14" Dell Latitude E6430 - Performance Upgrades and System Mods

[Hwrgrabe]

redact

Edited January 1 by Hwrgrabe

[Khenglish]

13 hours ago, Hwrgrabe said:

 

Thank you Khenglish for replying. 

 

So I went back into grub and set to what you tried. 

 

0x16f to 0x01

0x170 to 0x1d

0x171 to 0x00

 

My max GPU speed is still 1250 mhz as shown by GPUz utility. The only thing I have done is edit these UEFI variables. Is there something else that I need to do? The normal max has always been 1250 mhz. 

 

Thank you once again for reading.

 

The issue is likely that you aren't running an xm cpu.

 

Also I found that the frequency is always 50MHz under what is expected for the multiplier. When dropping it by 1 I then got 1400.

[۩۞۩ FFTHEGREAT ۩۞۩]

Hi guys,

 

I am a total noob when it comes to tech. I just got my E6430 and it comes with a set of 2x4gb RAM running at 1333mhz. I would like to upgrade to a new ram set with 16gb as well as getting them to run at 1600mhz or higher. Is there a specific set of ram out there that would be "plug and play" kind of setup without tweaking it to run at 1600mhz or higher ? Thank you very much

[timohour]

On 21/8/2016 at 2:43 AM, ۩۞۩ FFTHEGREAT ۩۞۩ said:

Hi guys,

 

I am a total noob when it comes to tech. I just got my E6430 and it comes with a set of 2x4gb RAM running at 1333mhz. I would like to upgrade to a new ram set with 16gb as well as getting them to run at 1600mhz or higher. Is there a specific set of ram out there that would be "plug and play" kind of setup without tweaking it to run at 1600mhz or higher ? Thank you very much

 

any set of ram would be plug and play. If it says 1600 it will @ 1600 etc. what's your CPU?

[Woody213]

Can anyone tell me what HDMI version is in the e6430? What about the display port on the docks? Is there display port for the modular bay? I am looking ti grab a new monitor and want to know what res and hz to get without going over board

[deathwingbg]

OK, finally i found some time to share my eGPU experience with the e6430 and EXP GDC beast 8.0 (probably faulty)...

Took me weeks and a lot of wallbanging...

 

So what is my final Working setup:

E6430 connected via EC to EXP GDC + r9 290 Tri-x (set to gen 1 via EFI vars) connected to 24" monitor LG via DVI (NOTE: The monitor is also connected to the HDMI of the laptop // dGPU disabled // It does not work if the HDMI cable is not connected as well - BSOD, black screen, crashes, restarts)

Gen2 leads to crashes in games and BSODs.

I also have a mPCI-E cable which crashes even more (both cables have been foiled with aluminium and then plastic)

 

I also have GTX 970 ... bought initially as an eGPU ... first took me a week to get it running as it was reporting error 43 ... until i found by chance that it will work if the HDMI cable is connected to the monitor ... 

Constant crashing in Gen2 ... and now i found it also crashes in Gen1 as well...

 

 

 

 

And i never had any issues with my HP 4540s (For 6-7 months it has not crashed even once with R9 280x working in Gen2 with the very same adapter + mPCI-E cable) (NOTE: and i didn't have another connection from the laptop to the very same monitor  
I tend to have very bad luck with hardware and software all the time, but i always get it to work in the end...

As the same/similar behavior is reported by @Dewos @sangemaru I do NOT recommend the use of EXP GDC with this laptop

I was getting 10-11k Firestrike Graphics scores with the GTX 970 (no OC-OC  with Gen2)
Now i am getting again 10-11k Firestrike Graphics scores with the r9 290 (no OC-OC  with Gen1)

P.S I am now happily mining ethereum @ 30MH/s while at work

 

Edited September 3, 2016 by deathwingbg

[timohour]

On 2/9/2016 at 1:11 PM, deathwingbg said:

As the same/similar behavior is reported by @Dewos @sangemaru I do NOT recommend the use of EXP GDC with this laptop

 

Could you share with us when was your laptop manufactured? Maybe it is a specific motherboard batch that had issues.

[pakthedude]

I've bought a used E6430 i5 laptop.
8GB RAM, 500GB HDD, 1600 x 900 with NVS on eBay at USD $220.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/201650834525

 

I took apart the heatsink and noticed the thermal gap pad for the northbridge is missing. The Vram of nVidia GPU had the pads on.

This is the image I found on Google. The end of the heat pipe is where the northbridge goes.

 

May I know thickness should I get?
I could order from this online store below. The site has listing with "self-adhesive". I don't know which one to get.

http://sg.rs-online.com/web/c/hvac-fans-thermal-management/electronics-heating-cooling/thermal-gap-pads/?sra=p

 

Any recommendations?

