• Tag Archives Dell

  • Digital Archaeology: Dell Inspiron 6000

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    The Inspiron 6000 was a low to medium-end laptop from Dell. Like many models, it had a variety of configurations. When this model first came to market, it wasn’t the greatest value for the money. However, later configurations were better values. Mine has the following configuration:

    • CPU: Intel Pentium M 735 @ 1.7 GHz
    • RAM: 1 GB DDR2-533 (PC2-4300)
    • Video: ATI Mobility Radeon X300
    • Hard Drive: Hitachi HTS541080G9AT00 (80 GB)
    • Screen: 1280 x 800

    For more details, check out the reports from CPU-Z, HWiNFO, and HardInfo.

    This seems to have been a middle of the road model. The CPU was on the faster side of what would have been available for this model and it is a version with a discrete video card vs. integrated video. However, the screen is the lowest end that was available.

    The Pentium M was an excellent CPU for its time. It had the speed of a Pentium 4 but was much more efficient, achieving those speeds at lower power and a reduced clock rate. While you could get more raw speed out of the fastest Pentium 4s, the power cost was high with a significant cost to battery life.

    When I got this machine, it had 512MB of RAM which I assume is what it probably shipped with. This is a reasonable amount for Windows XP but not if you want to upgrade to a newer version of Windows or Linux. I upgraded it to 1 GB though it can go as high as 2 GB. I upgraded so that this computer could crunch Einstein@home tasks (turns out 512MB wasn’t enough) and run Linux. 2 GB would be better for that and still not really a comfortable amount.

    The ATI video doesn’t offer particularly great performance when it comes to things like games but it is still quite a bit better than using integrated chipset video. It has dedicated video RAM but I’m not entirely sure how much. Different tools in Windows report two different number and I get yet another number in Linux. HWiNFO reports 32MB, ATI drivers report 64MB, and Linux

    The hard drive is an 80MB model that is most likely original. I have Windows XP and Linux dual booting on it currently. I have BOINC running in both and despite this being a 32-bit CPU, there are still a few projects that it gets work for including Asteroids@home (1), Einstein@home (1, 2), and World Community Grid. You can also see how it is doing overall on FreeDC (1, 2).


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  • Digital Archaeology: Dell Inspiron 531s

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    The Dell Inspiron 531S is a slimline desktop. Dell made several models of a similar design in both Intel and AMD varieties. This particular one has a Athlon 64 X2 5000+. The Intel models (Core 2 duo based) used the 530s model designation. Hardware specs of this one include:

    • CPU: Athlon 64 X2 5000+ @ 2.6 GHz
    • Memory: 3 GB DDR2 @ 800 MHz
    • Video: GeForce 6150LE

    For more complete specs, check out the HardInfo report.


    When this desktop was contemporary, this CPU was reasonably fast. the GeForce 6150LE is part of the chipset and for an integrated solution, it was pretty good for the time but if you wanted to do gaming, you would still need a discrete GPU.

    The 3GB of RAM was pretty typical for the time. The reason being that, despite the fact that most CPUs were 64-bit by this time, Windows and most apps and drivers were still primarily 32-bit. This machine shipped with Windows Vista. There was a 64-bit version of Vista but most OEM PCs shipped with the 32-bit version. By the time 64-bit drivers for more devices were widely available, I think things were already moving on to Windows 7. Vista was not very popular.


    The fastest officially supported CPU on this machine is the Athlon 64 X2 6000+ which runs at 3.1 GHz (Socket AM2). This would be a modest upgrade with, very roughly, a 20% increase in performance. More significant upgrades would be the addition of a discrete GPU and an SSD. Moving up to 4GB would be helpful too.

    Given the small size and limited power supply, the GPU selection will be limited. Something like a GT 1030 or some other card that doesn’t require an external power connection would be the best card that would work for this machine. It would have to be a low profile card with associated low profile bracket. This would still be a massive improvement over the integrated video.


