Problems with Dell Latitude E6400
I bought a Dell Latitude E6400 last September when the hard drive on my aging ThinkPad T42 started hemorrhaging sectors left and right. I could have just replaced the hard drive and kept chugging along with the ThinkPad, but my 1024×768 really wasn’t cutting it coding in Visual Studio or Eclipse. I wanted a notebook that not only had more portable screen real estate, but could drive a big flat panel at a pretty high resolution. Also, LED-backlit displays were just hitting the market at the end of last summer. My T42 CFL-backlit display was anemically dim. Plus, as I learned by dropping by older T40 a mere 12 inches while inside a padded bad, that CFL bulb is prone to breakage if knocked just the wrong way! (That’s why I had to buy the T42 in the first place!)
Originally, out of ThinkPad loyalty, I considered the as T400 as a replacement. However, the LED-backlit versions were not in stock at the time, and the projected wait times were impossibly long. I depend on my notebook for my business, so I needed an immediate replacement. I went with Dell because the E6400 was available and seemed to fit my needs.
My E6400 was configured as follows:
- 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor (P9500)
- 2 GB DDR2-800 SRAM, 1 DIMM
- NVIDIA Quadro NVS 160M with Express Card
- 250 GB Serial ATA hard drive (7200 RPM)
- 14.1" WXGA+ (1400×900) LED display
- Intel WiFi link 5300 a/g/n
- 8x DVD +/-RW
- 9-cell battery
- Windows XP Professional SP3
- Bluetooth, Modem, Fingerprint Reader, Integrated Webcam,
I even had them plant three trees to offset the carbon footprint. Nice option. I would like to know where my trees are in case I want to visit them…
PROS
Anyway, among the things I really liked about this machine were:
Stylish design – Definitely a step up from the drab ThinkPad look. Macs are pretty. A lot of PC notebook designs I’ve seen are either over-buttoned with abominable detailing, or an ill-executed attempt to look Mac-like. The E6400 design is quite elegant and refined in its own right. Though, the "brushed metal" lid is just a cheesy laminate effect and hardly actual brushed metal.
Trackpad and Stick – I don’t know anyone else who likes the pointing stick, but I use it 90% of the time. I’m used to having the stick and the trackpad from ThinkPad experience. Unless you like steering with your thumb, the nice thing about the stick over the pad is that it keeps your hands in typing position. But it’s nice to have the trackpad to fall back on, because as anyone who’s dealt with repetitive strain injuries would understand, the alternative pointing device lets you keep working while avoiding overuse.
Backlit keyboard – It’s just flat out sexy. I couldn’t go back to a ThinkLight.
LED backlit display – The screen is just beautiful, and very bright! I can use it outdoors in direct sunlight. Indoors, I rarely need to turn the brightness more than halfway up. The display saves on batteries, too, which leads me to…
Battery life – When I first got it, the 9-cell battery was yielding 7-hour run times. Battery life for me means being able to work while commuting or outside in nice weather. It’s now lasting about 5 1/2 hours, but still a luxury not to have to worry about your next A/C fix.
Little things – 4 USB ports, SD Card reader.
CONS
Fragile keys – Within the first day, the E key popped off while I was typing. I’ve had this happen with my ThinkPads. The edge of my finger occasionally gets caught on the side of a key and pops it off. Usually no big deal…just snap it back in place. Well, in this case, the little plastic tab that holds the key on broke, so I couldn’t reattach the key properly. Dell was helpful enough to send me an immediate keyboard replacement which I was able to replace the next day. Haven’t had that happen since.
Ambient light sensor misplaced – I like the idea of the ambient light sensor automatically adjusting the brightness of the display according to current conditions. However, the sensor is below the screen on the left side. What happens is that it senses the light bouncing off your pasty white fingers. It’s just really annoying for the screen to change brightness every time you move your hand to and from the keyboard. They should have put the sensor above the screen.
No Break key - I know most people don’t use this, but when developing old VB applications or Microsoft Access, pressing <Ctrl><Break> interrupts your code while debugging. I live by this key. As a workaround, I have to open the on-screen keyboard while programming. It’s a silly omission. They could have made an Fn shortcut for it. (I wonder if people think the button labeled "Break" will break their computer?) [EDIT] Thanks to Kirk Taylor and others who’ve commented, I’ve learned that <Ctrl><Fn><F12> on the E6400 sends Break. Tested in MS Access 2003 and it works! I assume it will for other IDE.
