E6420 Owner's Thread

[PanamaMike]

Tomorrow I have to say farewell to my E6420. I loved using the machine but I'm selling it for extra cash. Dunno if I'll replace it with another one or not...I've got my eye on used MBP's. :P



1. Absolutely. I've been nothing but pleased with my E6420...I'm sad to have to say goodbye to it.

2. Mine's been rock solid ever since I got it in November.

3. When reinstalling Windows, you must install drivers in the right order. Also, you might notice the black rubberized trim surrounding the keyboard not fitting quite right. This is only a occasional occurrance though, ditto the bottom not seemingly being attached properly (if you can pinch a lower left or right corner together and feel it compress).

Thank, this is good to know.

Mike

[Scott_RC-TEK]

Looking for E6420 highlights...

1: Does it perform well.
2: Is it reliable?
3: Any design or other issues an owner should know about?

I'm using a vanilla i5 with integrated graphics.

Regards,

Mike

1. The E6420 is a really quick 14" solution mainly because it incorporates the same QM67 chipset as the larger 15.6" and 17.3" systems. This is a great aspect of the design when it comes to drivers and hardware upgrades. I just confirmed today this little beast can see and run dual channel 16GB (2x8GB) of DDR3 memory!

2. Because of the standardized design, the system is very stable... and built like a tank. It may not be the sleekest or most sexy design visually, but the system will survive just about anything you throw at it.

3. It is worth the extra money to get the 1600x900p display along with the NVIDIA 4200M graphics.

Scott

[prosetheus]

Yes, it is very easy. However, you need to make sure you paste the heatsink properly since the cooling capablity in the E6420 is reaching its limits when used with the i7 processors. If you have the extra heatsink coverage that comes with the NVIDIA GPU, you are in a better situation.

Scott-

hi Scott,

I'm also thinking of doing the same. I plan on upgrading to 16gb of ram and i7 2820qm off ebay hopefully and add in another hdd through optical bay. My concerns are:

> The hardware will be thoroughly pushed as this laptop will be used in video editing\3d as well as some gaming, by attaching a diy external gpu solution. Can it manage high perf over sustained periods without throttling? I will also be using a cooling pad.

> I have little to no concern with the nvidia nvs built in. Would it be better for heat and battery life to get the one WITHOUT the gpu for better cooling through the laptop body?

and ofcourse, kind of silly asking this, but are we sure that both versions with and without nvidia gpu are quad core upgradeable?

[NecessaryEvil]

I just got an E6420 off the outlet on Friday to replace my MSI GX620 that I was using for work after it started randomly acting strange (lower case d and windows key stopped working, firewire and network would randomly dissappear). I picked it up for $550, and swapped out for more RAM and an intel NIC I had on hand.

I had planned on upgrading my HP 8560W with a second Samsung 830 and move the 470 down to the E6420, and move the 250GB it came with to the optical bay, picking up an enclosure off of newmodeus. Has anyone run into any issues with this due to the optical bay being slim as opposed to standard? I would assume not, as my previous Thinkpads had no issue, but I'd rather find out before I buy three of these enclosures (2 of my coworkers are using e6420s...so as of Friday of next week when my boss's arrives, 75% or 60% of our company (depending on if you count the secretary, who does no technical work) will be on E6420).

[jcthorne]

hi Scott,

I'm also thinking of doing the same. I plan on upgrading to 16gb of ram and i7 2820qm off ebay hopefully and add in another hdd through optical bay. My concerns are:

> The hardware will be thoroughly pushed as this laptop will be used in video editing\3d as well as some gaming, by attaching a diy external gpu solution. Can it manage high perf over sustained periods without throttling? I will also be using a cooling pad.

> I have little to no concern with the nvidia nvs built in. Would it be better for heat and battery life to get the one WITHOUT the gpu for better cooling through the laptop body?

and ofcourse, kind of silly asking this, but are we sure that both versions with and without nvidia gpu are quad core upgradeable?

