Thread: Inspiron 8500 Power Question

Couple of thoughts on the power issues, I have a 5100 and its a power hog. It had some power issues, like not charging with a 3rd party adapter, but I resolved most of them by updating the bios. I the bought a kensington 120w adapter on ebay for next to nothing. It has been great. Anyway. Just wanted to add my experience.

Originally Posted by CJ8501

eBay: Dell Inspiron 8600 Auto/Air Adapter (item 280093243761 end time Apr-11-07 16:57:36 PDT)

Im guessin this is the one considering it has your ebay name listed under purchases lol

Very good to know! This will pretty much ensure the battery is charged and can definitly survive cranking since it will just use battery power when the voltage fluctuates...

Only problem for me now, is I can not get my external monitor to show up. Ive tried 4 different monitors. The Nvidia software sees that a monitor is connected (usually shows a name of the monitor, like Viewsonic 1912wb) but will not display anything. I hope my connector isnt broken for some reason...

LOL, yup that's the one. Honestly, haven't tried it at crank, but that's what the laptop battery is for. I never had a problem even with the inverter when cranking.

What kind of monitor are you using? Docked or not? Even if your display connector is screwy, you could probably get away with using a dock as it has it's own. Oh yeah, what OS are you running? Do you have the lid open or closed when booting? I don't recall if it displays to an external screen when the laptop is open or not. Though under X11, the Nvidia driver sees all my screens. (VGA OUT, S-VIDEO OUT and the laptop screen itself). If I didn't want to avoid modding the laptop, I'd try and find a use for the laptop display somewhere in the car

Originally Posted by mwmcginn

Couple of thoughts on the power issues, I have a 5100 and its a power hog. It had some power issues, like not charging with a 3rd party adapter, but I resolved most of them by updating the bios. I the bought a kensington 120w adapter on ebay for next to nothing. It has been great. Anyway. Just wanted to add my experience.

The problem with that is not just the amount of power, the newer dells have a chip that identifies the adapter as a dell one. Some other laptops do this with some sort of voltage divider, but the dell one I think is a bit more advanced as it can not only distinguish genuine dell adapters, but also what wattage. If you look at the auto-airs for the 8600 and the other related laptops (D800??), most of the mfgs state right on it that it won't charge them, but just power it.

I too am now looking at using an insperon 8600 since my friends one had its screen die. Hopefully he will hand it over in the next week or so. I am still unsure if I want to hack it apart or use a docking adapter. I guess I'll just have to see when I get it.

Originally Posted by meddler

I too am now looking at using an insperon 8600 since my friends one had its screen die. Hopefully he will hand it over in the next week or so. I am still unsure if I want to hack it apart or use a docking adapter. I guess I'll just have to see when I get it.

I think I paid around $20 or $30 each for the docking stations (PR01X), the monitor stands (which is where I hacked the power button), $8 each and it protects the laptop from most of the crap in my trunk

The nice thing now I can just leave the other station on the KVM, so I only need to grab my laptop to work on it in the house.

So does the docking station have a power button? If it does, this will be the way I will go.

Then all I have to do is sort out the usb audio thing.

Originally Posted by meddler

So does the docking station have a power button? If it does, this will be the way I will go.

Then all I have to do is sort out the usb audio thing.

If you go that route, get one of the monitor stands too. Besides the fact that it will protect it and hold it together tight (with no base, the dock and laptop have some wiggle in the connection), they cost almost nothing and modding is brain dead, there's a little panel that just pops off and lets you remove the button board.

Much easier to take apart the monitor stand than the dock and much simpler to wire. You can just short the power button and it will start up when power is applied. There are several stands/bases available and they are all cheap on ebay.

Here's the monitor stand I have. (The VCR is no longer part of the install)




Here's one on ebay for $32 PR01X + monitor stand

auction

There is also a d-view stand and another smaller flat one, can't recall the name.

There is also a bigger dock which gives you some PCI slots and IIRC a 3.5 HDD

A few notes, once power is out and the computer suspends/hibernates, the dock and monitor stand power buttons won't wake it up once it's on battery, not a big deal, but I was going to suspend instead of hibernate but seeing I can only wake it up by opening the lid, it's a no go for me.

So hibernation for me, I'm running linux, but I've got resume from hibernate down to about 30 seconds from BIOS post to music, using suspend2 .

Oh yeah, here's the other stand (wouldn't pay nearly that much for it btw)

ebay auction

I was actually going to pull the laptop apart and have it without the case. Due to it having a dead screen, it doesn't really need to stay intact. I will see how it goes. Mind you , I still have to get the laptop yet.

Originally Posted by meddler

I was actually going to pull the laptop apart and have it without the case. Due to it having a dead screen, it doesn't really need to stay intact. I will see how it goes. Mind you , I still have to get the laptop yet.

Good point. Might want to keep the bays intact though.

Originally Posted by shotgunefx

If you go that route, get one of the monitor stands too. Besides the fact that it will protect it and hold it together tight (with no base, the dock and laptop have some wiggle in the connection), they cost almost nothing and modding is brain dead, there's a little panel that just pops off and lets you remove the button board.

Much easier to take apart the monitor stand than the dock and much simpler to wire. You can just short the power button and it will start up when power is applied. There are several stands/bases available and they are all cheap on ebay.

Here's the monitor stand I have. (The VCR is no longer part of the install)




Here's one on ebay for $32 PR01X + monitor stand

auction

There is also a d-view stand and another smaller flat one, can't recall the name.

There is also a bigger dock which gives you some PCI slots and IIRC a 3.5 HDD

A few notes, once power is out and the computer suspends/hibernates, the dock and monitor stand power buttons won't wake it up once it's on battery, not a big deal, but I was going to suspend instead of hibernate but seeing I can only wake it up by opening the lid, it's a no go for me.

So hibernation for me, I'm running linux, but I've got resume from hibernate down to about 30 seconds from BIOS post to music, using suspend2 .

Oh yeah, here's the other stand (wouldn't pay nearly that much for it btw)

ebay auction

Ouch....so if I was running windows and wanted to Hibernate, what would be the best thing to do with that monitor stand and dock? That would really suck having to go back to my trunk to lift the monitor to turn it back on...