Audio - See below!
PROBLEMS
It’s really a shame my experience with the Dell hasn’t been all good. Here are some of the problems I’ve had:
1. Terrible audio – This became apparent the moment I plugged in to my sound system. I’d been listening to my audio collection from my T42, and when at home, plugged the docking station outputs to my Mackie 1202-VLZ PRO mixer, which outputs to Behringer Truth B2030A active monitors. Never had a problem with this setup.
However, with the Dell, I immediately noticed horrendous static. It’s normal to hear some RF interference when you turn the silent output of a computer way up, but this was at normal listening volume. Never mind the fact that the E6400 audio, even output through my sound system, was tinny and distorted…the RF interference made it sound like a cheap AM radio! I expect that from a cheap AM radio ($9 USD or so), but for over $2,000 USD…not acceptable. This notebook is useless for casual listening. If you’re a musician, forget it. You might as well scrape your fingernails on a chalkboard.
It’s not a driver thing. Booting to a Ubuntu live CD yields the same joy of listening to your hard drive seek in full hi-fi audio…
(Not related, but worth mentioning… The onboard speakers are better on your cellphone speaker phone. Trust me.)
2. Pixel noise on DVI output - When I use my E6400 on my docking station with my 20" Samsung display via the DVI output, I get weird pixel noise on some graphics. It looks like smatterings of hot pixels, but they are not fixed to the display. If the noise is on a web graphic, it will move with the graphic as you scroll the page up and down. This problem was minimal at first, but has gotten progressively worse.
To be fair, I don’t have alternate equipment that I can further diagnose the problem with. Therefore, I don’t know whether the problem might be in the monitor or in the docking station rather than the notebook.
VGA output to same monitor works fine. Lower resolutions via DVI work fine, also.
3. Ethernet gone bad – I didn’t have any problems with the integrated gigabit Ethernet for the first three or four months. Then it started to randomly drop connection here and there. Then progressively worse til it was "acquiring IP address" every couple minutes. Finally, it just stopped working altogether. At home. At work. This cable, that cable, etc. So I limped along on WiFi only for a while. Then WiFi started dropping more and more frequently. (I really need a fast wired connection for database work, though…)
SUPPORT
I was able to get by the audio problems simply by not using the Dell for audio (except for mandatory YouTube excursions and occasional Skyping). I set up a desktop at home as a media server. However, the other problems started to interfere with business. So I called Dell tech support…
After accidentally calling the home support number a few times, I finally got routed properly to the business support line. I have to say that the difference was night and day. On the business side, the first person I talked to understood when I explained that the Ethernet connection didn’t even work when booting to a Ubuntu live CD. (The home folks, upon hearing this, would continue with their script asking me to go to my XP Control Panel or some nonsense like that…) So business support authorized me to send my notebook in for a replacement motherboard.
(Skipping a bit…)
Okay, so after 8 days without it, my notebook came back. I had explained in a detailed note the above problems, hoping that whatever they fixed would solve them all.
Well, audio still sounds like a trip to the dentist.
The video problem is the same. (Maybe it is the monitor…I dunno. I’ll test further when I can…)
Most importantly… The Ethernet still did not work! I know they changed the motherboard because when I reinstalled my hard drive and booted up, it didn’t not recognize some PCI devices…so apparently some newer version board than I had before…
Well, I tried the Ubuntu live CD and this time Ethernet did work. So I booted back to XP, checked for the latest drivers, and tried again. No dice. Until I set the Gigabit card to 100Mbps Full-Duplex rather than auto-sensing Gigabit. Fine. Good enough, I guess.
NEXT
Not exactly the resolution I’d hoped for. But I’ve lost days and days of productivity due to my problems with this Dell. It’s probably a better idea to limp along with the E6400 until I can afford its replacement. I’m going to experiment with virtualizing XP within Ubuntu on it for now. Maybe I’ll get a MacBook next and see how the other half lives?
Related Posts
Tags: audio, Dell, E6400, Ethernet, laptop, Latitude
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April 23rd, 2009 at 12:08 pm
E 6400 latitude dell laptop is horrible with the product performance wise
has hardware problems
April 24th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
Heya! I just got a new E6400 and am loving it, except for the really really crappy sound. I poked around a bit — and here’s the solution, courtesy of this site: http://en.community.dell.com/forums/p/19147667/19347123.aspx
1) Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> Entertainment -> Volume Control
2) Click the “Advanced” button in the lower left hand corner, or in the menu bar if the button isn’t visible
3) Check the “PC Spk Mute”
Remember, when you unplug your headphones/speakers, your PC Speakers will be muted
April 24th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Hey, Rob
Thanks for the tip! I’ve tried that solution already, without any luck. I’m glad it worked on yours. Maybe because yours is newer? I got mine last September.
