Latitude E4300 first impressions

I had the same HDD LED blinking issue with an E5500 recently (WinXP)

I ruled out legit disk activity being a cause as the problem presented itself on both system after booting to the reinstall CD and waiting for the system to idle.

- Dell support sent me a Hitachi HDD to replace my Segate drive. That did not solve the problem.
- I tried setting SATA mode from AHCI to ATA and reinstalling the OS. That did not solve the problem.
- Dell sent me a replacement E5500. That system came with an Hitachi drive and it too had the same problem.
- I disabled everything I could in the BIOS and that fixed the problem.
- I traced it down to the CDRW/DVD drive (HL-DT-ST CDRW/DVD GCCT20N).
- I restored BIOS settings to default and could then toggle the problem on/off by enabling/disabling the CDRW/DVD drive via the Device Manager.


Finally I found a workaround in this post:

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"SATA Optical Drives and HDD LED Blinking"
http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/30716794/sata-optical-drives-and-h.aspx

Question:
"I recently switched from a Lite-On PATA DVD Burner to a Lite-On SATA DVD Burner and now the HDD LED is quickly flashing every second or so. Disable the drive in Device Manager and the LED stops flashing, Enable it and it flashes once a second again. Is there a setting on the Details Tab that will eliminate the blinky-blink? Or another setting somewhere for SATA Optical drives?"

Response:
"System needs to poll removable media drives every 1 sec to see if media has changed. Your old ones were doing it too, but the P-ATA controller chipset apparently didn't flash the LED when it did it. The S-ATA chipset does.

If you disable Autorun for the optical drive (Google for dirs.) it will stop but so will Autorun."
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Per the instructions here, I set AutoRun = 0 for Windows to not send a Media Change Notification (MCN) message
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windows2000serv/reskit/regentry/58493.mspx?mfr=true

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Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdrom]
"AutoRun"=dword:00000000
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I'm not sure that this explains why the problem presents itself after booting to the OS CD, but hopefully this work around will help other folks too.

 

Thanks for this.

My original Seagate drive ST9160411ASG died on me when installing the Dell patch for "disk clicking". It was replaced with a ST9250421ASG. This drive is quieter but still has frequent disk access. I installed the same patch after receival with no problem so I do not think problem was patch - just a bad original drive.

In a general search for disk thrashing, I came up with a number of things including the disabling of the CDRom Autorun. I also turned off Restore, Terminal Services and a number of other items to look to stopping the activity. Activity is definetly reduced and probably now to an acceptable level but still louder than my old D400 which has same applications software installed (except the Dell provided systems).

Using "FileMon", the most common tasks that seem to be hitting the drive are LSASS and BcmDeviceAndTas. The latter is part of the Wave systems software that came with the machine. I uninstalled Control Point Security which I dont feel I need. This solves the problem !!!!! No frequent reads to LSASS or the Wave software !

 

Not sure if you guys know this, but the E4300 has been put on production hold due to some serious problems...can't really elaborate but I would avoid this one for now.

 

Um, mine is supposed to arrive today. Um, that is not really what I want to hear. We can we expect some elaboration?

 

im going to be really annoyed if after i get my replacement m4400 soon after there is an A01 version of the precision lol.....

they've really been having a lot of lemons with this line havent they?

but when it works they're realllly sweeet machines

 

I mean, should I have UPS not drop it off?

 

I just received this from Dell not ten minutes ago. I have been waiting for my replacement E4300 as my machine has a bad wireless card and constantly locks up. This is what they told me:

Latitude E4300 system shipments have been suspended due to customer
reported system freeze/hang conditions. These system hangs are due to an
interaction from some E4300 motherboards to Intel(r) Core(tm) 2 Duo
SP9300 and SP9400 processors. Dell and Intel are committed to providing
high quality systems and are working diligently to resolve the issue for
this platform. We expect to have a resolution and updated statement by
January 19.

 

MIne is on the kitchen table. I am going to open it. I am usually lucky with this type of thing. My first refurb, though. I got the 3 year NBD warranty, so I feel fine. I hope I like it. The box feels really light.

 

I just got my refurb as well. So far so good. There is a slight scratch on the lid near the Dell logo but its not too bad. Came loaded with Vista Business but without SP1. Gonna do a clean install anyway. But on that note, Dell included Vista Home Basic DVD so I have to call them to get the Business one. I also have the 3year NBD w/prosupport warranty so problems should be covered.

 

Hi all,

I'm a user come from Taiwan. I've bought a Latitude E4300 last week, but it is delayed and I will get it about next week.
I'd like to get an additional carrying case, but I have a question about how is the depth of E4300 with 6-cell battery? Does anyone know?
Thanks!