Dell Inspiron Archives - The Silicon Underground

Don’t buy a “desktop replacement” laptop

Dave Farquhar — Thu, 23 Oct 2014 11:00:38 +0000

I found this oldie but goodie Lifehacker article: When two computers are cheaper than one. It advocates buying a cheap laptop and building a desktop PC to meet your computing needs. I think it makes a lot of sense. A

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Why PC makers love tablets, or should

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 11:00:01 +0000

PC Magazine has a nice analysis of why tablets are selling well and will continue to sell well, but they aren’t taking over the entire industry. PCs are mature and not changing a lot at this point, while tablets are

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The trouble with Dell

Dave Farquhar — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 10:04:43 +0000

Note: I wrote this in mid-2010 and, for whatever reason, never posted it. I found it this week. Although the information in it is no longer fresh and new, it’s still useful, so for that reason, I’m posting it now.

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How I bought a battery for my aged laptop

Dave Farquhar — Sat, 30 Jun 2012 13:47:51 +0000

The aged battery in my aged Dell Inspiron E1505 held on better than I expected, but when I went to upgrade the machine–I upgraded it with two unsupported but perfectly functional 2 GB SODIMMs and then installed a Samsung 830

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The Samsung SSD 830: A user review

Dave Farquhar — Sat, 26 May 2012 14:47:13 +0000

I didn’t need much convincing to purchase a Samsung 830 SSD; I was in the market for a bigger SSD, and my short list consisted of Samsung and Intel drives. So when I found a good price on a 128

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The Dell Inspiron E1505 and its maximum memory

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 25 May 2012 11:21:23 +0000

Last year, I got a deal I couldn’t refuse on a Dell Inspiron E1505 laptop. It’s old and quirky, but modern enough to make it serviceable. It has a dual-core processor and SATA2, so you can put an SSD in

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A snafu when installing an SSD in some laptops

Dave Farquhar — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 12:41:46 +0000

I hotrodded an old Dell Inspiron e1505 laptop by installing a Samsung 830 SSD in it. I hit a snag along the way. The fix is easy but not necessarily obvious. The replacement drive went in easier than the old

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What I would do to fix Dr. A’s computer

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 12:19:48 +0000

I left my conversation with Dr. A nearly convinced he doesn’t really need a new computer. The local store is pitching him a new $700 Dell Inspiron with a 1 TB hard drive and 6 GB of RAM and a

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The amount of system memory has changed – Dell

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 12:54:15 +0000

I added some memory to a Dell Inspiron E1505, an aging but serviceable Core 2 Duo-based laptop. And it greeted me with this: THE AMOUNT OF SYSTEM MEMORY HAS CHANGED . IF YOU DID NOT CHANGE MEMORY TO RESOLVE ISSUE RESEAT

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Don’t use gadget buyback programs

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 13 May 2011 22:49:51 +0000

MSNBC consumer reporter Bob Sullivan does a thorough analysis of how gadget buy-back programs work, and why you shouldn’t use them. There’s no need for me to rehash everything that’s wrong with them, because Bob covered all those bases admirably.

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