Latitude E6510 Owner's Lounge

My keyboard illumination seems to have gotten disabled on my 6510. It was working fine the other day until my granddaughter snuck up on my and pressed a bunch of keys together. Since then, no backlighting. I've tried the <Function> <Right Arrow> key combination to try and enable it, but that didn't work, and I've tried the various options in the BIOS to no avail. Anyone have any ideas?

 

Any body put in a 3g hdspa modem in their 6510 and how well did it work.

 

Hello, I'm new to this forum and glad I found it
I'm curious if the original person of this post ever upgraded their e6510 to an i7 quad core cpu? or if anyone has? I did a search in this forum but didn't find anything (perhaps I missed a post?)
I did find a post in the e6410 forum of someone who swapped (upgraded) to an i7 successfully.

My system:
e6510, i5 M450 @ 2.4ghz, 8GB RAM, Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit, 700GB sata 7200RPM Hitachi HD, NVIDIA NVS 3100M graphics card/chip.

Here are my questions:

1. Has anyone upgraded to i7 and if so have you experienced any heat problems? Also, I see a youtube video that shows it's pretty easy to swap an i7 in but did you have to change anything besides the i7 and new thermal grease?

2. What is the fastest i7 processor that will run in the e6510? I see the specs of Processor: Intel Core i7-720QM Quad Core Processor 1.6GHz (2.8GHz Turbo Mode, 6MB Cache) Is this the fastest i7 processor that will run in the e6510?

3. Will installing an i7 quad cpu allow more than 8GB ram or is that a limitation of something else?

4. What do I need to check on my motherboard specs (and how do I check?) to see if it will support the i7?

Thanks for your advice

 

1. There should be a different type of fan for quad cores. Though someone needs to confirm this. This was the case with my M4500, and they basically use very similar parts. There was a beefier one that blew a lot more air.

2. Extreme series is the fastest technically. See: http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-latitude-vostro-precision/546836-e6510-w-nvidia-i7-920xm.html

3. You would have to try. I had an Alienware M17x R2 which also uses first gen core i processors. It took 16 GB. But chipset or motherboard may limit.

4. YOU MUST HAVE NVIDIA DEDICATED GRAPHICS CARD IN THE MOTHERBOARD FOR QUAD I7. PERIOD. That is all you need for the mobo.

 

Thank you very much for the info! I really appreciate it.

I don't dig into laptop hardware that often so...
In control panel under display adapters it shows "NVIDIA NVS 3100M"
How can I tell for sure if this is a dedicated graphics card on the motherboard?

Also, does anyone have any recommendations on where to purchase the i7 cpu?
if the Dell fan / heat sync is more powerful it would be nice if the same place sold the correct fan/heat sync as well for the i7?

Also, I read your recommendation in that thread you linked that it might be better in the long run to get a new laptop with sandy bridge.
So, I'm wondering what Dell laptops are the fastest most powerful with the best graphics card now that still use a dock system like the e series latitude does?
I can't live without a slide in one button dock as I currently use one dock in my office at home another dock in a remote office and being able to quickly clip in a laptop is a must with me.

 

1. That Nvidia is 100000000% the dedicated graphics, so no worries.

2. Buy it used from ebay. Processors work for a very long time. Obviously get it from experienced seller and all that.

3. The fan doesn't have to be bought from the same person. Odds are no seller will offer both.

4. All Latitude and Precision series offer the docking. That is the whole point to minimize office convenience.

I upgraded from 2.66 i5 to i7 820QM myself for the processing power. With office stuff, it should last me another 3-4 years. Until you absolutely need more power, the i7 quad can do justice. You can also sell your i5 for cheap and make up the price from i7.

My personal recommendation is that if you are tight with budget, get a solid state drive. A lot more stable and snappier. I upgraded both and it's really as good as any latest laptops with up to decent-high performance (not including gaming of course).

 

Hello Dellienware.

Thanks for all of your advice. This past week-end I bought a 500GB SSD (Samsung 840) for $330 and it came with a disk copy utility that worked very nicely to copy a complete image of my existing HD to the new SSD. Boot up times are now under 1 minute whereas it used to take about 5 minutes boot up time with the old HD. Adobe Premiere CS6 works faster as well but still bottlenecks on the render times due to I'm guessing the stock i5-CPU and GPU. I don't expect it to be as fast as a desktop with a powerful graphics card.

So on the CPU upgrade.

I looked on ebay and found a refurbished i7-820QM for $188 but then I looked around and decided for and additional $257 I could buy an entire used e6510 with an I7 built in already.

So I today on ebay I just bought a refurbished e6510 laptop for $445 with the following specs i7-740QM, 8GM ram, 250GB HD, W7 Pro, nVidia NVS 3100M 512MB, Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 AGN, DVD+/-RW. 30 day warranty.

I'm thinking I'll just swap my SSD HD and my backlit keyboard from my existing i5 e6510 laptop (which doesn't have a web cam) into the refurbished i7 e6510 laptop (which does have a webcam.) as I think this will be the easiest method. Then I'll have my i5 e6510 laptop as my spare slightly slower backup laptop for me and my kids.

What do you think of that plan?

Also, do you know is there a considerable speed difference between the i7-820QM and the i7-740QM?

 

I bought my i7 820qm for $60.

All that for $445 is DEFINITELY an expensive price. But assuming it will be hard to return it, just use it.

820qm is one multiplier (0.13ghz) faster than i7 740qm on turbo mode. Honestly, no real difference in performance.

 

Wow $60 is a great price!

No worries, I know I paid more than I wanted to but time is money as well for me so this should be a quicker solution plus I wanted a backup laptop computer since my i5 laptop warranty is up this year and I can't really afford to have my laptop down more than a day or so since I use it for business every day.

The cool thing is I'll be able to do some side by side tests to see just how the i7 vs the i5 works with Adobe Premiere cs6 editing software render times. I'll post those results once I do the tests.

 

Hi, can anyone suggest a place where I could buy a Dell E6510? I don't like the newer ones. I am looking to the get the quad core FHD version but they're really hard to find. Is there some known good place or am I pretty much down to my luck on ebay and craigslist?

I gave mine to dad and after looking around on the market, there's nothing that interests me. I have high hopes for the m3800 precision but I don't want to wait on it forever.

Any help would be appreciated! Thanks.