Did you find that your audio problems were much worse plugged into A/C power than when on battery power? That’s how mine is.
April 25th, 2009 at 10:12 am
Hmm … tried it plugged into AC and unplugged, with PC SPK Mute on and off … power makes no difference at all on my machine, but muting the onboard speakers makes all the difference in the world.
I wonder if there’s a driver upgrade that would help this fix to work for you? Otherwise, if the hardware itself is different from your machine to mine, I wonder if Dell might be persuaded to give you an upgrade. If I were stuck with that boxy, tinny sound on my machine, I’d have been mighty unhappy …
May 14th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Control + Fn + F12 seems to send the break sequence on my E6400
May 14th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
Thanks, Kirk. I’ll take your word for it, since right now I’m running XP in a virtual machine, and it seems the <Fn> key isn’t mapped.*
I’m curious whether that sends <Break> or <Ctrl>+<Break>, as the latter is required to interrupt debugging in Visual Studio or Access?
Of course, I could probably set up whatever mapping I want in VMWare. Luckily, plenty of options for workarounds.
* CORRECTION: I tested again today and <Ctrl>+<Fn>+<F12> DOES send <Break> in VMWare 6.5.x on my E6400 laptop. Just need to make sure this key mapping is set up: http://communities.vmware.com/message/508070#508070
May 14th, 2009 at 11:10 pm
Would you recommend this laptop to a college student who isn’t going to be running Ubuntu or anything fancy, just maybe playing the occasional game?
Also, the music/sound volume issue you have, do you mean you are plugging in speakers to the laptop or you’re using the built in speakers?
Thanks!
-David
May 15th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Hi, David
Well, I wouldn’t recommend my E6400 unless you have no use for sound. I find a lot of complaints about the audio online, but many don’t seem similar to mine. I’m going to call support soon to see if they can resolve my audio issues.
The audio problems are most evident when plugged into external speakers, listening at normal volume, and plugged into AC. The built-in speakers sidestep the issue by not being able to put out a decent volume to begin with. The laptop speakers I can forgive (reluctantly, as most are better), but external audio output this bad should have never left the assembly line.
If you can get a *good price* on one, it has a terrific screen, good speed, and other nice features I detail above. It’s a handsome laptop by PC standards, with excellent battery life. If you take notes in class with it (we used paper in my day), it’s got a quiet keyboard and plenty of juice.
I don’t know why, but Dell does not have a driver update utility like Lenovo and most other laptop manufacturers out there. So to keep your machine up to date, you’ll be manually downloading and installing from their support site. It’s a techie process with lots of pitfalls if you install things in the wrong order. A time waster, IMO.
July 15th, 2009 at 7:46 am
Hi Guys,
in the office we got in March 2009 the Latitudes E6400.
I was also about to buy some new headphones. Something small, non-striking. So I bought the Sennheiser MX660 earplugs. These are supposed to have a supreme full sound. I was very disappointed when I heard them first. a very flat sound like the one you hear in the supermarket announcements. I tried them with my coworkers E6400 and always the same.
I tried the with my iPod touch and the sound was brilliant. So I knew the problem was with the laptop.
I played around with the settings while listening to music.
When I ticked the checkbox “1 PC Spk Mute” I almost fell from the chair !
the sound was much louder and crystal clear!
the description of the setting says “These settings make other changes to how your audio sounds. See your hardware documentation for details.”
This clearly says its all about the sound chip/driver, not the windows settings.
My coworker is using a Logitech USB headphones on his E6400 and he never had any problems.
other than that, I like my E6400.
What I dont like about it is the chasis not being as solid as on the old latitudes, especially the display part.
and its missing the standard COM port – a reason why many professionals bought a lattitude in the first place ( a lot of measurement devices, car diagnosis tools still use this port).
bye.
milan
July 22nd, 2009 at 11:32 am
Is anyone else perturbed by the lack of right-click key on the keyboard? Irritating to people who prefer to use the keyboard over the mouse!
Another question, probably a dumb one…
Does anybody know what the small button next to the WiFi switch does? The one with the RSS-looking logo on it. I can’t find information on this anywhere, and it doesn’t seem to do anything when I press it. I’m running XP w/SP3.
