Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge, Part 2

It's because the heat transfer between the GPU and heatpipe is insufficient. The problem is caused by the thermal pad Dell put there for heat transfer. I did a copper mod on mine and GPU temperatures got lower by 35-40 C under load.
So the really small heatsink is actually sufficient to cool the notebook properly. Using a thermal pad instead of metal-to-metal contact is to blame for overheating and throttling.

 

Is the controller in my E6400 SATA I, II or III? This Corsair Force Series 3 SSD seems to offer superlative performance for ~$300 (and is double the capacity of the Intel 320 120GB), but will it be fully utilized in my E6400?

 

The SATA controller in the E6400 is 3gb/s.

In practice, though, you'll rarely, rarely hit the maximum rated sequential speeds for most modern SSDs; I doubt you'll notice much of a difference between 3gb/s and 6gb/s with the Corsair.

 

Overclocking the E4300/E6400/E6500 PLL from 266Mhz to 333Mhz

E6400 owner's wanting to overclock from 266Mhz to 333Mhz PLL speed can see how it was done on a E4300 ([email protected]) here. At best, it means a T9900-3.06 could be overclocked to 4.0Ghz.

 

I'll bring in the New Year. Dell replaced my motherboard on my E6400 when it only needed a new a/c adapter. A high pitched electronic buzz comes from right underneath the trackpoint button. Pretty annoying. The Dell tech said it was a "new" motherboard, not refurb. My old motherboard made this noise too but not until it was a year or older. Any solutions? Dell will gladly send another motherboard under warranty but what is the point if it'll do nothing. Thanks in advance.

 

Ask for a new motherboard (which will be the third if I understand correctly). If that doesn't fix it, ask for a new laptop altogether.

 

Thank you HerrKaputt I'll proceed in that manner.

 

Anyone have an E6400 2nd hard drive caddy that they wanna sell? I really need one and was just wondering if anyone around here has another they want to get rid of for some money! Thanks all!

 

I do. Message me.

On my other topic Dell put in a new motherboard (third), then new fan/heatsink (second) and the problem didn't go away so they are sending me another E6400 with better specs (T9600 v. P8600 etc).

My laptop originally had 2x1GB ddr2, now has 2X2gb ddr2. Can I just send it back with 1 stick of 2gb? How picky are they? Dell said to just send in the 2gb stick.

My experience with Dell refurbs (I scraped off the dust on the left side of the heatsink prior to snapping this picture)

 

Who likes Good News? Everyone!? - YouTube

Good news everyone!
The Dell Latitude E6400 works PERFECTLY under Windows 8 Consumer Preview. I have installed it using Dell Windows 7 64-bit drivers, and used Nvidia own Windows 8 drivers.

What's really cool:
* The Ambient light sensor which stop working correctly in Windows 7, now works properly in Win8!
* I have a freaking ~11h of battery life, at idle (on desktop)
(it just mixes Battery 1 and 2)
* Optimization on win8, makes the interface experience even smoother than Win7 even on battery.
* Nvidia Control Panel detects the DisplayPort connectivity with audio support. No more old Dell drivers needed.


Issues:
* While I don't have any video or music playback issues, Latency Checker tool (http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml), shows yellow bars instead of green. I re-install Win8 twice to follow more on the issue, and no mater what (no drivers, or all drivers, (I was checking one by one)) the bars stays yellow. This problem, is something I recall from Windows 7 public beta.
So, I am thinking it could be because of debugging stuff left on this release which creates a normal increase latency.

If you are willing to give Win8 Consumer Preview a spin keep in mind:
-> You need to be open minded, the new interface changes are radical. Use it seriously for a while. It will be a bit annoying, but after that it's enjoyable to use, and you start to make your environment more comfortable.
This is my setup:


It provides me with easy access to my programs (plus the most used ones are on the task bar pinned), and the added folders at the bottom right corner allows me to have fast (faster than Win7, due to less distance to travel) access to these folder, like in Win7/Vista Start Menu.
The only annoyance (but this is beta release, so things could change) is that I had to change the file association to my video, pictures, and PDF to programs like in Win7 (Windows Media Player 12/Live Photo Gallery/Adobe Reader). By default, it's set to the buggy (it's the only really bugging things I found so far, the rest is much higher quality), Metro version.

-> Read up in Win8 features and how to use, to a better transition.

-> Its' based on Win7, and the core components are the same, so expect Windows 7 drivers and software to work without problem

Enjoy!
Video, and download link: Windows 8 Consumer Preview
I highly recommend getting the 64-bit version (obviously).

Nice setup guide, if you don't know how: Installing the Windows 8 Consumer Preview