Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge, Part 2

OK. So it is HDD noise, not fan noise, that is the problem. Hitachi HDDs are among the quietest of the current products. Just be thankful that you didn't get a clicky Seagate.

I can't help with the WWAN. Look up the details of what is offered for the E6410. I'm sure that the card slot is the same.

John

 

guys, question about the battery. Right now I see that the fully charged capacity is around 45000 mWh, about 20% less than the designed capacity.
should I recalibrate the battery in the bios or not?
is there a way to check how many charge/discharge cycles the battery has gone through?

thanks

 

I don't know how it is possible to check the charge cycles.

I do know that when I did a deep discharge many months ago when my battery capacity had dropped to around 50Wh, I recovered about half the lost capacity. So it might work for you or, if the battery is dying, you may end up with a lower capacity.

John

 

I'm not quite sure what's happening here, but while watching a flash video or .avi/.mkv, my E6400 begins to hang and lock up. At that point, I'll have nothing open, but have 100% CPU usage. I've updated to the A25 BIOS and the 8/16/10 Nvidia drivers for the NVS160M, but neither has helped. Any input would be appreciated. Specs below. Thanks.

 

First check if you have the latest version of Flash player (it's listed under your browser plugins).

Then run HWmonitor to find out what the are temperatures doing?.

John

 

Battery life diminishes fast. The batteries last about a year to a year and half. Of course, when I say that, I don't mean that after a year or a year and half, the battery won't hold a charge. I mean that it will still hold a charge, but you should expect under a 2 hours - 1 hours and half battery life of operation, when you do your best to conserve power. Which, in my opinion, is not enough to do anything. If you wonder my status, I have a 9-cell battery, I started with almost 9 hours of battery life max, now, a bit more than a year and half, I have almost 2 hours of battery life max. The wear level is at 74%, full charge capacity is: 22322 mWh. The max, original capacity is 86580 mWh.

 

thanks man! wow that sucks! you lost a lot of battery life. my battery is a year and 1/2 old and i lost about 20% but i am most of the time plugged in.

john, is what you mentioned the "recalibration" procedure? i thought there was something else than the full discharge.

 

If your battery is 1.5 years old then don't take any chances.
It could be that one day it will hold for no more than 30 minutes without any prior notification.
It happened to me, it show 100% charged, when I unplugged it it showed 80% after few seconds, and then went down directly to 15% after few minutes.
The battery was 1 year old less few days and dell replaced it with no extra cost.

 

Mine is almost 2 years and has only lost about 10%. Perhaps because I paid for the extended battery warranty!

They are effectively the same. A full discharge enables the battery controller chip to recalibrate the capacity. Note that a full discharge means down to 0, not the 3% where Windows will shut the computer down. I have had batteries that will run the computer for 10 minutes with the gauge on empty.

John

 

Yes, because Dell (well all OEM) figured that a battery should last AT LEAST 1 year. So if your battery breaks or doesn't hold a charge anymore just before your warranty ends, then your lucky as you have now a free battery.

New Lithium-ion battery with an added mixture to the mix, are apparently able to last an estimated 3 years. I think that ASUS new business series (B-series) laptop has an option to have such battery. It also comes with a 3 year warranty on the battery. Would be nice, if more OEM uses them.. but I know they will try to resist the most than can as they make sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much money by selling laptop batteries. Cost virtually nothing compared to the price that the consumer pays.