Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge, Part 2

My fan is running most of the time although the CPU idle temperature is only around 30C. However, on its lowest speed setting the fan is almost inaudible. Dell's thermal trigger points are very conservative and the fan off trigger temperature is low. Possibly to avoid people complaining that the metal base becomes too hot for people to use the computer on their lap and also a fan that keeps switching on and off is more annoying than one running continuously.

I've not noticed any random mouse pointer movements. It may be the pointing stick recalibrating itself. If you never use it then try disabling it and see if the problem goes away.

John

 

On the Heat issue: i have a ATG edition and its excellent , the fan works freqeuently , as a result the temperature on the surface is great, cant say its even hot, on the bottom its a different story but it isnt a problem.

Has anybody tried the touchpad drivers from the E6410?
It says they are for multitouch and i think it wont work.

Also im considering changing my st9250410asg hdd because its too loud and slow
Is there anything much better on the market or should i bare with it for a year more and then get a SSD?
Also im using a E6400 ATG so a rugged harddrive would be in order
With at least a freefall sensor

Thanks a lot

 

Has anybody who has experienced the throttling problems gone in and replaced the stock thermal pads with AS5 or anything similar for the CPU, GPU, and NB? My CPU has been throttling down and causing really bad performance problems when doing almost anything and I'm trying to find something else to help aleviate the problem.

 

Isn't the throttling in these laptops mostly a power consumption issue?

Have you tried using ThrottleStop yet?

http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/3/3/1794507/ThrottleStop.zip

You might have to ask Dell to send you a 130 watt adapter so you can try to run your laptop at full speed without throttling.

Run a ThrottleStop log file while in monitoring mode and it will become clearer what the problem is and how to fix it. I'd also invest in a Kill-a-Watt meter or similar so you can determine if the throttling issues are temperature or power consumption related.

 

Poor thermal connection is a likely cause, but because the heat sink has to fit two components its is difficult to use AS5 instead of thermal pads. One of our members had serious problems which were eventually solved by replacement of the motherboard (more than once, if I remember correctly). I assume that you are running the latest BIOS (A20).

Power is not the problem. The nVidia GPU version of the E6400 runs fine with a 90W PSU and 65W is enough for integrated graphics.

John

 

The Latitude E6000 series with an Nvidia GPU was one of the first Dell laptops proven to use multiplier and clock modulation throttling when both the CPU and GPU were being utilized. tinkerdude's 24 MB pdf document showed that the multiplier and clock modulation throttling scheme had nothing to do with core temperature.

Download throttlegate.pdf

A lot has been learned since then. Has this issue been 100% solved in the Latitude E6400/E6500 laptops that use the Nvidia Quadro 160M? I had heard that this problem still exists. Now that so many other Dell laptops have been shown to have the exact same problem, it's very easy to accurately diagnose and come up with a solution to help users fully utilize their laptops.

 

Mine still has the problem, although I have to stress the system a bit to get there (usually playing a game with the laptop on my lap, which blocks the air intakes, and with ~28ºC of room temperature). In fact I use your excellent throttlestop program to get rid of the issue.

 

You're welcome for ThrottleStop. I didn't think the throttling problem magically disappeared so thanks for confirming that.

Has anyone tried the Dual IDA trick on these Latitudes?

http://forum.notebookreview.com/win...c-acceleration-ida-both-cores-core-2-duo.html

Many Dell laptops with Core 2 CPUs seem to support this trick.

 

It is a nice trick, but I prefer to keep Intel Speed Step, so my CPU lowers speed and can keep my battery life.

 

At idle, my T8100 spends 99% of its time in the C3 state so the FID (multiplier) and VID your CPU uses at idle is meaningless when it comes to power consumption. You can use the Windows Performance Monitor to confirm if your CPU spends its idle time in the C3 state. If it does, the big power savings and improved battery life by lowering your multiplier don't seem to exist. This used to be important with the original 65nm CPUs but the newer 45nm Core 2 CPUs are very power efficient at idle regardless of any user settings. You can also measure the Battery Usage rate with Performance Monitor to test this.