Winman486 wrote on 2022-05-09, 19:02:
Socket3 wrote on 2022-05-09, 08:26:
Winman486 wrote on 2022-05-09, 07:33:
Does your onboard ethernet work??
it works on all but one of them
Wonderful and I assume it's the same issue I am having? I am starting to think this thing is not worth the trouble.
I haven't investigated further. On board lan on the one I'm using works fine.
I'd say the 8200 is worth the trouble - but that's just my opinion. The reasons are:
- Modular design. The sound card and video card are separate daughter boards. That means you have your choice of video cards (gf 2 go, gf 4 go, radeon 7500, radeon 9000) and sound cards (ESS or Crystal). This also means that if the video card goes you can replace it with one off another laptop or ebay. Just google "inspiron 8200 video card". Your choice is not limited to the inspiron line, as some laptops from the latitude series use the same video card daughterboard - ex the latitude C840.
This is a radeon 9000m module with 64Mb of 128bit DDR VRAM:
dell-dell-inspiron-8200-graphics-card-04u623jpg.image.1500x857.jpg
- DOS compatible sound chips - the Inspiron line comes with the ESS Solo audio chip witch you can get working in dos. Some models, including the hardware compatible latitude line come with a daughterboard that fits the inspiron line and use a Crystal sound codec that again has working DOS drivers - although I've had much better luck with the ESS.
- Pentium 4 Mobile - this CPU supports speedstep - it can be clocked down using software.
If you like thinkering, it's worth having a go at this laptop. Once sorted it makes a great portable gaming PC. If you want something that just works, then don't bother and pick up an IBM T40 or R50, or better yet an HP NC6000 or Compaq N800....