The quad core 6420s use a different, higher capacity double heat pipe cooling system and are only available with the nvidia gpu.

I upgraded to a quad core and reused the original cooling system for a while but the processor will heat up and throttle down under sustained load. Replaced the cooling unit with a quad core one and its much better. I can still push it to exit turbo mode but it stays at full rated speed.

The non GPU units may not support the quad core due to graphics differences in that i7 chip.

[Scott_RC-TEK]

The 2820QM is a lot of CPU for the E6420 to cool so I agree with jcthorne in regards to having the additional heat sink meat the NVIDIA based systems offer. Likewise, with the NVIDIA option, you get the Optimus functionality that can help save battery life and reduce heat when the 4200M is not used/needed.

I will be removing an i5 2520M and installing either a 2670QM or a 2720QM in a E6420 later today and I will see how it does. I may take some photos too. Since the system I have incorporates the NVIDIA GPU, there should be no issues going from dual to quad cores. I have not confirmed if that would be the case with a NON-NVIDIA based system although I have yet to see a QM67 based system from Dell that would reject it. Most likely, it would just throttle the [hotter] CPU down to an acceptable level for appropriate cooling.

Scott

hi Scott,

I'm also thinking of doing the same. I plan on upgrading to 16gb of ram and i7 2820qm off ebay hopefully and add in another hdd through optical bay. My concerns are:

> The hardware will be thoroughly pushed as this laptop will be used in video editing\3d as well as some gaming, by attaching a diy external gpu solution. Can it manage high perf over sustained periods without throttling? I will also be using a cooling pad.

> I have little to no concern with the nvidia nvs built in. Would it be better for heat and battery life to get the one WITHOUT the gpu for better cooling through the laptop body?

and ofcourse, kind of silly asking this, but are we sure that both versions with and without nvidia gpu are quad core upgradeable?

[Scott_RC-TEK]

..I had planned on upgrading my HP 8560W with a second Samsung 830 and move the 470 down to the E6420, and move the 250GB it came with to the optical bay, picking up an enclosure off of newmodeus. Has anyone run into any issues with this due to the optical bay being slim as opposed to standard? I would assume not, as my previous Thinkpads had no issue, but I'd rather find out before I buy three of these enclosures (2 of my coworkers are using e6420s...so as of Friday of next week when my boss's arrives, 75% or 60% of our company (depending on if you count the secretary, who does no technical work) will be on E6420).

I have been using the NewModeUS 2nd HDD caddy in both my E6420 and E6520 with no issues. The caddy will support any HDD up to 9.5mm thick and is very good quality. Yes, it is expensive, but worth it in the end.

Scott-





Cool eSATA external housing for the optical drive -

[jcthorne]

The 2820QM is a lot of CPU for the E6420 to cool so I agree with jcthorne in regards to having the additional heat sink meat the NVIDIA based systems offer. Likewise, with the NVIDIA option, you get the Optimus functionality that can help save battery life and reduce heat when the 4200M is not used/needed.

I will be removing an i5 2520M and installing either a 2670QM or a 2720QM in a E6420 later today and I will see how it does. I may take some photos too. Since the system I have incorporates the NVIDIA GPU, there should be no issues going from dual to quad cores. I have not confirmed if that would be the case with a NON-NVIDIA based system although I have yet to see a QM67 based system from Dell that would reject it. Most likely, it would just throttle the [hotter] CPU down to an acceptable level for appropriate cooling.

Scott

I think you misunderstood what I was trying to relay. The quad core unit with gpu uses a different cooling pack than the dual core with gpu.

ONLY the quad core with gpu comes with the upgraded cooling unit and they can be hard to source. Was quite a difference.

I did exactly the same upgrade you are discussing, reusing the cooling unit from a i5 with gpu. It works of a fashion but will overheat and throttle down. CPU easily gets just over 100c.

[dr.pratik]

@scott,
can you share links to purchase both?
I am looking for both ESATA enclosure with cable and HDD adapter.
thanks.

[prosetheus]

Thanks for the help Scott. Much appreciated.