Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge, Part 2

I got back the first well used E6400 at the enterprise I work at. Even though they seem to not seem as sturdy as the D series, they -do- hold up just as well. I saw not obvious dings or dents. Dirt does collect in the speaker grills on ether side of the keyboard. But those alcohol based phone wipes seem to clean it right up. The screen hinges seem to hold up even better then the D series. The keyboard letters do not seem to wear off like the D series ether.

The only glitch with the early E6400's is the LED on the internal power button. It gets very very dim as they age. However on newer E6400 I have not seen this issue, so it looks like dell fixed this.

I will have no problem reissuing older E series laptops. Some of the older D series laptops I did, because the key letters would wear off and the hinges would move and wiggle pretty bad.

 

John , so the picture you showed me, doesnt have a wwan card?
im not opening the whole computer but i will open the are under the hinges to see if there are cables.
Thanks

 

good news !
i have 4 cables on the left side
it means i only need a wwan card doesnt it?

now , do you see some liquid moving in the lcd moving at the bottom edges when you move the screen?

 

Yes, there is no WWAN card, but the WWAN cables are parked next to the slot. I think that the easiest way to check if the cables are present is to remove the base and look next to the WWAN slot.

John

 

i opened the part next to the battery, there are 4 white cables- it means there are cables leading to the screen
but as a reviewer , do you interpret that as meaning that there is an antenna also?
if so, is there anything to be done about the sim card slot under the battery?

and do you have any idea about 4g cards on european frequencies and + gps?

i found this one on ebay co uk
but ill have to ask the frequencies
but i know i have a 5530 card inside for the wifi , is it the same, it cant be

4g is coming

 

My test for the WWAN antennae being installed is the presence of the antennae cable being parked next to the WWAN slot.

The 3D card in your link looks as if it should be suitable. All the Latitudes include the SIM card slot. Somehow this is interconnected to the WWAN card slot.

I don't know about 4G. In most areas 3G is struggling to reach its potential performance.

John

 

Upgraded my E6400 with Intel SSD X25-M 80 GB and 2nd HDD bay with 250GB 7200rpm drive. So far, I don't see need for further improvements. Well except when working with VMs. If anyone need opinion I will be glad to help.

 

Any lessons learned? I'm looking forward to my first SSD in the not too distant future.

GK

 

Well, firstly ... surprised that SSD improves downloading times and webbrowsing a LOT! I mean not just because TEMP files are accessible faster. Downloads are faster (I know it sounds preposterous).
Second - even if You have AHCI and IMSM boot takes about 30 sec - which is fast but nowhere near 15s. videos posted on YT.
Third - after boot when system is loading all starts to rocket, even really busy system allows you to start programs meanwhile it is still loading apps in task bar, this is really something. You just cannot choke it.
Fourth - any other SATA device (especially 2nd HDD) slows boot.
Fifth - any extremely large (I have some) Word or presentation documents (150 and more slides) are accessible with ease.
sixth - +8% to battery life (really in my case it is)

... but ...it seems that with this processor (2,4GHz C2D) is not enough. Same goes for chipset. I mean there is nothing better as a single upgrade for laptop but to "use it all" you should consider Windows 7 + Sandy Bridge laptop. It will always perform best in desktop with other top components.

Edit: It's been 1,5 year I'm using this Dell, all stable with Vista 32bit/4GB. Intel Toolbox seems useful, passes Trim scheduled (or manual whenever I want to Trim). SSD bought from friend who now has 120GB Intel (SSD have had 11 mnth. rougch desktop use ), 2,10 TB writes so far. 98% healthy.

 

Thanks for the feedback.

In the past I've seen a jumper setting on HDDs that you can set to delay their spinup during boot... I wonder if that would help keep the HDD out of the way of the SSD during boot, if available. Might just be a SCSI drive thing for delaying power load in server applications.

I still need to learn about trim, wear, and lifetime.

GK