Dell Vostro 1500

The new special offers are out on the Dell site.

But is it me, or are they more or less identical to the ones that expired yesterday?

I suppose they are probably still the best value (for what you get) laptop around at the moment :)

Aren’t they?

SW.
 
Yep free delivery deal as last week from what I see. Built the same build as what I've ordered - saving about £2.
 
My replacement Vostro 1500 arrived today.

Thank god theres no buzz/hum when you adjust the brightness below max. That was the main issue I had with the first notebook.

Theres still that interference coming from the headphone socket when you use a headset. My notebook is connected to an amp so thats no issue for me.

Noticed my BIOS revision on the replacement Vostro is A01. Previous was A00.

As for CPU whine, I'll test it out later tonight when its quiet.
 
/\ndy said:
ok a bit of a dumb question, but how do i go about re-installing windows vista business? i tried rebooting with the dell cd but nothing happened...and yeah i configured it in the bios to boot from cd but still no joy. Any ideas?
Click to expand...
nm, for no apparent reason it works just fine now :rolleyes:, cd drive was just playing up i think.
 
Bossk128 said:
A question for those who have installed XP themselves- is there a way to load the SATA drivers at XP install (F6 method) without using a floppy drive? If not, where can I get a floppy suitable for a laptop, do I have to get a Dell one (£31!)? And if I do get a Dell floppy drive, which hooks up via USB, will the Windows XP install be aware of the floppy drive?

Cheers.


Edit:
followed the link in this post to find SATA drivers:

http://www.ideastorm.com/article/show/73678/Fix_issue_regarding_OS_installation_vs_SATA_Hard_Drive
Click to expand...


I can confirm that slip streaming the above drivers into Windows XP with nLite works perfectly. The HDD was detected without the need to press F6.
 
I thought the 1500 had an 8-1 card reader, including xD card. From what I can see its only: SD, Memory Stick Duo...:confused:
 
I've installed XP on mine now, mostly it was fine but there were a few driver hiccups. As I mentioned above, you'll need to slipstream the AHCI drivers for the SATA HDD into your Windows XP disk, or turn the HDD mode in the bios to "IDE" from "AHCI" (loss in performance?).

After installing the Dell Bluetooth drivers, Bluetooth went wacky for a bit, it kept prompting me that an application was attempting to access my hands free kit (?!), which a reboot solved. Now got my Bluetooth mouse and wireless headset (which hadn't been paired when I was getting my Bluetooth errors) working perfectly.

Integrated webcam did not need Creative drivers from Dell web site, XP Pro picked it up. I've seen myself in the Camera window in My Computer, but not tried a video application yet- I assume it will be fine.

Chipset driver installation borked my USB hub, so I removed the problematic USB devices from Device Manager (about 8 of them), and rebooted- I let XP pick up the driver installation and they worked fine.

Nvidia drivers from Dell installed a treat, but no testing yet on performance or OC'ing with Ntune.

The sound card installation was a pest, the driver setup looked good for a few seconds then just dissapeared with no errors, a result of no sound. A reboot caused the setup to pick up automatically, but resorted in an error of "no supported device found" or something. Updating drivers manually in the Device Manager (unknown PCI device, had to remove it and reboot), and pointing it to the folder where the sound setup had unpacked to, automatically installed the driver correctly. I then had to configure Windows to use the Sigmatel device as standard, rather then route all sounds through Bluetooth (I foolishly setup Bluetooth before sound, but the Dell drivers are all named Rnnnnn.exe where n is a load of numbers!).

After removing the PCI device above (which I think is the "High Def Audio Bus"), which enabled me to install my sound, the last thing required was the dial up modem, which I don't need but I just like having drivers for everything. Dell forums insinuated the driver is Vista only, but a different driver (Conexant D330,HDA,MDC,v.92,modem) seemed to install correctly. I haven't tried this TBH, but just like having a clean Device Manager :p.

Driver linky
 
Right...

1) Is the DVD drive always so noisy that the laptop vibrates?
2) Just done a complete re-install of Vista...what do i need to install next? Drivers i assume? How/where? :o
 
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