Latitude E6500 Owner's Lounge

There is the E6400 Owner Lounge, but not much discussion is going on about its larger twin, the E6500. I thought I'd start up another thread for this.

Right now I'm torn between getting the E6400, the E6500, and in distant third, the HP tx2500z.

Any E6500 owners that can give a quick synopsis of their rigs? I'm very close to pulling the trigger on one of these three but haven't yet.

 

There are needs for information on the E6500 from different point of views.
Manybe we can create a kind of living review, a distributed (but linked) knowledge base, a E6500 wiki?

Some questions from my point of view:
How can a second Hard Drive be attached?
Intentions:
(1) Full bootable Hard Drive for backup (plug in)
(2) Optional RAID 0 performance

http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&safe=off&q=external+media+Bay+Module+E6500
(3) In Jan/09 I want to copy the Hard Disk to a
fast, quiet and economic 250GB SSD (Solid State Disk).

The X18-M SSD beast was tested twice as fast as a configuration of two Velocirator Hard Drives (10K) at RAID-0 (this was the fastest actual configuration).
0,06 Watt idle power and 0,15 Watt active power is insane compared with
1,10 Watt idle power and 3,00 Watt active power of my slower 7K200.

To my calculations this can give us +15% battery life and
up to +200% 'Hard Disk' performance.

And this noise will go down to zero.


Edit: According to this post the media bay module maybe only can be used with 1,8" Hard Disks:
http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=insp_upgrade&message.id=68340&query.id=253408#M68340
Maybe I can copy to the 1,8" and then copy back to the 2,5" SSD.
Or I can use an external eSATA 2,5" disk drive.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=de&q=ebay+esata+2%2C5
http://www.google.com/search?hl=de&q=Sharkoon+SATA+Quickport+duo

What OS optimizations are done by the users (e.g. Vista tweaking)?

Where can we download the E6500 manuals (in different languages)?
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/late6500/
E.g. the E6500 service manual?
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/late6500/en/sm/html/index.htm
I googled and stored this service manual today. It helps to exchange hardware based on this good and modular DELL Latitude design. Sorry, I am working with my notebook many hours a day. And (as a hobby) I want to be able to disassemble and reassemble it.

Where are the best pictures of the opened E6500? ...

How to get the maximum uptime out of the batteries?
(1) RmClock, NHC, Dell Control Point software etc.

(2) Setup for minimum power consumption
(3) 6 cell, 9 cell, 12 cell, 4 cell battery

How can we reduce the fan activity?
E.g. I applied a better thermal paste at the CPU of my last DELL notebook.
800% better heat conduction. 10 degrees lower at full load. 70% lower temperature hysteresis when jumping from idle to full load.

http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=4373

What are the best drivers? Where can we download the best driver for the chipset, the audio and for the grafic card? etc.
...

Can the memory timings be optimized with Memset and SPDtool?
http://www.tweakers.fr/
http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&safe=off&q=spdtool+install
{Be careful, SPDtool is just for very experienced people}

How can we upgrade the mobile broadband card to a integrated regular Voice Telefone?
...

What CPUs will fit into the E6500?
Penryn ULV? X9100 Extreme? QX9300 Quadcore?
Can Extreme or Quadcore be combined with LV (Low Voltage)
because it is the same silicon production process?

Is there a possibility for an open BIOS with additional options for FSB, FID, Memory optimization etc, (yes, there has been possibilities for the last generation Latitudes)
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=3608969&postcount=13

And of cause information on pros an cons of the system configurations options
(Display, CPU, HDD, OS, keyboard, graphic card etc.)?
Yes, there are different point of views.

My ordered configuration is listed below.
Order date: 9/17/2008
Delivery date: at or before 10/20/2008

Latitude E6500
T9600 (2.80GHz,1066MHz,6MB)
256MB Nvidia Quadro NVS 160M Graphic Card
{I disliked the internal X3100 of my last notebook,
the power consumption difference was very low,
I want to have the option of easy upgrading the grafic card}
WXGA+ (1440X900, LED backlit)
{more light - for outside usage, less power consupmtion}
0.3 Mega Pixel Camera with Microphone
4096MB (2x2048) 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel
{it is the fastest combination, only 3,2GB can be used by Vista32}
Hard Drive : 200GB (7200RPM) Free Fall Sensor {fast}
Optical Drive : 8X DVD+/RW Drive
4 Power Cords : Euro 90W AC Adaptor {office, home, car, aux.}
Batteries: Primary 9-cell 85W, Slice 84W, second 9-cell 85W
{I dislike empty batteries}
Wireless : Intel WiFi Link 5300 (802.11 a/b/g/n 3X3) 1/2 MiniCard
{faster: up to 450Mbit/sec, extented range because of additional combined antenna optimization, range is higher than 5100, and both are part of the centrino2 standard - I think 5300/5100 may have better driver support in the future}
Keyboard : Internal Backlight Keyboard {I often work without external light}
Software Driver : Recovery DVD {just for a better feeling - irrational}
Operating System : Windows Vista Ultimate SP1(32Bit OS)
{full OS features, 32Bit for compatibility reasons}
Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 Os media
{to activate a full HD copy and for installation tests}
Microsoft Office 2007 Pro