 

Edited September 6, 2016 by pakthedude

[aldimeola81]

@ parkthedude

For first I think is not northbridge the pad you miss but Intel graphics..

My advice is to remove all thermal pads, clean the cooler pads and CPU/GPU with alcohol and use good thermal paste instead, it will go much better, a good and hard thermal paste is the gelid extreme, it will work also on thick gap.

On small pads terminal you can buy some thermal pads of right thickness but the thermal performance of pads is generally much lower than thermal paste, so I don't recommend it.

Some time ago I've used also some high performance thermal carbonium pads, very expensive but useless.

Be sure to press well the cooler heather on cpu-gpu when you will mount it and before put screws on, you have to release the pressure only when you have tightened all screws, the thickness of the thermal pads must tend to 0 if you want to have the maximum cooling performance.

Bye.

[deathwingbg]

On 9/6/2016 at 1:48 PM, timohour said:

 

Could you share with us when was your laptop manufactured? Maybe it is a specific motherboard batch that had issues.

 

I have two of them (both laptops have very similar behavior, no matter the operating system or the EFI vars set to the primary display etc.) one is 11/2012 the other one is 12/2013 (both have dGPU)

 

... just burnt one of the motherboards (just did a processor swap, nothing too complicated) and it never powered on the display again  

The power button lights up... the HDD icon lights up for a second  and then goes off and nothing happens. This does not match any of the error codes.

And few days ago i tried to unlock the flash descriptor ... didn't burn it back then ... but just now ... with this simple procedure. Needless to say i tried swapping the processor several more times, tried different ram modules, reset the CMOS, nothing helped. I feel like the unluckiest person ever... 

At least i found a mobo for 35$

 

 

[aldimeola81]

The defect appear to be corrupted bios, try to flash with a cheap programmer, I've done also and now is back to life.
I've written how do that some pages before, bye

[deathwingbg]

On 9/9/2016 at 5:32 PM, aldimeola81 said:

The defect appear to be corrupted bios, try to flash with a cheap programmer, I've done also and now is back to life.
I've written how do that some pages before, bye

 

I am not quite sure... mine does not kick in the fan full speed. The fan is Off for some time then when the cpu gets hots turns on on low speed. Which indicates that the mobo is operating mostly as it is supposed to.

When i remove the CPU or the RAM the lights blink with the corresponding error codes.
http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/19496714

 

Ordered a cheap Intel only mobo ... and realized that the dGPU cooler won't fit

Edited September 11, 2016 by deathwingbg

[aldimeola81]

Here a photo of my setup: e6430, dual ssd raid 0 , another external ssd for Linux, gtx980, fully overclocked.

Edited September 27, 2016 by aldimeola81
here my bench http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/15097403

[aldimeola81]

 

I am not quite sure... mine does not kick in the fan full speed. The fan is Off for some time then when the cpu gets hots turns on on low speed. Which indicates that the mobo is operating mostly as it is supposed to.

When i remove the CPU or the RAM the lights blink with the corresponding error codes.

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/19496714

 

Ordered a cheap Intel only mobo ... and realized that the dGPU cooler won't fit [emoji20]

Depend of what part of bios is corrupted/bad configured, maybe you have modified some wrong value , that has been effective when you removed the cmos battery and now the PC won't start, if you want to try I have the bin files to flash, is really easy, you have to remove the keyboard only and flash the two serial eeprom, bye.

[deathwingbg]

On 9/13/2016 at 8:19 PM, aldimeola81 said:

Depend of what part of bios is corrupted/bad configured, maybe you have modified some wrong value , that has been effective when you removed the cmos battery and now the PC won't start, if you want to try I have the bin files to flash, is really easy, you have to remove the keyboard only and flash the two serial eeprom, bye.

Yes, yes thank you I got the idea  Maybe i will buy a programmer just for the sakes of trying  Few days before i brick it I tried to unlock the flash descriptor, but the lanes on the chip are so tiny and could not succeed with a tiny wire. A 10$ programmer as you mentioned is a good alternative. Will you share where you bought yours?

I also have the original bin.

[aldimeola81]

On 17/9/2016 at 9:38 AM, deathwingbg said:

Yes, yes thank you I got the idea  Maybe i will buy a programmer just for the sakes of trying  Few days before i brick it I tried to unlock the flash descriptor, but the lanes on the chip are so tiny and could not succeed with a tiny wire. A 10$ programmer as you mentioned is a good alternative. Will you share where you bought yours?

I also have the original bin.

the original bin can't be programmed directly, you need another two dump files, but i got them, the programmer you need is the CH341A , don't worry about driver , you will found everything on youtube guide, another thing (important) is a soic8 clip, i've bought twice from a seller on ebay, i've asked now if he got someone else of them, i will you inform when he will answer, bye.

