Comments on ARogan: Dell Inspiron 8600 near end of life refresh

Excellent post, Nice post by good author, very int...

2012-01-14T01:41:17.784-06:00

Excellent post, Nice post by good author, very interesting and informative, keep up the good work. Thanks for your sharing.

Hi Richard! I read your post from 9/19/11 9:20 AM ...

2011-10-30T17:58:06.864-06:00

Hi Richard!
I read your post from 9/19/11 9:20 AM and I'm very interested in what you did as I did almost the same, besides the SATA 2 PATA converter...

Regarding [quote]"2)2.5 inch Hard Drive SATA to IDE 44 Pin Converter Adapter" [/quote] can you please post some pictures how you did it?

I can't figure out how to fit the converter into the caddy and into the laptop... Some pictures will help a lot! Also if you can afford it, a way to e-mail you... ;-)

THANKS A LOT IN ADVANCE!!!
George Anonymous

Oops - I forgot to add, you can also flash the fir...

2011-09-19T09:39:14.946-06:00

Oops - I forgot to add, you can also flash the firmware in the NEC optical drive from the site below if you want to upgrade the burning capabilities.
http://liggydee.cdfreaks.com/page/en/

I recently decided to upgrade my 8600 (was top of ...

2011-09-19T09:20:48.237-06:00

I recently decided to upgrade my 8600 (was top of the range at the time), that I bought in Jan 2004 (for about £3000). I must say, this blog has some interesting comments that have been quite useful - thanks guys !
I have never had a single problem with it in all these years, and is a great little "workhorse". Although I have more higher spec machines, I love this for encoding movie files.
@Ron,check this out:
DELL QUICK SNAP COVER FOR INSPIRON 8500 / 8600 / 8600c
COLOUR : LINDBERGH BAMBOO GREEN
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/380259691495

I also fitted the following:
1)Dell TrueMobile 350 Bluetooth Wireless Card RD530 W9242 X5166 UG748 You also need the 5X617 TrueMobile 300 BDC Bluetooth Cable Assembly.

2)2.5 inch Hard Drive SATA to IDE 44 Pin Converter Adapter

3) Pentium M 765 (Dothan) 2.1 GHZ (was 1.7Ghz Banias)- easy to get hold of here in UK.

4) Marvell Wireless 802.11N 300MBPS Mini PCI Card - ran the 3rd aerial under the screen bezel.

5) Dell Laptop Stand & Dell D/Port Dock Replicator (you need PA10 power supply adapter for this)

6) Another SATA HDD caddy
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SATA-HDD-caddy-dell-Inspiron-8500-8600-9100-XPS-GEN1-/280707009228

7) 1TB SATA 9.5 mm 2.5 inch laptop HDD for the SATA caddy

I',m just looking into sticking a SSD in it with a PATA to SATA adapter.

I'm going to keep this baby going for as long as I can, so any further suggestions are more than welcome.

I`ve had this machine for years and it still looks...

2011-06-12T02:53:57.182-06:00

I`ve had this machine for years and it still looks and runs great i even recently Maxed out the memory at 2GB and installed windows 7 home premium x86 and it surprisingly runs great the only thing is the video card is not powerful enough to run the Aero desktop theme. but who would think that a 7 year old laptop could even run windows 7 let alone run great!!!

This is an awesome article. I have one of these o...

2011-05-26T16:13:37.591-06:00

This is an awesome article. I have one of these old Dell's and was going to throw it away. I refurbished it and now it performs like new.

Me again, running my i8600 with Win7 (aero disable...

2011-02-10T14:04:57.033-06:00

Me again, running my i8600 with Win7 (aero disabled), 160GB WD 5400, 2GB DDR.

Has anyone tried either:
a) PATA SSD or
b) 1.8" SATA SSD with SATA -> PATA adapter?