July 22nd, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Hi, Landon
I don’t know what you mean by right-click key on the keyboard. Wouldn’t you just use the right-click buttons on the trackpad or pointing stick?
I have no idea what that button by the WiFi switch does. I’m running Linux now, so I can’t even test it.
July 24th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
I just got an E6400 also … I noticed the Ambient Light sensor problem also … although I initially thought I was having a stroke, because the laptop display was pulsing.
I also am having problems with the lack of an undock option … currently the E6400 doesn’t know when it’s docked or not, so when you ‘hot undock’ the OS isn’t informed and external devices are left powered on.
I talked to Dell support (SMB division) about it and they are working on a BIOS fix. Obviously no ETA.
I wrote on my whole experience on my blog.
September 2nd, 2009 at 8:31 am
> Another question, probably a dumb one…
Hi Landon!
Did you find a solution what the button mean?
September 3rd, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Shift + F10 for the right mouse click. I hate it when laptops don’t have this key.
September 6th, 2009 at 11:59 am
Often when I’m typing a word document, web address, and even this comment the computer will randomly send the curser elsewhere, leaving my writing a jumbled mess.
September 18th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
The button beside the WiFi switch is the WiFi catcher, if the proper software is installed it will run a quick site survey of wifi networks.
September 29th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Hi Kevin –
I too have a problem with the cursor jumping around – I suspect I’m touching the extra mouse keys by mistake when I type and the cursor is jumping to where the cursor locator is – is it possible to disable the mouse keys?
Damian
September 29th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
Hi, Damian
I can only say “probably” since I no longer have Dell’s default operating system installed (which in my case was Windows XP). Also, there ought to be settings so you can adjust the sensitivity of the trackpad and pointing stick. If the cursor is jumping, it’s probably not the keys, but the pointing devices.
Which brings up a point of concern… If you are brushing up against the pointing device while you type, you might want to review your typing techniques in order to prevent repetitive strain injury (RSI).
And I only mention that just in case, because as someone who types a LOT and is a musician, I have had this problem in the past and need to be very careful to avoid it. You may be very different, but anything I can do to help others avoid the pain I’ve gone through, I will do.
Tying these two points together, this is exactly the reason I appreciate the dual-pointing design of many Thinkpads and Dells. It allows for variation in how you control the cursor, so that you don’t overdo one motion. I get a lot more work done that way. And for that reason, I would try to adjust sensitivity of the devices before disabling them outright.
September 29th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
Other Kevin-
Are you using an optical mouse? This can happen if you are using a tricky surface for the mouse to read. Try putting the mouse on something with some kind of contrast or pattern. The birch veneer of my desktop often fools my optical mouse, sending the cursor all over.
If no mouse attached, then I’m not sure. I never had that problem with my E6400 other than with optical mouse (which I assume can happen on any computer).
September 30th, 2009 at 5:31 am
Thanks for your response, Kevin.
Most of the time I use a usb keyboard and a docking station – it’s just when I am out and about that the cursor jump happens.
To be fair, I’m usually standing up and resting on an innapropriate surface e.g. car bonnet or kitchen worktop, so I’m pretty much doing everything the ergonimics textbooks say I shouldn’t.
Not usually typing for long, so it’s not too much of a problem RSI-wise, although as a fellow musician, I appreciate the need to look after my hands, although the recent addition of a drum kit to my musical menagerie will probably do more damage to my hands (And my neighbours’ nerves) than the odd bit of extreme typing…
Can’t find out how to disable the stick and buttons, so I’ll invest in a USB mouse and let the automatic system take care of the problem.
September 30th, 2009 at 11:06 am
Victory is mine!
Just found out how to disable my rogue buttons:
1. Go to the Dell website, select Drivers and Downloads, then tell it which computer you have
2. Select Input Device Drivers then Touchpad / Pointing Stick
3. Install drivers, then restart computer
4. Select Dell Touchpad icon from bottom right of screen (It looks like a grey touchpad!)
5. Follow the on screen instructions.
N.B. I couldn’t download the drivers in IE7, so I had to use Firefox instead, so if you’re having trouble, swap browser.
Hope that all helps.
Damian
October 27th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Just got the E6400 Laptop, and liking it well enough. Better than the Gateway it replaced!
