What hardware are you using?

Discussion of hardware related issues
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tlmiller
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Re: What hardware are you using?

Post by tlmiller »

Using my E6440 AND my E7450 tonight. On the E6440 while Arch installs on the E7450. Moving that to Arch because I'm getting rid of the Acer that had Arch on it (already put Windows back on) and getitng the Inspiron in which will most likely run Debian (who didn't see that coming).

This laptop is quite heavy (similar really to the E6400 that CC is using), but it runs so very well. With the dual SSD's, it boots in like 8 seconds, shuts down in 5. Battery life certainly isn't AMAZING, but I do have 2 batteries, so as long as I'm not doing something that can't be interrupted for a minute, I can shut down, swap batteries, and be back up in under a minute due to the SSD's. Honestly my least favorite thing about this laptop is the OS. :)
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tlmiller
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Re: What hardware are you using?

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Got the e7450 finished configuring. Not surprisingly, runs really well with Arch on it. While it's now starting to get a little age to it, this is still a fantastic laptop and by far my favorite to carry with me. Despite being 3 generations old, it's still very decently small (for a 14") and lightweight (again, for a 14"), and it's more than sufficiently fast, doubly since it has a Samsung 850EVO 1 TB SSD in it. I timed it last night for Arch, and from the time hitting the enter button on grub to the time lightdm is loaded, less than 9 seconds (slightly over 8).
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crosscourt
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Re: What hardware are you using?

Post by crosscourt »

I didnt think the E6400 was as heavy as many commented in reviews. I also love the cosmetic looks and the speakers caught me by surprise, very good for a laptop. The second one will be dropped off over the weekend and Im going to test it with Windows 7 already on it to see how it does with 4gb.

So far best $35 laptop Ive ever used.
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tlmiller
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Re: What hardware are you using?

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After using the more modern laptops, I definitely think of the E64{0,1,2,3,4}0 are heavy laptops.

Even compared to the D630 I think the E6400 was heavier.
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crosscourt
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Re: What hardware are you using?

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I have lighter laptops such as the V130 but comparing the E6400 to the E5410 its only slightly heavier and not bad at all. Reviews made the E6400 out to be a brick and heavy but it was fine.
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Re: What hardware are you using?

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From the Grub screen its 20 seconds to the login, 5 more seconds to the GUI, so its not blazingly fast but I think I can live with that. The E5410 is a bit quicker doing 15-17 seconds from Grub to login and 5 seconds to GUI.

My main system running with MX17 is 10 seconds from Grub to login and 3-5 seconds to GUI, which is great considering Im not using a SSD.
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Re: What hardware are you using?

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After doing a bit more tweaking, Im very happy with the E6400 even though its a system sold between 2009 and 2011, Will probably install a better SATA drive thats also larger but was stunned how much 2 sticks of DDR2 laptop memory costs given the age of the memory. Ive got 4gb and its looking like Ill be sticking with that unless I can find 4gb sticks cheaper. The point of this project is getting a decent system to meet my needs on the cheap.

Want to see how Win7 runs on this laptop with 4gb of ram, given Win7 likes to use more ram than Linux.
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tlmiller
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Re: What hardware are you using?

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Really? the 6400 still used DDR2? Wow, shows how long it's been since I had one, I thought they used DDR3. I remember the Exx10's used DDR3 (i just recently got rid of a couple that died at work), had thought the Exx00 had as well.
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Re: What hardware are you using?

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E5410 has ddr3 but yes the e6400 has ddr2, thus I thought the ram would be cheap and easy to find. Come to find out that 2 4gb sticks are $75-$100 which is crazy, as I could buy a newer laptop with ddr3 and get 8gb already installed.
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Re: What hardware are you using?

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Yeah, I had attempted to look for some DDR2 recently for a friend and while 1 GB sticks are pretty cheap, the 2 GB sticks are more expensive than the same size DDR3, and the rare 4 GB sticks are insanely overpriced since they haven't been made in such a long time and weren't anywhere near as plentiful (sodimms all, 4 GB desktop DDR2 is cheap as dirt).
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