I'm leaning towards trying (b) since PATA SSD's are so expensive. I could get a 32GB Sata SSD for $80 and an adapter for $12. Then, I'd replace my CDROM (which I rarely use) with a 2nd hard drive dock and put my 160GB WD HD in there.

Any thoughts, experiences???
-ran

Thanks for sharing Ron, great story. I'm using...

2010-11-04T10:16:49.322-06:00

Thanks for sharing Ron, great story. I'm using Linux and is working great, I love Dell.

This is again a wonderful invention of Dell. I lik...

2010-10-25T01:20:32.898-06:00

This is again a wonderful invention of Dell. I liked it.

It's an oldie but goodie, laptops have been wi...

2010-10-02T16:04:09.447-06:00

It's an oldie but goodie, laptops have been with us for long enough now that the older ones still make viable work machines. Not everyone needs the latest DirectX/OpenGL capabilities.

A great walk through guide concerning upgrading laptop memory can be found at the link below.

Upgrading DDR laptop memory guide

Cheers,
Greg

Linux worked great, but not for the faint of heart...

2010-08-03T02:56:47.701-06:00

Linux worked great, but not for the faint of heart if you are a tweaker coming from the Windows world..I crashed it and had to re-install 4 times before I could get it stable again, but it is a great OS, with a lot of great features.

Nice effort, very informative, this will help me t...

2010-07-19T06:21:25.878-06:00

Nice effort, very informative, this will help me to complete my task.

Thanks, your story inspired me to tell my own. Lin...

2010-07-16T10:18:17.875-06:00

Thanks, your story inspired me to tell my own. Linux worked great, but not for the faint of heart if you are a tweaker coming from the Windows world..I crashed it and had to re-install 4 times before I could get it stable again, but it is a great OS, with a lot of great features

Great post! I found it while thinking about rejuv...

2010-07-11T01:00:59.465-06:00

Great post! I found it while thinking about rejuvenating an old Inspiron 8600. It had been collecting dust for a year. It had XP on it, and had gotten to the point it was crawling *unbelievably* slow.

I went with Ubuntu 10.04 and had already upped the memory to 1 GB.

It's perfectly usable, great as a big "netbook" and faster than it's been in years. Especially without ForeFront virus scanner running constantly.

Other commenters are correct though that the wifi card is tricky to set up. I fiddled with it for at least a day. Though I didn't really know what I was doing (first time I set up wireless in Linux)

It had a Broadcom BCM4306 Rev 2, card. I just about threw it away and purchased a new one for < $20.

Though, after I figured out which driver to install, and how, it's wasn't that hard to work with. Here are some instructions that worked for me:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9574879&postcount=583

thanks,
Kevin

It's nice to hear that so many people are figh...

2010-06-19T11:54:31.788-06:00

It's nice to hear that so many people are fighting to keep their old Dells from the brink of obsolete. I've had my 8600 (1.3GHz, 256MB RAM, & 40GB HD) since 2003.

I've been considering a 30GB SSD ($79), since it seems like my HD is the slowest component...the HD LED is solid for long periods of times. I use my computer mostly for web browsing, MS Office, and stock trader, so I don't need the most powerful machine. I just need mobility and something quicker would be gravy.

Has anyone had any experience with an SSD in an old 8600?

Great post ARogan. I have benefitted from this in...

2010-05-26T19:03:33.918-06:00

Great post ARogan. I have benefitted from this information as I upgrade my 8600. Thank you. I want to reach out to your readers and you for help in finding a ATI MOBILITY RADEON 9600 PRO TURBO w/128Mb to buy. There are plenty of ATI MOBILITY RADEON 9600's but I cannot find the Pro. Does anyone know where there one for sale? Thanks again.

Hi every 8600 lovers! Thanks to ARogan and this si...

