Dell Latitude E6400, E6500 suffering major performance issues?

[Matthew DeCarlo]

If hundreds of user reports are any indication, there may be a serious problem with Dell's Latitude E6400 and E6500-series notebooks. Owners have complained of massive performance issues, with systems throttling by as much as 95% under normal speeds when the systems get only slightly warm. Some users also say that even when cool, the laptops don't reach 50% of the maximum clock.

These issues aren't exactly new, either, with complaints dating back to earlier this year. Unfortunately, Dell hasn't handled the situation gracefully, according to Engadget. The company has been censoring posts on its forums, and even banned a member (Tinkerdude) for creating a PDF that details the problem with 59 pages of analysis.

If you've experienced the issues firsthand, share your thoughts in the comments. You should also contact Dell, as they are more likely offer a remedy -- and faster -- if pressured.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/37169-dell-latitude-e6400-e6500-suffering-major-performance-issues.html

 

[Vicenarian]

I always thought Dell make good PCs...but the way they are handling this situation sure is pathetic, unless of course, there is some type of secret flaw they are trying to cover up...

And the PDF file has disappeared!?

The mystery deepens...

 

[harby]

Dell has horrible horrible support. It's too bad because they make some good products, especially their monitors are top notch. But banning people on forums for sharing their problems is.... well, I have no words.

 

[claycc]

I would be pretty mad if I owned one of these and I got my posts edited when I complained instead of getting the issue resolved. When you pay for a PC/laptop/hardware you expect it to perform at the rated speeds under normal circumstances.

 

[vangrat]

obviously the execs at Dell are in the mind that saving money means not holding up warranty agreements. Last time I checked this chases your customers away causing you to LOSE money.
I have had a Dell laptop in the past and it worked brillantly, and from personal experience their customer service was fairly decent, however this was several years ago and things may have changed since. Perhaps they need to send their service support through ITIL...

 

[matchu]

I'm using a Dell inspiron 6400 right now. It's lasted over three years, and still going strong, I think. I've always been satisfied with their products. I'm dissapointed in how they're reacting to this though.

 

[Timonius]

Big surprise here. With prestige and renown comes sloppiness. All the more reason that consumers really need to think before they buy and not just go for the well known brand names. Always, always check product reviews. And if there are no reviews, ask lots of questions.

 

[klepto12]

Dell help someone? lol they have the worst tech support i have ever seen cant even talk to an American that speaks english well. I have not and will not ever own a dell computer they are cheap garbage that i wouldnt give to my 70 year old grandma.

 

[ken777]

These E-series Latitudes which are targeted at business users have already been out for over a year. Dell must have already sold a ton of these. Some people are probably having major issues with their laptops, but it's hard to believe that Dell would be able to keep selling these for that long if the problem was widespread. It's unfortunate that Dell is trying to prevent users from discussing this problem though.

 

[Guest]

This really needs to be elevated in the press until Dell is forced to pay the piper. I feel bad for their customers and I even feel bad for them.

They used to be a great company, but like Rome, perhaps their time has come and gone.

I just received Dell's Christmas brochure in the mail. A (*) beside EVERYTHING pointing to a bunch of gobbledygook on the second last page. Very vague and skewed technical descriptions for the products. I don't think I would be able to make an educated purchase on a single item in it. Yuck!

God help them and their poor customers.

 

[lfg18]

I have never had a Dell but I thought they were good PCs, now I see they are not that good, and i was considering buying an studio 15, the core i7 model. Now i have to look for a different option, can anyone suggest any core i 7 laptop?

By the way there are not official costumer service Dell stores in Latin America, we have HP, Apple, Asus, Lenovo and others but not dell, ja we have online shop but not costumer service, so if a laptop breaks down, you have to send it to US, it just take like 1 month for them to fix it.

 

[Guest]

HP has an unbelievable sale going on with their quad-core dv7t and dv8t laptops. The dv8t comes with 4 GB DDR3 RAM, core i7 quad, 320 GB 7200 RPM HD, Blue Ray, 18.3" screen w. 1080p display, bluetooth for $899 (!!!). Either though coupon code NBM7RTX ($450 off), or using bing 20% cashback (through 12/2).

 

[timljh]

They even cover up the posts and ban the user, that is a bit too much.. where are the consumer's rights?

 

[Puiu]

I read the pdf and it really well done. His results are also very interesting showing how the cpu loses performance with screen and a lot of details. It's no wonder Dell banned him.
If you want to read the pdf just google it.

