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Got a free Inspiron 1520

66659hi66659hi
edited August 2015 in Hardware
As the title states, I got a free Dell Inspiron 1520. It looks to be in okay shape except for some scratches on the lid and the button that shows the LEDs on the battery missing its cover. I got it without a Hard Drive Caddy, so I ordered one of those on eBay for $4. Hasn't come yet. The best drive I have right now (I suffered massive drive failures on my laptops recently so I have a shortage of hard drives) is an 80GB Hitachi 5400RPM, but that'll have to do for now. I have a spare 2GB stick of RAM to upgrade it and a spare Win7 Key.

I'm trying to think of a creative use for it. It has a nice 15" Matte-Finish 1280x800 screen which seems to be exceptionally clean and has no dead or stuck pixels.

Comments

  • AbortRetryFailAbortRetryFail
    I'd turn it into a Linux machine and use it as a secondary computer.
  • AbortRetryFailAbortRetryFail
    I would install Linux on it and use it as a secondary computer. I doubt that Windows 7 would run nicely on it.
  • garirrygarirry
    edited August 2015
    Ah, nice! May I ask what year was the computer manufactured in? It could be interesting to install something like Windows 10 and see how it performs, I dunno. Personally, I don't really like the shape and design of these old Dell computers, but it's still a nice find.
  • 66659hi66659hi
    garirry wrote:
    Ah, nice! May I ask what year was the computer manufactured in? It could be interesting to install something like Windows 10 and see how it performs, I dunno. Personally, I don't really like the shape and design of these old Dell computers, but it's still a nice find.


    It was manufactured 4/6/08 according to the service tag, I'll mess with Win10...maybe, My internet isn't all that great and I'm still waiting for the hard drive caddy
  • putr4sputr4s
    Good luck with that, I installed Win10 on an old Acer Aspire 4920G, and it was slow as hell. Sometimes it doesn't even manage to get to the desktop (or login screen, can't remember for sure), so I ended up reinstalling Vista. I think the problem might be because of the graphics drivers (the card is an ATI Mobility Radeon X2500), the only ones I could find were for 32-bit Vista.
  • jl91569jl91569
    LOL. If a Core2 Duo can't run Windows 10, then how is my Acer Aspire One Happy 2 running it? Again, it's likely to be the video card, as you said, because, well, almost everything else in your laptop is better than mine. Well, at least stock and if I'm reading Engadget correctly. Please correct any mistakes.

    Quick comparison:
    Intel Core2 Duo T8300@2.4Ghz DC vs Intel Atom N570@1.67Ghz DC HT
    3GB RAM DDR2 vs 2GB RAM DDR3 (I upgraded mine)
    1280x800 vs 1024x600
    etc.

    But anyway, what happens if you disable your discrete graphics? Does your CPU even have integrated graphics? Might try installing 10 on an old (pre-2005) Dell Inspiron - ~800Mhz DC, 1GB DDR RAM... I'll see if my dad lets me. Problem is, though, it's running XP now. I'll have to install 7 on it, install all updates and then install 10. Overall more than 6 hours worth of waiting. Is it worth it? Probably not. But I still want to try :D.
  • BlueSunBlueSun
    jl91569 wrote:
    Problem is, though, it's running XP now. I'll have to install 7 on it, install all updates and then install 10. Overall more than 6 hours worth of waiting. Is it worth it? Probably not. But I still want to try :D.

    Or you could just fresh install 10. You won't get the key, but if you're just testing it out, it's fine.
  • BODBOD
    There's an enterprise edition 90 day trial too.
  • 66659hi66659hi
    putr4s wrote:
    Good luck with that, I installed Win10 on an old Acer Aspire 4920G, and it was slow as hell. Sometimes it doesn't even manage to get to the desktop (or login screen, can't remember for sure), so I ended up reinstalling Vista. I think the problem might be because of the graphics drivers (the card is an ATI Mobility Radeon X2500), the only ones I could find were for 32-bit Vista.

    Win10 runs fairly well actually, granted I upgraded it to 3GB RAM.

    The ATI cards of that generation were also known for failing so you might have an issue like that BTW
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