• Tag Archives Dell

  • Digital Archaeology: Dell Inspiron 600m

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    The Dell Inspiron 600M was probably one of the more popular laptops when it was released in the Summer of 2004. It was a reasonably speedy and compact Pentium M based system with decent graphics. Depending on the exact specs, it would have set you back in the neighborhood of $1600. Some of the highlights of this one include:

    • CPU: Pentium M 715 @ 1.5 GHz
    • Memory: 512 MB DDR2
    • Video: ATI Mobility Radeon 9000
    • Screen: 1024×768

    For more complete technical specs, check out the output of HWiNFO or CPU-Z.

    Unlike some later model laptops, the Inspiron 600m only had a few basic configuration options. The CPU options ranged in speed from 1.3 GHz to 1.6 GHz, there were a handful of hard drive choices, and you could get a 1400×1050 resolution screen. The ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 also came in 32MB and 64MB varieties.

    This particular model has the lower res display, the 32MB Mobility Radeon 9000 and the fastest drive that was available for it, a 5,400 rpm Toshiba model. While the 64MB Radeon would have been nice…apparently it greatly increased 3D benchmark scores, even the 32MB model was a solid choice (and the fastest available from ATI at the time) and did well with games. Overall, I would say that if you were looking for a laptop to do some XP based retrogaming on then this one would be a good choice and the lower res 1024×768 screen is probably more of a benefit than a detriment for that purpose. Of course it is also good for anything else you might want to use Windows XP for.

    There are still 32-bit versions of Linux out there that are maintained, notably Debian, though their performance is not great unless you have a pretty awesome 32-bit machine. I haven’t tried it, but if you upped the RAM it would probably run acceptably on this laptop. Of course, just as there are older versions of Windows, there are also older versions of Linux you could use as well.

    Speaking of upping the RAM, there are some upgrade options. My 600m currently has 512MB of RAM installed but it can be expanded officially to 1GB though I’ve seen info that says it will accept up to 2 GB. The CPU is also replaceable. HWiNFO and CPU-Z differ on exactly what CPU is in this laptop. HWiNFO says it is the Pentium M 758 while CPU-Z says it is the Pentium M 715. They are the same speed (1.5 GHz) with the only significant difference being that the 758 is a low voltage model. My bet is on the 715 model. In either case, it supposedly can be upgraded all the way to the 2.1 GHz “regular” voltage model. That’s a pretty significant upgrade for the time.

    The only real complaints at the time by reviewers were the lack of a firewire port, only two USB ports, and mediocre battery life. Virtually everything else is positive. It’s a relatively small laptop with a 14″ non-widescreen screen. The keyboard also feels pretty nice. Mine has a combo DVD/CDRW drive in a removeable drive bay that could be swapped with an extra battery, floppy drive, or another hard drive (though I don’t have any of those). While Dell’s designs were considered kind of boring at the time, I always liked them, especially the business oriented Latitudes but the Inspirons were ok too. This one is Dell’s typical grey color though there are some almost metallic blue accents around the trackpad, trackpad buttons and at the top of the keyboard where the power and volume buttons are. There were also apparently a variety of snap-on covers available if you wanted to spend an extra $35.

    Despite being a “museum piece” (as some Linux developer recently labeled 32-bit systems), it can still run BOINC and various BOINC projects. It is currently working on Asteroids@home, Einstein@home, and World Community Grid. You can see how it is doing over all at FreeDC.

    Except for screen shots which are mine, images above come from official Dell documentation which can be found here.


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  • Digital Archaeology: Dell Inspiron 1720

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    I’ve always thought Dell has maintained better consistency in the quality of their laptops than most. There are, of course, exceptions. These days there aren’t even that many brands to choose from. Not nearly as many as there used to be anyway.

    The Inspiron 1720 is a 17-inch laptop featuring the Core 2 Duo line of processors. The hardware if this particular laptop includes:

    • CPU: Core 2 Duo T7250 @ 2 GHz
    • RAM: 3 GB DDR2
    • Video: Mobile Intel GMA X3100
    • Screen: 17-inch @ 1440×900

    See the output of HardInfo for more detailed specs.

    There are a couple of disappointing things about this laptop. The first is the screen resolution. In my opinion, a screen this big should have at least a 1080p resolution. There was in fact an available 1920×1200 display for this model but sadly not on the one that I have. The next disappointing item is the lack of a discrete GPU. Unfortunately, this laptop relies on Intel’s integrated motherboard solution at the time.

    Having said that, the big screen is still nice. And for purposes other than gaming, the lack of a discrete GPU doesn’t really matter. In fact, if I recall correctly, the discrete nVidia laptop GPUs of the time had a nasty habit of failing in part because of the switch away from lead based solder. So for purposes of longevity, which is important when it comes to laptops like this that are more than 10 years old, it’s probably better not to have a discrete GPU. I still would have liked the higher resolution screen though.

    The Core 2 Duo was plenty fast enough for the time this laptop was released and among the fastest CPUs available. The 3GB of RAM was a common amount for 32-bit operating systems since they typically couldn’t see a full 4GB. This laptop originally shipped with Windows Vista.