    This machine has an issue that I haven’t been able to work out yet. When ever I move the window for the BOINC application, the screen scrambles and the computer freezes. I’m not sure if this is a software or hardware problem. I don’t seem to have issues with any other application nor do I have problems using the BOINC app (provided I don’t move the window around) or any of the projects I run. There’s no temperature problem and otherwise it seems perfectly stable. However, I’ve run this version of Linux and BOINC on other machines with this chipset (though perhaps later revisions?) without any problem. I was going to try adding a discrete GPU. I have one that is small enough but I don’t have a low profile bracket handy. At this point, it’s been running with 100% CPU activity for a few days now with no problems so I’m not convinced this is a hardware problem.

    Speaking of BOINC, this PC is still capable of running most of the projects I normally participate in. These projects include Einstein@home, Asteroids@home, Milkyway@home, Universe@home, World Community Grid, and Rosetta@home though 3 GB is a marginal amount for trying to run Rosetta tasks. You can see how it is doing overall at FreeDC.


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  • Digital Archaeology: Dell Inspiron 530s (upgraded)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    I’ve covered this machine for in an early edition of Digital Archaeology but I just recently upgraded it. This is a slimiline system that doesn’t have a whole lot of upgrade potential but I decided to go ahead and upgrade the CPU. the original CPU in this system was the Pentium Dual Core E2200.

    Hardware in this machine originally included:

    • CPU: Pentium Dual Core E2200 @ 2.2 GHz
    • Memory: 3 GB DDR2-666 MHz (PC2-5300)
    • Video: Intel 82G33/G31 Express Integrated Graphics

    The only upgrade I made to this machine was to replace the CPU with a Core 2 Duo E8500. At a 3.1 GHz base clock it is almost 50% faster based on clock speed alone. In addition, it has a much larger cache at 6MB as well as other improvements.

    For more complete hardware info, check out the updated report from HardInfo.

    I opted for the E8500 because I have a couple of them lying around. I believe they are leftover from when I upgraded a couple of other machines to quad core processors. The fastest supported CPU by this machine is the E8600 which is only a touch faster. Apparently, some versions of this model can accept a quad core CPU but it requires a certain motherboard revision and an upgraded power supply. So while the choice of the E8500 was one of convenience, it’s also pretty close to the best CPU I could use anyway.


    The actual CPU upgrade was quick and easy. Simply remove the four screws holding the CPU fan/heatsink in place and remove it (and clean it), pop out the CPU, place the new one in, apply new heatsink compound and screw the fan/heatsink back on again. I did not follow the common advice of updating to the latest BIOS before the upgrade and decided to YOLO it instead. This came back to bite me a little but ended up not being a big deal.

    When I first turned it on after the upgrade, it posted fine but froze in the middle of booting my Linux install. When I entered the BIOS setup, it seemed to recognize the CPU correctly but was reporting the cache at 0 which seemed odd. I decided to try updating the BIOS…without putting the old CPU back in…another YOLO moment, LOL.

    I used Rufus to create a bootable USB with MS-DOS 6.22. I copied the latest BIOS upgrade to the same USB device and booted the system with it. Turns out the BIOS update went fine and afterwards I was able to boot successfully. I don’t recommend taking these kinds of risks with a system that is important to you. Always update the BIOS before a CPU upgrade and if you don’t and things don’t work out, you should replace the original CPU before attempting a BIOS upgrade to resolve the issue. Things worked out fine in my case but if the system had froze mid update or something else went wrong, it could have FUBARed the BIOS making the system unusable and without an easy repair path. In this case, I was just experimenting with an old PC I am not particularly attached to.

    Right now, this system only has 3 MB of RAM. However, there are four memory slots and it will accept up to 8 GB. This would definitely be a worthwhile upgrade and one I may do at some point. It’s also possible to add a GPU but it would have to be a low power, low profile model. I suspect that an nVidia GT 1030 is the best reasonable option. There are probably also a couple of AMD/ATI models that would work. I might do such an upgrade but only if I happen to come across an extra low profile card that will work. I won’t go out of my way to get one.

    Like all the machines I use, this one has BOINC installed and connected to various projects including Einstein@home, Asteroids@home, MilkyWay@home, Rosetta@home, and World Community Grid. You can see how it is doing at FreeDC.


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