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Dell Inspiron 9100 laptop "fixes"

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    Dell Inspiron 9100 laptop "fixes"

    I recently purchased one of these refurbished by Dell from a reseller. It was cheap, has great specs but also some serious issues ( battery catching fire or components running extremely hot ).

    These laptops were marketed towards the business and also the gaming community. Therefore they used Intel's latest and greatest ( at the time )P4 Prescott processors. This one came with a 2.8ghz/1meg L2 cache/ 800mhz fsb # SL79k processor. The motherboard uses the Intel 865 chipset. This is all well and good as a desktop pc but a laptop? Serious heat issues here!

    After using this "refub" for a few days, it started exhibiting strange behaviours. Locking up in the bios screen, failing to boot at all, locking up after a few mins in windows etc.. A google search showed pretty much all the symptoms other ppl were having.

    I could have sent it back for a refund but being stubborn and stupid, I decided to find out what the problem is and how to go about fixing it.

    Using Ultimate Boot CD and it's Linux OS, Memtest86 immediately showed ram errors. Ok, swap ram sticks, run 1 stick only, use ram from a good laptop etc... all gave the same errors. Ram was not the problem.

    Next was to swap out the processor. All I had available was a Pentium M 1.8ghz which doesnt have a heatspreader. A copper shim took care of that problem . Restart the laptop and got a bios error stating it doesn't support 266mhz memory or something similar ( should have wrote it down ).
    Unplugged the power cord, pulled the battery and the cmos battery out for a few mins to clear the bios then popped it all back together and got to the bios setup screen this time. I was able to boot up using this "trick". The laptop ran slugishly as the processor was locked at 1.1ghz. It also locked up in windows while running 3Dmark2003 after a few times. So it would seem the processor was ok and probably the motherboard was at fault. The heatpipe on the northbridge chipset looked to be burnt as well.

    Got another motherboard, popped in the original processor and fired it up. After all that, it still would lock up! Put the Pentium M back in and the laptop finally ran without errors. So, not only was the motherboard cooked but the processor as well.

    I had downloaded a fan speed and monitoring program called l8kfanGUI which was designed to take care of the heat issues on a few of these Dell models(inspiron 9100 and XPS generation1).
    The chipset and the processor at idle ran at over 55c. They would both hit 70c under load! Even with the 3 fans running at 100% (using l8kfanGUI) it would only drop the temperature about 5c under load. That's much too high to get any type of longevity out of this system.

    What to do to solve this problem? A Pentium M is out of the question as the chipset locks it at 1.1ghz. I tried a 1.8ghz and later a 2.2ghz. They both locked at 1.1ghz. The older P4 Northwood processor seemed to be the only other alternative. These aren't as fast as the Prescotts but they don't use nearly as much watts. I bought a 2.4ghz and here's the results...cpu idles at 36c and the northbridge at 43c. Under load using 3Dmark2003 gives 43c and 48c respectively. Problem resolved!

    I can't really say if it was worth the time, effort and $300 in parts to fix this laptop but it was a fun project and hopefully may help anyone else out there
    who may still be fighting with these things.
    Attached Files

    #2
    Re: Dell Inspiron 9100 laptop "fixes"

    I suppose you mean Pentium 4 Mobile, or P4M when you say Pentium M. The Pentium M and the Pentium 4 have different sockets (S-479 and S-478), and are not interchangeable.

    The Northwood P4M is a good choice as a mobile processor - it's reasonably quick and has fairly low power dissipation. The only issues are that it may need microcode support in the BIOS, and may also require a small shim between the bare die and heatsink for good thermal contact - a small copper penny that has been filed smooth should work. The older 100% copper pennies are recommended over the later zinc-copper pennies.

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      #3
      Re: Dell Inspiron 9100 laptop "fixes"

      nice reading there, Mustang and linuxguru

      stay away anything thats Pentium4 when it comes to laptop.

      i my self have a Toshiba Satellite A10 with P4M ~2Ghz, its hot and inneficient.
      days are so short when you actually do something..

      Comment


        #4
        Re: Dell Inspiron 9100 laptop "fixes"

        Linuxguru, you are absolutely correct The 2 processors I tested were both P4M's. Thanks for the clarification. It would be nice to be able to mod a Dell BIOS but that's way beyond my capability. I think the Northwood is the easiest solution in this particular case. One point of note on battery life, when the laptop sorta ran with the prescott, battery life was about an hour (according to the meter). Now with the Northwood it's 1 hour 50 mins. I think that shows the difference in power consumption as well as a possible reason these things caught fire. Super hot laptop + fast battery drain = meltdown!

        Yanz, maybe I put in one of those P4 extreme processors next. It might burn a hole to....and in a few months you find a laptop in your garden

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          #5
          Re: Dell Inspiron 9100 laptop "fixes"

          You can't go far wrong if the CPU you start with is one of the coolest. All this talk about additonal cooling and laptop cooling trays, defeats the point in having a laptop if you have to carry around many kilo's of cooling devices.
          Rubycon Rubycon Rubycon

          Comment


            #6
            Re: Dell Inspiron 9100 laptop "fixes"

            I have got an Inspirion 8100 from a friend. Problem was no boot issue with blinking caps lock led.

            First i locked for the CMOS battery, which was drained, so i ordered an replacement. May be this was to early, as this battery is an a rechargeable lithium button cell, so may be this thing was not necessarily bad.

            Any way, i removed HDD and one of the two 512MB DDR ram sticks. After removing one ram module, the system boot up to windows, but it does only boot up with one stick. I swapped both in any slot, but it runs only with one.
            So i think, that there must be some damage either to the board, the CPU (3ghz p4) or the chip set (or VRM). The main battery is not charging too, i duno if it is due to bad cells or the broken apart battery charging pcb (leard from a google search that this is common for those systems).

            I think i have to take the whole thing apart to check for bad components, broken charging pcb and may be bad thermal interface material. I am thinking about buying some colaboratory liquid metal TIM. May be this would make the difference running this monster cpu in a laptop housing.

            Checked ebay for Northwood p4 too ;-)

            Personally, i am not a fan of those desktop replacement monsters, but if it will be back on duty, i think it would make a nice gaming laptop for me
            Last edited by gonzo0815; 08-26-2009, 05:23 PM.

            Comment


              #7
              Re: Dell Inspiron 9100 laptop "fixes"

              Seems to be a lucky day for me. Have took the system apart, cleaned it and put new thermal paste onto the cpu. Now the system is running with one 512mb dim.
              The cpu is already a Nortwood 3ghz c, so heat issue there.
              Only the DVD rom and battery are bad, but may be this has to be expected.

              The DVD rom does not recognice any media, so i think it i have to replace it sometime.
              No i have to clean the HDD to make room for a Linux instalation (dualboot mode wit wxp).

              EDIT: it is an 9100 not an 8100.

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