2010-05-06T19:53:59.622-06:00

Hi every 8600 lovers! Thanks to ARogan and this site I have get some orientations and updated my 8600. I have no porblem at all installing a Samsung 160GB 5400rpm PATA Hard Disk. There is a Toshiba and a Hitachi too. They work perfectly with XP pro SP3.
Now: I have read in this post that manypeople says that they installed 250GB 7200rpm HDs... May I ask where they found them? I have found no one! so, sorry if I must say so: is this some kind of swagger, a lie or what?
Please, can some one answer this so to not create "false expectations"?
Thanks again ARogan.

Sandra, for me the key to getting games to work wa...

2010-04-20T15:08:10.315-06:00

Sandra, for me the key to getting games to work was installing the DNA modified ATI drivers I linked near the end of the article.

dude how in the world did u play that game on your...

2010-04-17T21:07:28.928-06:00

dude how in the world did u play that game on your 8600 mine is exactly the same i have an inspiron 8600 with windows 7 and i cant play any game at all it keeps saying something about directx3d and i know the problem but how do u fix it

2010 and my i8600 still going. Win7 runs very ni...

2010-04-01T15:04:01.440-06:00

2010 and my i8600 still going.
Win7 runs *very* nice (Aero disabled).
Would love to get an SSD, but don't know if it can handle SSD's.
I do know that the BIOS cannot recognize past about 100GB. I have a 160GB WD drive in and I had multipartitioned but couldn't install OS's on anything past the last 60GB. So, I have OS partitions within the first 60GB and data partition on the last 100GB

Very interesting site. Congratulations to the doer...

2010-02-12T09:24:15.302-06:00

Very interesting site. Congratulations to the doers. One "big"question remind unanswered: which kind / brand of 2.5in has 250GB IDE with 7200RPM? I Have been searching the web and found... NO ONE! If the posting know one please post the code name and brand so others can benefit too. Thanks!

After reading the post here on Inspiron 8600 I pul...

2009-12-23T22:29:59.174-06:00

After reading the post here on Inspiron 8600 I pulled mine rom the closet and upgraded the ram to 2GB and hard drive to 250gb 7200rpm I had laying around, it has 32mb Geforce graphics but for what I use it for it will work?, I have the mini-pci card with a new B,G, mimo N-card. new install of windows XP and multi-boot with Linux Ubuntu Netbook Remix (cold-boot in 4seconds!) wifi finally worked after I installed with mimo-N card.
I need help from the talent here,I have a D-Docking station with pci slot but can't get it to work?I have latest A14 BIOS but I am lost as to why not working? maybe needs a special driver? anyone got D-Docking station with pci slot to work? any help would be appreciated.
also with Linux with wifi on I get 6hrs on battery life, when I am away from ac I use Linux versus XP which last about 4hrs

"The only thing you really have to worry abou...

2009-12-01T21:24:03.414-06:00

"The only thing you really have to worry about is that the hard drive is no thicker than 9.5mm, 2.5", and PATA. I've used a variety of 7200 and 5400 rpm drives without any issues."

How did you get around the BIOS issues (137 GB limit)?

Thanks!

Good to see so many 8600 fans and I am one of them...

2009-11-30T03:19:24.981-06:00

Good to see so many 8600 fans and I am one of them.5 yrs old and still going great. Recently I installed Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition(SP1) on it. Previously it was having WinXP Pro.
Now All my drivers are gone. No sound, no internet,no USB nth..
I searched on dell site for Windows Server 2003 drivers but all i can see is that for 8600, they give only WinXP drivers and not windows server 2003. I reied installing WInXP drivers but they dont get installed? Is 8600 not capable of handling windows server 2003? Can I get the drivers from somewhere? pls help

Well, I have upgraded another one of these for my ...

2009-11-29T09:55:01.994-06:00

Well, I have upgraded another one of these for my daughter. Very bulletproof machines. I am considering selling the one I built...Should be able to get $300 for it...any takers before I list it on ebay? If ARogan does not mind, post a message for me here. You can go back to see the specs..It also has a new lava hard shell lid cover on it.