 

edit : that's are the correct files to flash, works on every e6430 and must programmed on correct serial eeprom , the u52 and u53 are written over motherboard near that chip.

 

http://dropcanvas.com/1uz5y

Edited September 20, 2016 by aldimeola81

[greyhawk]

Would it be too risky for someone who has never took apart a laptop to add an eGPU to the E6430? Don't want to screw something up and crash my laptop as I need it, and the soldering part seems pretty complex so unless there is an easier way, not sure if I should attempt this.

[sangemaru]

Two updates: Using EXP GDC, i tried out an RX460 and GTX 1060 GPU. As opposed to previous models I'd tried, RX 460 is capable of sustaining x1 2.0 and working just fine indefinitely.

GTX 1060 is capable of sustaning x1 2.0, but occasionally crashes, making it unsuitable for use with the EXP GDC. It seems the choice of videocard matters a lot.

 

One other glorious update: I used RW-EVERYTHING to enable ASPM across all my PCIE devices on all my root hubs. Windows 10 now reports around 8 hours of possible available battery life (as opposed to 4-5) with Opera (20 tabs open) + Chrome (40 tabs open), Wi-Fi enabled, brightness set to min+3%, CPU set to 99%max, battery saver on. CPU Package power consumption has dropped to 3.4W min instead of 5.7W min. BatteryBar still reports only 3:40 of available time though - i'll be testing a discharge cycle to see how long the machine can really run.

 

If I just managed to increase my laptop battery life from 3-4 hours effective to 7+, then no way in hell I'm giving this qt3.14-laptop up. Just need to find the right stable eGPU now. I wonder if RX470/480 could sustain x1 2.0 stable. 

 

Oh, and this is while I'm writing/browsing. Idle is 10-11+ hours on the 9-cell battery (with 10% wear).

 

Edited October 27, 2016 by sangemaru

[Tech Inferno Fan]

3 hours ago, sangemaru said:

Two updates: Using EXP GDC, i tried out an RX460 and GTX 1060 GPU. As opposed to previous models I'd tried, RX 460 is capable of sustaining x1 2.0 and working just fine indefinitely.

GTX 1060 is capable of sustaning x1 2.0, but occasionally crashes, making it unsuitable for use with the EXP GDC. It seems the choice of videocard matters a lot.

 

I found AMD drivers have better fault tolerance to signalling errors when I tested a EXP GDC + HD7870. The HD7870 in a EXP GDC would report a x1 2.0 link but would give noticably worse benchmark results when compared to a soldered-cable PE4L 2.1b. imho, it's not worth saving a few dollars for the EXP GDC since it's Gen2 signalling is flakey.  NVidia drivers would just BSOD upon getting an unreliable Gen2 signal requiring downgrading the port to Gen1 for reliability.

[sangemaru]

Thanks @Tech Inferno Fan. I'm kind of worried about getting a PE4C 3.0 or PE4L 2.1b since they're quite expensive to get in europe. Would definitely do it if i can find a purchaser for my EXP GDC though. A large part of the problem is the expresscard slot on this laptop, like I said, the adapter itself worked perfect with all GPU's when using mPCIe.

By the way nando, how did you get ASPM settings to stick through sleeps/reboots? Currently I have to manually enable it in RW-Everything every time i sleep/reset the machine (it doesn't take very long, but it's still a bother).

Is there a way to set these before windows loads without breaking the bootloader or current installation, and have them stick?

 

EDIT: my god, prices of Bplus adapters have gone up massively - to the point where i doubt there's any sense in going for EC as opposed to a thunderbolt solution. And nobody seems to be selling their Bplus adapters.

Edited October 29, 2016 by sangemaru

[Tech Inferno Fan]

16 hours ago, sangemaru said:

By the way nando, how did you get ASPM settings to stick through sleeps/reboots? Currently I have to manually enable it in RW-Everything every time i sleep/reset the machine (it doesn't take very long, but it's still a bother).

Is there a way to set these before windows loads without breaking the bootloader or current installation, and have them stick?

 

I use DIY eGPU Setup 1.30 to enable ASPM settings in a pre-boot environment like discussed at https://www.techinferno.com/index.php?/forums/topic/1982-125-hp-elitebook-2570p-owners-lounge/#comment-35271

[hairentin]

hello I am new to this forum , but this specific trhead was the reason to buy an E6430 i7 3740qm with NVS , and still waiting for it.

As I couldnt find any specific part number for RAM I ordered  2x8 gb hyperx 2133mhz cl11 (I couldnt find any cl12 as mentioned) and I hope that I could get it to work

I am faschinated by the egpu concept , but as I need mobility I will probably select the express card solution (try to find PE4C v2.1 for future experimentation ) but is there going to be great loss in the simple expresscard than the x2 ?

And one more for now ... I see that there are docking station who mention usb3 and some which not , but the same model (no part number) , is there 2 different docks or it depends on laptop to have usb3 support ?