One very odd thing I have not been able to track down or figure out: every time I start the computer, either from suspend or from “off,” the control panel opens itself up preemptively. I close it and the screen flickers for a second. That’s it. It’s just a nuisance, but I wonder if anyone else has had this issue, and if there’s a fix for it. Also wonder if it isn’t the proverbial tip of the iceberg and an indication of something worse I can’t see yet — malicious software, etc.
Ideas? I’ve scoured the start menu otions pretty well and can’t find any obvious solution.
greg
October 27th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Hi, Greg
How is the sound quality on yours if you run it through a stereo? I got mine when the model was brand new, and I always wondered whether they fixed the audio issues over time.
That is a really weird problem with the control panel popping up! I’ve never heard of such a thing. XP or Vista? The first thing I do when I get a laptop is blow away the preinstall and install the OS and software from scratch. I like to have a fine-tuned machine without all the extra crap. Unfortunately with Dell, this was no easy process that involved a lot of time and guesswork. Most other brands have a custom utility that automatically downloads the right drivers off the internet. With Dell, I had to do it all manually from their support site. The only thing I can recommend is that you go on their site and make sure you have the latest drivers for everything.
Now that I’ve switched over to Ubuntu, I only use Windows in VM, and my next laptop will be a Mac.
November 29th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Initially, when i bought this laptop for college, i loved it. It is now 3 months into my college career and my keyboard has broken 3 times and my mouse is now broken.
November 29th, 2009 at 8:19 pm
Any one found a workarround for the trouble making Ethernet port.??
For a while It was working fine, then it was going at 10Mbps, (link was 100Mbps) ….finally it all gaveaway…Now the ethernet port is completely down.
tried forcing the port at 100 Mbps FD. but that did not work…Auto negotiation fails…
Guess the Only work arround is to get a PCMCIA card with ethernet.
Any other ideas apart from downloading the latest drivers from Intel?
November 29th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
Hi, Malinder
Sounds like the same thing that happened to my ethernet port. They had to replace my motherboard to fix it. Luckily, it was still under warranty, but it was inconvenient nonetheless. If you don’t want to bother with that, PCMCIA ethernet cards work fine. You could also get a USB ethernet adapter. I’ve never tried one, but they are available. Another thing to try, to factor out driver problems, would be to try booting to a Ubuntu live boot CD. If your network port still doesn’t work in that environment, then it’s definitely a hardware issue. (It took three Dell representatives on their support line before I found someone who understood that logic, LOL)
January 17th, 2010 at 9:50 am
Hi, Kevin.
I bought mine not long ago – I’ll see about the audio problem (haven’t encountered it, since I don’t listen to music in the lab).
About the graphic issues – can you elaborate?
I experienced some pixelation issues, but after a long time of searching for an answer, and even replaced my motherboard, I found out that the distortions are gone, if I disable the virtualization options in the BIOS.
January 17th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
The graphics issue occurs when I am using the docking station and connected to an external monitor via HDMI. It’s most apparent with dark websites or wallpapers or on images with dark colors. There are seemingly random light pixels (imagine you have a really bad monitor with hot pixels all over it), but when you scroll up and down, the bad pixels move with the image. The pattern was consistent, and varied by content of the image. It also got progressively worse over several months. Connecting via VGA port worked fine, either from dock or laptop. But I never tested on a different docking station, or direct via DisplayPort from the laptop, so I’m not sure whether the problem originated in the dock or laptop.
A friend of mine recently got an E6400 through his job. I’m hoping he can bring it over soon so that I can test the graphics and audio issues on his. Curious because mine was very early version and his is recent. I’ll report here as soon as I learn anything.
January 19th, 2010 at 8:58 am
I have an E6500 with an E-port replicator from work. I tried to connect this machine into my NEC 24″ display at 1920×1200 via DVI. I have the same noise/ dancing pixel problem. I also noticed that the analogue port on the back seems to not create as good a picture as the analogue port on the laptop itself.
Oh well – I just one day hope the company I work for will buy macs.
Cheers
Andrew
January 20th, 2010 at 9:42 pm
Great review.
My thoughts:
1. Lack of serial port. I’m an IT professional. I configure stuff. Routers, SANs, phone systems, switches. I want to go to a customer site and …. er, do some work. So wait, the Latitude line of laptops isn’t designed for an IT Pro?
2. Latitude D series was brilliant for onboard sound. (Okay, brilliant for a laptop. Not actually brilliant, per se.) E series sounds tinny by comparison, lacks bass, not to mention static on the ‘phones output. Shame.
