Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge, Part 2

Im a new owner of a e6400 Atg
however i have a problem with the newtork ethernet
it only works at 10mbs
and the problem is not the newtork itself because other 2 computer work at 100mbs
problem

Please help

 

I just noticed that the BIOS is now at A20, I have I think A13 or so. I haven't had any problems, only sometimes some throttling. Should I upgrade anyway or what?

Any major reason to reflash?

Evan my RAID 1 e-sata external HDD has been working since I switched to Win 7.

 

I highly recommend updating to at least version A19 because that version included updated thermal tables. It totally solved throttling issues for most users and calmed down the annoying fan noise issues for some of us, too! You can always revert back to your prior BIOS if you have any problems of unwanted changes! Just click on the "Other Versions" link that appears next to the most current BIOS update and every BIOS revision from day one is there for download!

 

I should have been more specific, by base I meant the bottom cover, not the chassis.

I removed all the stickers the day I got this thing. Now there aren't even any on the bottom to look at and get damaged from heat/friction.

I just noticed a little crack in my screen bezel, definitely recent. I'll be in contact with Dell again once I'm less busy. It's definitely no big deal and not urgent, and on most other laptops I wouldn't care, but the kind of service I've gotten so far tells me that anything less than perfection should be replaced as far as they are concerned.

By the way, this keyboard is definitely quieter. New hard drive works just fine as well. And just incase anyone was curious, even though my setup if bought now would get a 65w adapter, I did get a 90w adapter replacement, which is all that they shipped with the early machines.

I may decide to get a Dell tech in to fix the bezel and tighten up the screen for me in a few weeks.

Greg

 

+1. This information would be very useful. The E6400 bios has 4 ports enabled as shown here. To identify what physical port they are, if any (some bios enable phantom ports), can someone with a E6400:

* place an expresscard e-sata or usb into the expresscard slot and see what port Everest reports the device being under.

* swap over the wifi card into each of the two additional mPCie slots in the E6400 as shown here and identify what port Everest reports the device as being under.

We are trying to identify if the E6400 has a combo of ports to allow desktop video cards at x2 1.0 speeds by combing two x1 1.0 ports: port1+port2 or port3+port4+sataled#_mod. Likely would need a small cutout on the bottom case to allow convenient, on-demand connection to the mPCIe slots.

 

I can only comment on the Nvidia solution GPU E6400 laptop. From my knowledge, the laptop doesn't operate at full speed under a 65W PSU (power adapter) - I tested it. You need to use a 90W one for full power, and normal recharge.

When I use a 65W PSU, my CPU and GPU goes at minimum speed, and the laptop recharges extremely slowly unless it's turn off or sleeping (or hibernating).

 

Yes, you need to have the Intel graphics option in order to be able to use a 65W PSU without any performance constraints. The newish slim PSUs mean that there isn't so much size weight difference between 65W and 90W PSUs but I also have the 65W auto / air / AC adaptor.

The early E6400 BIOSes throttled the Intel graphics version of the E6400 if run from a 65W PSU but Intel fixed this unnecessary limitation in one of the BIOS updates.

However, do Dell ship 65W PSUs as standard with any versions of the E6400? My E4300 came with a 90W PSU although 65W is sufficient for any version of that notebook.

John

 

Thanks for the info John.

 

Tightening the screws did nothing for me. The hinges themselves are not loose - the screen is very tight when almost closed. The looseness (about 10mm free movement) is only when the screen is near-vertical. This is about twice what it was like when new but I don't think it is has reached the threshold where it is worthwhile asking Dell to change the hinges. The hinges on my E4300 have no wobble, but it has had far less use.

John

 

Yes, my screen only wobbles when near-vertical also. It doesn't bother me much, which is why I'd like to fix it myself but I won't call Dell for this.

I'll give it a go, who knows.