E6520 Owner's Thread

Thank you!

 

Scott,
Thanks a lot. I will look soon at some configs. Not sure if there are multiple video card options but if there are, is !GB on Nvidia worth getting?

Also, I will probably get the 2720 quad core if available although not sure I need that either.

1080p screen is a must though.

Will just get 4GB memory probably and add 4GB more. Is memory accessable from bottom plate of laptop?

Anyway, thanks again for great info.

Gary

 

The only current option, the nVidia 512MB 4200M, is a good GPU and will be fine along side the Intel HD-3000. It does anything I throw at it professional software wise and plays games pretty well too.

I suggest the i7 2720QM since I feel it is the best quad core value right now and it will accept up 1600MHz memory (the E6520 supports this) in addition to the virtual machine features. If you go with an i5, the 2540M is good dual core option.

I also suggest getting the smallest hard drive and memory size offered. You can get upgrades for these items from aftermarket sources like newegg.com for a lot less than Dell.

Yes, the memory slots are on the bottom and everything is easily accessable by removing the single bottom plate. Below is a pic I took a few months ago.

Scott-

 

Thanks again much Scott. Will probably order a HDD from Newegg along with memory. I have been using Hitachi 7200 rpm drives but have not bought any memory for a while. Any particular brand better or more reliable than another and thanks again.

Gary

 

I have grown to really like the G.Skill memory. It works in everything I put it in and I have never had a failure. It is also sold by newegg and is typically less expensive than the other big brands yet offers the same if not better timing specs and warranty.

1333MHz
Newegg.com - G.SKILL 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Laptop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-8GBSQ

1600MHz
Newegg.com - G.SKILL 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Laptop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBSQ

Scott-

 

Hi Gary, I too vacillated between going Lenovo vs. Dell. My own personal history with Dell's has been very good; upgrading from my faithful i8600, I eventually decided to go with Dell. I really like my e6520 - it's performed flawlessly with everything I've thrown at it, but I'm not an avid FPS player, so I haven't taxed the graphics beyond playing LOTRo.

Right now, I have two complaints:

1. My biggest beef, and why I would reconsider is the lack of mSATA support. That SATA flash port would be a great place to plug in a boot drive, keeping the primary SATA port for a large capacity mechanical and the 2nd port for an extra battery (useful for me to have 12-cell total battery support (9+3). As it is, since I am unwilling to sacrifice the extra battery for a second HD port, I am restricted to booting from my mechanical HD. I could go SSD, but capacities are nowhere near what I would want yet. I have a 5400rpm drive - kinda slow, but didn't want the extra heat/energy drain of a 7200rpm drive. Booting from a ~60GB SSD would have easily solved this...but alas not to be for now.

2. Lack of manual fan control. They've locked up thermal control pretty tight with this model. Speedfan and other apps cannot manually control fan speeds - which is annoying when playing graphics intensive apps (e.g. LOTRo) and seeing my GPU heat up to 78oC. I miss being able to use i8kfangui...

Those are my chief..and really only complaints as of now. I've had this E6520 since the beginning of summer. I'm hoping that eventually I'll be able to use an mSATA with a BIOS update - apparently the E6520's sister Precision model does support mSATA so I have no idea what Dell was thinking of in *not* supporting this in the Latitude line.

Hope that helps...
R

 

There has been some progress with speedfan. Speedfan now recognizes and can set the fan speed, but the BIOS resets the fan speed around a half second later. When trying to set the speed as quickly as possible I got the fan to 4.6k RPM, while by default it only runs up to 4.2k RPM. I would not be surprised if the fan could go up to 5k RPM if the BIOS was not resetting it. I made a post on the Dell forums asking for how to access the thermal control panel for the E6520. I doubt I'll get an answer since Dell seems to no longer have actual tech support moderators on the forums anymore. Maybe I'll give them a call when I have nothing else to do.

Also for laptops 78C is actually pretty cool. My last laptop would always run the CPU and GPU in the 90s+ if I was doing something demanding. The GPU will not throttle until at least 100C.

 

They won't answer you. I called asking the same thing, even showed them how I could do it on the E6510 with SHIFT+FN+1,5,3,2,4 (so far so good, my caps lock button lights up) and then SHIFT+R (nothing happens on the E6520) and they said they would look into it...

I got an email later saying it wasn't possible

I think ranrann also posted with me on the speedfan forums trying to get a solution

Where did you get your second battery ranran, and how much was it? Dell couldn't quote one for me...

 

Yes, I've been in touch with Alfredo @ Speedfan - I think he's working on it when he has time - I've contributed in the hopes of getting something functional someday.

I purchased the 3-cell modular bay battery at the time of my E6520 purchase, as I knew I'd want it to for 8+hours.

As an aside, if I've got 8GB of memory, would readyboost through the SD card slot offer any performance benefit?

 

You have 8GB memory, and readyboost is nearly no effect.

Readyboost is for computers with low amount of memory but high speed flash card.