Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge, Part 2

no, i knew what you meant. i am telling you that (maybe unless they bother to prove you did it?) that having the complete care warranty completely replace the entire machine will not trigger this limit -- at least in my experience.

in my experience, having the complete care warranty means they just never to bother to ask questions about how it happened, because it is covered either way.

 

I'm thinking of switching over to E6400 from my trusty D630, which is coming up on being in constant use for 2 years and I'd rather not have another motherboard swap because of the nVidia chip issue.

Some comparatively worded Q's:
* D630 almost exhibits zero paint wear except for keyboard, still same on E6400 after ~1,5 years of use ?
* Frequent nVidia GPU failures on D630, gone on E6400 ?
* On Quadro and Penryn equipped D630 the cooling fan seldom stops, can I expect more quietness from a Quadro and P8700 equipped E6400 ?
* Screen hinges develop looseness on D630, Thinkpad-like hinges on E6400 ?
* Does the 9cell battery wiggle on E6400 ? If it does, is it easily fixable by lets say, a ply of paper?
* The base heats up on D630, is it cooler on E6400 ?

I was starting to switch over to the Lenovo camp with the T400 but then got my hands on one and was disappointed: Battery wiggles, the base unit is easily twisted and the keyboard dips under pressure. How does the E6400 compare?

 

I maintain bunches of E6400s and D630s here at work. I grabbed a E6400 to answer you.

Keyboard flex: There's minor but visible flex on the keyboard around the D and F keys. It's not a problem to me but YMMV. The rest of the keyboard seems fairly firm.

Keyboard wear: We've had ours since around September, I have not seen any signs of wear on the keyboard or the metal grilles on either side of it. One thing I can tell you is the E6400 keyboard is INCREDIBLY EASY to swap out. The bar at the top easily comes out with an appropriately-placed finger pull, revealing two screws...remove the screws and slide the keyboard out; it's that simple. No connectors or ribbons to deal with. Very friendly design!

GPU: Not sure, my units all use integrated graphics.

Hinges: Sort of like thinkpad, but thicker and not visible from the screen side.

9-cell battery wiggle: There's a very tiny wiggle, less than 0.5mm movement IMO. It's not like it rattles or anything, but it it's not rock solid either. I never noticed it until I looked for it specifically. In my opinion it's a non-issue.

Heat: Not sure on this, I would have to try both. If I had to choose which one gets hotter, though, I'd probably go with the 630. I can test this if you like but it may be a while since almost all of my machines are in service with my fellow employees (the E6400 I looked at was only in my office because I'm replacing its LCD).

Other E6400 notes:

- This is a really solid feeling, well-designed notebook overall
- We have found that when the laptop is plugged in and battery is charging, the nearby sound jack gets interference and if you have it hooked up to speakers you can hear a buzzing noise, loud enough to be really annoying to anyone in the room. The solution we've found is to use the 2-prong version of the power adapter or to attach a 3-prong to 2-prong converter (costs less than $1) to the end of the power cable.

 

If long-time E6400 users could comment on the hinges, would be grand.

I think it is one of the most asked questions here...but what are the average idle/load temps (in Celsius) with the NVS 160M ? Does Dell still use those darned thermal pads for interface material?

 

You can see with Dell to replace your motherboard... it should be covered despite if you are out of warranty. Contact Dell for more info on this...

If you really want a new system:
I have my E6400 for over a year now, and I love it.

Paint removal is did not occur to me or read any report on such issue with this keyboard.

Nvidia has solved the quality problem fairly quickly once reported. So far my Quadro NVS 160M is holding strong even after a heavy overclock (see my signature) when I play games on it when I don't have access to my gaming system. No additional cooling used.

I can't comment on this. From my point of view... this laptop is fan is like every laptop form it's range.. not super ultra quiet, but not super ultra noisy either. The fan rarly kicks in when you are on battery at room temperature room. Well i never did for me when in class. It does when you watch Flash based videos after several minutes... but that is a Flash aspect plug-in issue than anything else, as it uses the CPU instead of the GPU to render every frame (stupid way to do things). Flash 10.1 Beta has GPU rendering for videos, but currently it's support GPU's are fairly slim. We will have to wait until the final version. I don't think it will cure the problem, but it will help, and promote battery life as the GPU, is... well, design to draw and play videos, CPU's... no.


[qopte]* Screen hinges develop looseness on D630, Thinkpad-like hinges on E6400 ?[/quote]
The E6400 are better than the thinkpads.. they are large metal block. Solid stuff, and hold the screen very well. Minimal wobble when you hit the screen. Expect an instant wobble stop form a strong hit of 1 or 2 sec (depending how strong you hit the screen while open).