As the E6400 and the E6500 are in a close technical relationship,
we can crosslink the knowledge bases of both notebooks and
even crosslink with other Centrino2 notebooks.
{Just my 2 Cents}

PS: There may be even Hardware tweaks to reduce the CPU Voltage at SuperLFM

http://forum.rightmark.org/topic.cgi?id=6:1660

 

Good post heinz2005

 

I looked at all the specs, waited for it, and bought it the day after it came out. My verdict: It is way too heavy.

I have the 9 cell battery and the DVDRW and it is pushing 6 1/2 lbs. With the charger, it is a unbearable to lug around on and off the plane. I am seriously looking for a ultra light weight replacement and leave this one on the desk. May be a MBA.

Also, if you are a lover of the pointing stick as I am, you will be disappointed. The top of the stick is sunken in. Besides hitting the surrounding keys when you use it, it is just not very pleasant to use. The IBM sticks are a lot better.

Performance wise, it is not bad. Considering that I am using Vista, it still feel pretty quick. I bought the downgrade to XP but there are a few strange hitches like popping sound during video playback and complete freeze up soon after start up. All disappeared after I loaded Vista. So, I won't waste the $15 or $20 for the XP downgrade.

The build in speaker is a little weak. Don't even talk about fidelity, the volume is just too low. You can't hear it unless you are in a quite room. The battery life is ok. Not the "up to 16 hours" that Dell claims and I have the biggest battery they sell short of adding the extra slice on the bottom. I get about 6 hours of normal use doing Word docs and Powerpoint using the "Dell Recommended" power setting.

 

I agree, chan005, that it is on the heavy side with the 9-cell battery. Dell says that you can achieve around 16 hours of battery life if you include the battery slice thing that attaches to the underside of the laptop, which adds another couple pounds of weight to the rig.

On the speakers, they are rather lame but I never expect a laptop to have decent speakers on it so I resort to headphones.

On the pointing stick, and the trackpad for that matter, I haven't been impressed with either on any laptop I've played with. I'm glad that my work supplied me with an E6500 that has built in bluetooth so I could use a bluetooth mouse. The keyboard is awesome on the E6500 though .

 

If you were concerned enough about weight to consider the MBA, then you shouldn't have even looked at the E6500, or practically any 15 inch laptop for that matter. For a 15 inch, that seems like a decent weight to me. It's the same as my old 14 inch XPS m140.

Please check out the touchpad drivers topic, and update your BIOS to the latest version. It makes a difference.

Greg

 

In the E6400 owner's lounge thread there is discussion about at least two different possible manufacturer's of the notebooks' displays--Samsung and Phillips. It seems the general consensus is that the Samsung displays are inferior. Please excuse me if I missed it, but does the E6500 have a similar issue, with different manufacturers as possible suppliers for the E6500 displays? My E6500 with with WXGA+ was shipped late last week, and I am wondering what, if anything, I should be looking for with respect to different possible display manufacturers when it arrives.

Thanks.

 

I've found the SEC version of the monitor on my E6500 to be pretty good. I don't have the model with the Phillips monitor to compare with but from what I'm hearing the Phillips is better. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and in my case I find the Samsung (SEC) to be perfect for my needs.

The E6500 shares many of the same components as the E6400, in a slightly larger package. Whatever problems arise on E6400's, the same problems probably exist on the E6500.

 

How do I determine which display I have? I realize this is probably a complete newb question, but I've searched, and can't seem to find the answer. Perhaps the answer will help others too.

Thanks.

 

Searching some more, I was able to answer my own question. A user named "Charlotte" posted the following in another thread a couple of years ago:

---
Right click on My Computer icon. Click on Properties. Click on Hardware tab. Click on Device Manager. Click on Monitors to open that section. Right click on Plug and Play Monitor. Click on Properties. Click on Details tab. Should say Display and then a alpha numeric code. The first few letters is what you look for. SEC is samsung.
---

It turns out I have the Samsung display. It looks good to me, but I'm a bit disappointed since the consensus here seems to be that the Phillips is better. Oh well.