3. Did I mention, there is an eSATA port but NO SERIAL PORT? Rubbish. Who cares about eSATA?
4. Pointless button by the wi-fi switch with an RSS icon: WHAT?
5. No right-click button on keyboard. I LOVED that button on the D series.
6. My current Latitude E6400 has a crap touchpad. Randomly stops working just after coming out of standby. Never ever had a problem with touchpad on D series.
On the plus side:
1. Backlit keyboard: boon. Generally, keyboard is gorgeous, tactile, perfect spacing.
2. Lovely display.
3. Unit looks very cool, nicer than D630, D530, etc.
4. I like how the unit is built. Very much. Runs cool, quiet.
Let’s hope future revisions are better
January 22nd, 2010 at 3:29 pm
E6400 is a great machine, solid and reliable. Does the job!!!
You expect premium audio??? upgrade to premium audio!!!
You ethernet port works with ubuntu but not with windows xp? XP is the problem!!!
took you had DELL replace your motherboard to find out that it was a software issue, not your actual board? Unbelivable!
I own 3 E6400 two with Vista and one with windows7 professional. Never had a problem with none of this. Not to be rude, but you should learn how to use your computer before you post something negative about it.
Just so you know, this laptop is designed to meet business users needs, not extreme multimedia demands, but it can be configured to do so if you know what you are doing.
January 22nd, 2010 at 5:14 pm
Just to clarify…
As stated in original post, the ethernet port was broken both in Ubuntu and XP. By testing with the Ubuntu Live CD is how I convinced the Dell tech that the motherboard needed replacement.
As far as audio, I’ve used many “business” laptops over the last 15 years, mostly ThinkPads, some Toshiba, Sony, HP… I’ve never had an issue with audio quality until this laptop. I don’t mean professional quality…just general use. My E6400 (not necessarily ALL E6400’s) exhibits such poor audio quality (in XP or Ubuntu) that I leave it off entirely. Granted, my standards are higher as a musician, but I’m talking about an acceptable standard for listening to MP3’s, watching videos, etc. without detrimental distortion and RF interference; not anything pro level such as audio mixing, mastering, and so forth. I’ll comment on my friend Josh’s E6400 when I have a chance to test his in the same environment as mine. For now, I’m commenting on my particular E6400 alone, which could be a lemon or have components from different manufacturers or any number of variations from other E6400’s. Safe to say, though, it’s hardware-related, not operating system or driver, or certainly not user experience as you imply.
I’ll also not be rude by not being rude. Cheers!
January 22nd, 2010 at 5:41 pm
@Mat
Thanks for your 2 cents.
I’ve been assembling PC’s since 286’s. In fact, I had an original IBM AT (the 6 MHz one!) in my junior year of college. So it was a little sad when they started omitting serial ports from laptops. Of course, this was merely sentimental, as I haven’t used one in over a decade. Obsolete for the end user, but definitely still needed for certain types of work with hardware. How do the USB/Serial adapters work for you? Just another thing to have to carry around? Or do they not perform as well as the real thing?
eSATA seems like a sloppily executed standard. Just look on Newegg at user tales of woe with various external drive housings. My USB 2.0 drives serve my needs without any hassle.
Someone commented above that the extra switch is a “WiFi Catcher”. Shrug.
My touchpad has worked fine, actually. Really, coming from ThinkPad experience, with their dual-pointing and solid keyboards, I’ve had as good an experience with this Dell, except for that one broken key early on. Oddly, under Ubuntu, the top left-click sometimes stops working, but resumes working if I press the bottom left-click button. Quirky, but no big deal.
Agreed on the backlight and display. Yes, quiet, especially after I replaced the original SATA drive, which had that periodic clicking issue people frequently comment on.
February 17th, 2010 at 11:00 am
Hey, I have the same pixel issue you do — exactly the same circumstances, when my E6500 is docked and using DVI to my external monitor, I get the weird “hot pixels” sensation, depending on what’s being displayed. They move, dance, go away, come back — it’s *really* weird!
Did you ever investigate this further, perhaps with Dell? Mine’s so bad that I’m almost ready to dump the dock altogether..
February 17th, 2010 at 12:38 pm
@Marc: I never bothered following up with Dell. It was more important for me to just get my work done; then my warranty expired. Now I do all my dev on a desktop. The dock is in a box. When my friend gets around to bringing his E6400 over, I’ll test these issues and post the results here.