Find me 1 laptop that doesn't wiggle. It's made on purpose! If not you'll have a hard time inserting/removing the battery. I guess you can "fix" that by sliding a peace of paper or something. I don't know what you do with your laptop.. but I don't think it's designed to be used in a roller coaster ride, where the battery might produce a noise due that is moves a bit

No idea, I never had the D630.. but the base of teh E6400 is used as a heatsink as well it's internal heatsink, and it's well in metal.. so it's normal that it's warmer than a plastic bass based laptop. Is it killer hot like a MacBook Pro? Not at all. It's much cooler during normal non-intensive operation.

Battery wiggles.. yes.. again find me a laptop that does not have that (with a battery at the same spot). The keyboard is solid, and no flex on my side on the keyboard are keys. However, their is flex on the black (not a key) rectangle next to the Up key (to the left) and to teh right of the Right Ctrl key. The surround keys are affected but you have to applied more pressure. I don't know if it's just my keyboard or not. The flex is about 2mm going in at that position (non key area), when I type it doesn't flex. I am sure I can fix that by removing the keyboard and bending it inside where there is flex and have my problem solved though... I'll do it when I have the time. Again, it doesn't affect my typing, or even see the keyboard flex when typing.

The real downside this laptop has, is it's pads.. it's 2 only punny pads, which when applied appresure, like in a bag with books, sqash flat and it's like they are not there. The screen is safe, keyboard doesn't youch.. but it leave permanant marks on the screen frame over time. There are 2 great solutions though, also very inexpensive:

- John's ultimate solution, is to add your own black pads on the edge of the screen frame, one 1 or 2 near the lock screen, still on the screen frame.

- Mine solution is not as effective but it's free, and not noticeable (well you notice, but no one else, not even the tech guy that passed over once). I took a cable tie wrap black.. you know the ones that tie every cable when you buy a device so that the wires dont' go everywhere in teh box. I cut a small peace and slide it under each pad. For additional protection, I took an old black keyboard, reverse it and cut a small black pad peace from it, and slide it under the lock hole. Thick enough to prevent the screen frame to touch the center palm rest, but thin enough to not block the lock system.

- Another solution, is to put your own pads.. ones that are the same height, but stiffer.

This is the only downside I can see from this laptop. I know that every laptop has AT LEAST 1 downside... I am glad that its some minor cosmetic issue, rather than a real quality issue, like bad hinges or terrible keyboard quality.

Make sure you get the backlit keyboard though... the non backlit is noisier, and is reported to flex. The non-backlit keyboard was added after the release of the system, presumably to try and drop the price of the system... sooo it's not really designed for the laptop, for what I can see.

 

As an owner of both a d820 and an e6500, I can say that the hinges on the e6x00 machines are GREAT. Ive had my machine in hand since last september. i should remind you that on your e630, you can tighten down the adjustment screws and fix your problem .

 

My e6400 has a slight wobble (very, very small)

Does anyone know if this can be tightened?

 

I have no issues with my hinges.

 

Of course, it can! - Do at your own risk.
- Remove the screw of the silver plastic tabs next to the battery (where the Ethernet and display port is).
- Slide them upwards (away from the laptop.. like a battery cover for most TV remotes).
- Place a clean, smooth cover on the table to protect the laptop
- Open the screen lid of the laptop, 90 degrees.
- Now, reverse the laptop so that the screen is outside the desk, and that the keyboard is pointing down on the cloth that you put in, on your desk. So your laptop should be on an edge, not-corner, of your desk. HOLD THE LAPTOP SO IT DOESN'T FALL!
-Place your hand or leg under teh screen (so that it doesn't fall out)
- Push the screen up (the laptop will lift a little)
- You see the screw under the silver cover that you previously removed? Well tight these screw up.
-Now, you can revert back the laptop, like normal, and close the lid, and put back the silver covers (don't screw the plastic cover screws too much as you can break them)

Your screen should be tight like if it was bran new.. if it still wobble a bit, then it like that, and can't do anything - and it's most likely normal.

 

so i just got my e6400 today!
the battery on the e6400 does wiggle but can be fixed with some notecard

questions!
does anyone elses lcd screen bottom scrap the top of the plastic part right above the battery? i mean there is no gap between the screen and base
kinda makes an annoying wooshing sound when closing and opening the screen

also the top part of the screen cover is sorta bent
is this normal because there's a cam?
you can notice that the cover is bent when compared to the base when closing the lid