Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge, Part 2

Sure, an SSD may improve your system response, but an SSD is a luxury with additional technology considerations, and should not be required to make a new system responsive. So, adding one may only mask your symptons, except to add one you will likely re-install AND upgrade you OS, so you'll be good, but you can't necessarily conclude the SSD was required.

I would definitely abandon sluggish Vista for speedy Win7 x64. And with a clean install, you'll probably be rid of your lag times, or can find out which of your apps is the culprit.

GK

 

For some reason it looks like my brightness got low when I upgraded from Vista to Windows 7.....

My brightness is on max but it is still not bright enough, why is that?

 

Go in the BIOS of the system, one of teh option side is related to the brightness of the screen. There is a brightness slider there, just slide it to the max. This is the maximum the laptop screen can go. If it's not as bright as before, it's most likely you.

On a bright day your eyes adjust to the light, so your screen might seem dimmer then before. And at night, your screen at the same brightness might make you blind (if you know what i mean).

 

I just saw the bios, and it is set at 40% the brightness.

I cant change it tho as the laptop is from work and the BIOS is locked.

Any other way around it?

 

Don't the FN keys and DCP System Manager control the same BIOS setting?

Locking screen brightness via the BIOS makes no sense.

GK

 

The whole BIOS is locked not just the brightness.

Well with the FN keys I have the brightness at max but it shows as 40% in BIOS. So I guess I have the full 40% right now.

 

Here is a try:
Do Win + X, a panel will open. You should have a brightness slider somewhere, try and slide it to change the brightness.

If that doesn't work, then you need to contact your work IT service to unlock the BIOS so that you can change the display brightness. They are the one responsible for their idiocy.
At work, we don't block any BIOS, even though it means having the occasional BIOS reset problem to do (about 1 or 2 per year... not bad for over 3000 users, including kids who like to try and take revenge on the school computers because they failed a class).

 

So, password-protecting the BIOS locks screen brightness to the last max setting set in the BIOS. That's dumb... locking the user out from something as innocent as adjusting a portable's screen brightness for ambient condition using controls like FN and DCP that don't even reside in the BIOS. Silly.

GK

 

Hello, seems this is my first post here
I'm planning to replace my E6400 keyboard whit a backlit keyboard so I'm wondering what you guys think about the cheap backlit keyboards sold on ebay? Like this one - 2,944 available
Are they genuine Dell keyboards or some chinese fakes?

 

I doubt there will be any problems using those cheap keyboards. Even if they are fake, they're probably made from the same factory as the "real" thing. Just make sure it's got some kind of warranty on it... if it's defective, Paypal's almost always on your side.