Thanks in advance

[carrretero]

Hello everyone,

 

I am new here and I have a question.

I live in Spain.

I recently bought an E6430 via eBay from the USA.

It works great, however I am unable to update the BIOS from the A11 to the latest A18, or any other version.

I tried everything I could think of including Flashing from DOS, flashing with Admin privileges, resetting the BIOS by removing the CMOS battery...

Everytime it only reboots with no sign of even trying to update. The E6430A18.exe works correctly under both DOS and Win10 - prepares the package for flashing and reboots automatically and then nothing - only another normal restart.

Asked at the Dell Community Forum, got an answer from a Dell Technician saying he would not recommend updating BIOS on a machine that is out of warranty (?!) as there is a risk of bricking the system  which didn't really answer my question and there was no other input.

I came across this page that actually looks very interesting and I will later have a closer look but first I would like to have this resolved. Also I was trying to find out whether msata SSD could be used in the empty 1/2 mini slot under the WWAN slot, I did not get a definitive answer to that on the  Dell Forum either.

If this is not the right place to ask I apologize, but it actually looks like the right one where people might have answers to these questions.

Thanks in advance for any kind of help.

 

Regards

 

[timohour]

On 28/11/2016 at 11:23 PM, hairentin said:

hello I am new to this forum , but this specific trhead was the reason to buy an E6430 i7 3740qm with NVS , and still waiting for it.

As I couldnt find any specific part number for RAM I ordered  2x8 gb hyperx 2133mhz cl11 (I couldnt find any cl12 as mentioned) and I hope that I could get it to work

I am faschinated by the egpu concept , but as I need mobility I will probably select the express card solution (try to find PE4C v2.1 for future experimentation ) but is there going to be great loss in the simple expresscard than the x2 ?

And one more for now ... I see that there are docking station who mention usb3 and some which not , but the same model (no part number) , is there 2 different docks or it depends on laptop to have usb3 support ?

Thanks in advance

 

x2.2 would have better performance. It depends on your app/games for the loss.

 

USB 3.0 depends on the laptop. E6430 according to the schematics supports USB 3.0 (never tried myself). Offcourse an USB 2.0 only dock won't have 3.0 support.

 

On 4/12/2016 at 3:03 AM, carrretero said:

Hello everyone,

 

It works great, however I am unable to update the BIOS from the A11 to the latest A18, or any other version.

I tried everything I could think of including Flashing from DOS, flashing with Admin privileges, resetting the BIOS by removing the CMOS battery...

Everytime it only reboots with no sign of even trying to update. The E6430A18.exe works correctly under both DOS and Win10 - prepares the package for flashing and reboots automatically and then nothing - only another normal restart.

Asked at the Dell Community Forum, got an answer from a Dell Technician saying he would not recommend updating BIOS on a machine that is out of warranty (?!) as there is a risk of bricking the system  which didn't really answer my question and there was no other input.

 

 

 

Why would you like to upgrade your BIOS? It is possible that someone flashed a different ME version than the version that came with the A11. That's what when this happened to me. The only way to solve this is to unlock your flash descriptor and reflash the original ME version that came with the BIOS. This way it will probably upgrade. Is there a specific reason you want to upgrade to A18? Do you have any other problems with your current BIOS?

 

On 4/12/2016 at 3:03 AM, carrretero said:

I came across this page that actually looks very interesting and I will later have a closer look but first I would like to have this resolved. Also I was trying to find out whether msata SSD could be used in the empty 1/2 mini slot under the WWAN slot, I did not get a definitive answer to that on the  Dell Forum either.

If this is not the right place to ask I apologize, but it actually looks like the right one where people might have answers to these questions.

Thanks in advance for any kind of help.

 

No msata SSD slot available. You could maybe use an mini pci-e to m.2 port and use an m.2 pcie ssd but it won't be bootable unless you use a bootloader (eg GRUB). You could add an SSD with an ODD caddy and use your ODD externally.

Edited December 5, 2016 by timohour

[carrretero]

On 12/5/2016 at 10:50 AM, timohour said:

Is there a specific reason you want to upgrade to A18? Do you have any other problems with your current BIOS?

 

Thanks for your reply, timohour.

No, there is no problem with my current BIOS, I just wanted to have the laptop up to date so I tried to flash the A18 version and it did not work. I believe the BIOS versions are released for a reason and they bring certain improvements to the system, performance-wise, too, maybe. It is just strange that BIOS  simply ignores any update attempt, so I am simply curious.

Also, at every cold start, there is a message in the BIOS log saying: "Power On - Not Applicable".  Apart from that there is no problem with anything at all.

 

And thanks also for letting me know about the msata slot. I will investigate more about the mini pcie and M.2 possibilities.