Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge, Part 2

In case people have not see it, you can build dynamic RSS feeds for releases of drivers, saves time for me, I have the XP and Win7 drivers on a RSS feed

Win7:
http://supportapj.dell.com/support/...eids=all&oscodes=BIOSA,NAA,W764&osl=en&cr=all

XP:
http://supportapj.dell.com/support/...ceids=all&oscodes=BIOSA,NAA,WW1&osl=en&cr=all

That said, there are new WWAN, WLAN, LAN & ControlPoint Drivers.

 

Does anyone know of an eSATA adapter that can take power from the combo eSATA/USB port? I'm looking to multi-boot off of the internal and a spare laptop drive I have laying around.

 

Something like this? It works fine. I've got a couple. That's a UK source. For North America check this at Newmodus.

John

 

Thanks for the rec. Is there a version that adds the ability to add additional power? A single USB doesn't provide enough power for some drives...

 

Hi guys n girls!

I'm looking to buy a refurb E6400 from a UK reseller that ships Dell Outlet laptops to the rest of the EU. Good thing is that the 3yr NBD will stay intact and i'll save hundreds of euro's that way.

Some questions about the E6400:

1. What are the advantages/disadvantages for the Quadro card over the integrated graphics?

2. The Outlet specs aren't always fully clear. I though all the LED screens are 1440x900 but some state 1280x800 as being LED...is that possible?

3. any other issues i should be aware of?

I'm looking to get one with a P8600 CPU

thanx

 

Quadro provide you with more graphical power, CUDA and ability to use software which uses the GPU instead of the CPU to encode/render things, providing better performance. Video and HD movie playback decoding is also better, but nothing significant.

The Qaudro does heat a bit more... here see this post, as someone just asked that:
Part1: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5499048&postcount=114
Part2: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5499159&postcount=115

Both screen (1440x900 and 1280x800) are available in LED and CFL (old style lamp).

A perfect laptop doesn't exists. You will always have at least an issue. If it's not aesthetic, it's engineering, or hardware quality, performance issue, loud fan, etc...
This laptop has one minor issue is that the pads leaves marks on the screen frame which can turn permanent. In my opinion it's minor (and perhaps solved.. my laptop is 1 year old so maybe it was fixed), and preferred over anything. This is a great quality system, and probably the easiest laptop you can access it's internals, superb performance, excellent heat management, great very bright display, and fairly quiet operation. I think everyone can agree on that.

I'm looking to get one with a P8600 CPU

thanx[/QUOTE]

 

Hallo, this is my first post. I would want to buy this laptop,
but ther's a thing I don't understand.
Why e6400's ram bandwidth is only 800 Mhz (DDR2 ram)? It's a 2008 laptop.
Latitude e4300,for example, works at 1066 mhz (DDR3). I think is a minor issue but really I don't understand this limitation.
It's like not future proof.
regards

 

Laptop DDR3 RAM for the Intel Core 2 Duo CPU's, is useless, as the CPU doesn't use the full speed of DDR3. Therefore, the performance increase is negligible. However, Core i7 CPU's for mobile computer does benefit from DDR3. The Latitude E4300 doesn't have a Core i7.

800MHz vs 1066MHz RAM performance difference is negligible for a laptop. Remember that no mater what laptop configuration you get, the desktop version is more powerful. What I am getting too, is that if you really do need every bit of performance our of your system because you do really intensive stuff, then get a desktop instead. Laptops should be seen as a system that provide you less performance, but allows you to do your work on the go... and less power vs not doing anything is usually better

No computer is future proof. In fact the MOMENT the laptop appears in store shelf the system is already discontinued. That is technology. You NEVER win, no mater what you do. That is why you buy a laptop that fits your needs now and future needs. Usually the life span of a laptop is 3-4 years for most people, that is in the sense that after 3-4 years, your laptop will start being under-power for your every day needs.

A desktop computer, it's easier to push a system for 5 years as you can eaisly upgrade some hardware, but even then. Look at my desktop on my signature (Custom build). I got it in Jan 2006, and the hardware was out in mid 2005. In mid 2006, the CPU socket is discontinued, DDR1 is now premium price, because RAM company cut production or even completely stop production. Despite having a Geforce GTX 260, that GPU is for PCI-E 2.0, while my motherboard is PCI-E 1.0 so I can't reach 100% performance of this GPU (I estimate 85-90%). Also my motherboard chipset is an Nforce 4, and doesn't have Win7 drivers - I still run Win7 as it runs fine, as luckily Vista is very close to Win7 on the driver side. You can see that, despite buying a what it used to be a kick- computer (before IntelCore 2 Duo exists or even announced) I can't upgrade my computer anymore, of anything breaks other than my optical drive, sound card, HDD, power Supply or video card (for now), I can't replace any of the parts easily. I am starting to have a lack of driver support as well.

You buy this laptop now, next year you'll probably have lower power consuming and less heat producing Core i7 Mobile version, and if you decide to wait for that one, another CPU and motherboard chipset will be out which consumes even less power, down to probably about the same as the Core 2 Duo P series of today. Heck who knows DDR4 might start appearing as well.

My point of all this, is that you can't win.
You need to buy what YOU need.

 

anyone noticing DPC latency spikes when alt-tabbing between windows on win7x64? It has to do with the GPU clocking up and down. And before GB can suggest that i disable powermizer, i DONT want to do that.

 

Just ordered mine from this reseller

http://www.itcsales.co.uk/acatalog/Dell_Precision_Series_Laptops.html

config:

P8600 - 1x 2048 RAM, 80gb HDD which will be replaced with 250gb, Quadro GPU, WXGA+, Bluetooth, etc....with 3yr NBD warranty

Got a great deal too. Considering i can't buy from an Outlet in the Netherlands i was REALLY happy to find these guys that ship the outlet laptops throughout the EU with all warranties intact and because i'm buying it as a business i didn't have to pay any VAT too. Got it all shipped for 523 pounds or € 584

VERY, VERY happy