 

[freedomthinker]

DELL is getting sloppy lately :/

 

[kaonis92]

I never owned a Dell notebook but I always thought the make good pc's. Dell should handle the situation more transparently...

 

[compdata]

Don't trust Dell, HP, or BestBuy forums or ratings. I have had negative reviews on products censored from all of these. They are clearly choosing the short and quick way to make a buck that will come back and haunt them later.

 

[swilllx2p]

Why does this remind me of activison/infinity ward banning forum users for complaining about the pc version losing so many features. I know its completely different, but companies need to read user comments and thoughts seriously and respond to them honestly. If they did that they would gain a lot of respect and thus more sales in the future, all banning and editing do is get you bad publicity and poor sales down the road.

 

[Heretic]

I've only ever used a single Dell in my whole life and I never want to use another one ever again. I had a Dell Dimension 2400 series from way back in the day. That was when they used to be of ok quality. But that computer had so many features that I thought were so pointless and useless that it shouldn't have been made. It was built not to be upgraded. They specifically made it so it wouldn't hold more than 1 gig of RAM. It only had PCI slots, and only a 250 watt power supply. It was a really basic computer. After owning that, I never wanted another Dell ever again. Even their XPS series was a let-down, and their purchase of Alienware hasn't helped them a bit. It only destroyed a good computer company, and put a hole in Dell's pocket.

This kind of terrible customer support is no surprise to me. It was what I had to deal with several years ago. Take my advice people, wait for Dell to fix their crap and take on a better customer service attitude. They were never good, and they won't be for a while yet.

 

[pgbsamurai]

My company currently buys the E6500, and I know Dell's driver support for it sucks.

 

[ken777]

Just saw dell's response to this issue posted on their community blog: http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/...009/12/02/dell-on-laptops-and-throttling.aspx

 

[wleeb]

This is turning out to be a case study on how NOT to conduct damage control. Dell's acknowledgment that there is a problem was a nice first step (albeit, way too late). Now Dell needs to clearly and continuously communicate with owners of said problematic systems what they are doing to resolve the issue. Leaving customers in the lurch is guaranteed to bring monstrous volumes of negative posts/press, exactly what we see unfolding before before us now. Dell, this is not your first rodeo...fire some people, hire some people, issue a recall, for crying out loud do something. Incompetence at this scale is absolutely inexcusable!

 

[Guest]

THIS MAY BE A POWER SUPPLY ISSUE. I have a Dell E6500 with slow 2D, 3D video problems and the Intel card. I tried several distributions and versions of Linux, but couldn't resolve the performance problems. After hearing about Throttlegate, and almost by accident, I discovered that using a power supply with 4 amps or greater solved my performance problems. Here is a short experiment and results that shows this was a power issue, at least for me:

http://userpages.umbc.edu/~rfink1/e6500.html

 

[Guest]

i have had a dell latitude e6400 for 8 months running vista business. don't do much cd/dvd burning but wanted to burn some pictures a month ago. it didn't work. i got various errors but neither vista nor roxio would burn a cd. reading cd's was no problem, i just couldn't write to one. fortunately, i bought the 3 year "gold tech support" warranty. i'll condense this... i have spent 18 hours on the phone with 5 different "gold support" techs, have put in a new cd drive, reformatted the hard drive and reinstalled vista. still couldn't burn a cd. dell finally agreed to replace the entire computer, but would not upgrade me to windows 7. i got the new computer -- and, big surprise, it wouldn't burn a cd either. dell wanted to send out a new cd drive. i told them ok but send someone out to install it - i had no more time for this. the dell tech came out and put it in, and it still didn't work. she talked to her support people who SAID THAT THERE ARE KNOWN ISSUES WITH VISTA BEING UNABLE TO BURN A CD ON A LATITUDE!!! dell is now replacing the computer AGAIN, this time upgrading it to windows 7. am i to believe that 5 different gold support techs -- who specialize in latitudes -- didn't know this?? or were they all stonewalling me. i won't even mention the 2 times where vista starting asking for the product serial number and then wouldn't take it. the only fix for this is to reformat the hard drive and reinstall windows! i will figure out how to make a mac work in my business!

 

[Guest]

Sorry, I just wanted to say that we have all DELL Hardware here and the DELL Gold Support is excellent. can not fault the support, we were with HP before moving to DELL, if you want to talk about getting bad support, deal with Dell.