carry around all the time. None of the newer Dells catches my attention enough to want to change what I am using now. I even passed on a 7440 i7 with FHD matte screen prefering the 6230 smaller and more solid form.
I do find that the newer E5440 with touch not too bad with win 8.1 pro clean installed. There is that weight penalty though and its physically dimension is similar to the 13 inch 6330. Got two lightly used units recently and after clean installing 8.1 it runs pretty smooth. Keyboard not as good as on older 6000 series Latitude but not too far off and I can still tap pretty fast on them.

 

I am still loving my e6430 w/ 3720qm, 16gb ram, 240gb SSD docked with dual p2414H IPs monitors. None of the new ultrabook I7's can touch it speed wise for business use. I upgraded to the centrino wireless per the guides here. I have the HD screen and would probably desire something nicer if I used it in laptop mode more often. Other than that these 6430's are almost unbeatable for non gaming laptops. I do not see a reason to upgrade.

[/IMG]

 

Coming back to the panel subject: since the E6430 has such a huge display bezel, would it be possible to use a - better - 15.x" panel instead of the 14" one?

Mine currently is an "LP140WD1 14.0" HD+ (TL) (M1)" (TN), but of course the only reason that makes me want to upgrade to an e.g. Lenovo T440s/T450s is the missing IPS option on the Dell. So as we do have some extra space on the display cover, how about a mod to fit in an extra inch + IPS panel? Has anyone tried this before?