    For whatever reason, it seems that laptops based on the Core 2 Duo, except for the latest generation, were limited to 4 GB of RAM, this one included. This was an unfortunate limitation given that 64-bit CPUs had been around a while by this point and 64-bit operating systems had also been available for a while (Linux, XP-64, Vista). This limitation really made such laptops prematurely obsolete. 4 GB may still be enough for some operating systems, it really isn’t enough for modern web browsers and tabbed browsing. I have seen claims that some people have gotten 6 GB to work with the latest BIOS by installing 4 GB in the memory socket under the keyboard and 2 GB in the socket on the bottom (not sure about the other way around).

    The all silver keyboard/bezel/palmrest area looks nice though past experience suggests that it can be easily scratched and worn. It doesn’t look so good then. However, this one appears to be in close to mint condition. It seems as though it was barely used. The outside is black which while perhaps the most common, also looks the best. The lighting is blue which seems to be common for the time. This includes power, wifi, hard drive, bluetooth and battery indicators as well as a row of multimedia control buttons (play, stop, etc.) on the front that light up when you press one. Blue leds seems to wear faster than other colors. The blue power light which is always on when the laptop is on is noticeably dimmer than the others which are intermittent.

    This laptop is currently running the latest version of Ubuntu Linux. The 3GB seems sufficient for the OS and light browsing, however, performance suffers if you try to use more than a couple of tabs, particularly if there’s a lot of Javascript. I’m sure it would do better with HTML only pages but there aren’t many of those these days. In theory, it should run XP and Windows 7 well, it is probably capable of running Windows 8 and at least earlier builds of Windows 10 (not sure about the latest) as well. If trying to run Windows 10, I would definitely upgrade to an SSD though otherwise the performance will be pretty terrible.

    Speaking of upgrades, the CPU is upgradeable to at least the Core 2 Duo T9500 which is 2.6 GHz which would be a reasonable bump in speed. As mentioned above, the official maximum amount of RAM is 4 GB but 6 GB seems to work at least in some cases. However, the biggest performance increase you can get from any older laptop is by replacing the hard drive with an SSD. I probably won’t be upgrading this one though if it had the higher resolution screen I might.

    Like all the machines I have, I installed BOINC and attached to my usual projects. I think memory limitations may prevent it from getting any work for Rosetta@home but it has gotten (or should get) work for Einstein@home, Asteroids@home, MilkyWay@home, Universe@home and World Community Grid. You can also check out how it is doing overall at FreeDC.

    Photo at the top and screen shot are mine, all other images are from the manual.


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  • Digital Archaeology: Dell Inspiron 1501

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    The Dell Inspiron 1501 was released in 2006 as a budget friendly laptop. Part of what determines whether or not a laptop is low end or high end isn’t just the specific components that are used but the timing of its release. For instance, the Athlon 64 was a high-end processor when released. However, the mobile version, the Turion 64, was somewhat late to the game. In particular, by the time it was included in this laptop, there were better things on the market. The Core 2 Duo was released the same year as this laptop.

    While the CPU may be a matter of timing, the graphics solution in this laptop was always low end. The Mobility Radeon Xpress X200 was basically the ATI’s answer to Intel’s integrated motherboard video solutions. It was perhaps a little better but not enough to make a difference. Certainly not good enough to play then modern games very well.

    Specs of this laptop include:

    • CPU: AMD Turion 64 MK-36 @ 2 GHz
    • RAM: 3 GB DDR2
    • Video: Mobility Radeon Xpress X200
    • Screen: 1280×800

    For more complete stats, see the output of HardInfo here.

    I’m not sure what the stock memory configuration was. Maybe 1 GB. The manual states that the maximum RAM configuration is 2 GB but clearly that isn’t true. This laptop has 3 GB and I suspect 4 GB would probably work. That’s plenty to run Linux though for a Microsoft OS I probably wouldn’t try to go past Windows 7 though I’m sure Windows 8 would work and at least early builds of Windows 10 as well. It shipped with Windows XP and was labeled as “Vista Compatible”.

    The screen is a reasonable 1280×800 which is a nice step up from what would have been a common 1024×768. For a low-end laptop the somewhat higher resolution is a nice feature.

    The biggest limitation of this laptop for modern usage is the fact that it is single core and that the memory is limited to 4 GB. Still usable for light tasks but you definitely don’t want to start opening a lot of tabs in a browser. However, the fact that it has a 64-bit CPU means that it will probably work with updated Linux versions for years to come.

    As a retro machine, it is going to be somewhat disappointing for games because of the lousy video chip. No doubt you can play games that are quite a bit older than when this laptop was released but contemporary games would, at least in large part, be out of its reach. Otherwise, I’m sure Windows XP would be lighting fast, especially for applications that don’t do a lot of multitasking (the CPU being single core).

    Like all the other hardware I run, both old and new, I have this one crunching away on various BOINC projects when it is running. So far it has done work for Asteroids@home, Universe@home, Einstein@home, Rosetta@home and World Community Grid. You can also check out how it is doing overall at FreeDC.

    The images above were taken from the Dell Inspiron 1501 Owner’s Manual.


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