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Dell Inspiron 8000

I definitely have a lot of love for the C6x0 series. The C610 was the first laptop I ever owned and still one of my most used to this day. So far my impressions of the C640 are about what I expected. Using it feels the same as the C610 but it should perform faster. It runs a bit hotter, and the screen is nicer as it’s a 1400x1050 panel. Mine’s got a couple plastic cracks and it really needs a RAM upgrade but otherwise seems to be fine!
C6E4CA34-545F-4E67-9F5B-35C4EEEE8800.jpeg
I went ahead and invested in some mSata SSDs and adapters for these two and a ThinkPad A22p I also picked up. That A22p is interesting as it’s basically IBM’s answer to the 8100. 1.0GHz P3, 1600x1200 LCD. I love myself a good thinkpad but I may just prefer the 8100. The A22p has also as of yet refused to play nice with its SSD for whatever reason, so I guess that third drive is going into my C610.
Funny thing is I’ve been shuffling the 3 new SSDs around one single adapter I stole out of my ThinkPad T30 as my three new adapters aren’t coming in until Monday haha.
 
Well the fixed CD drive in the 8100 just started working! It was strange before - would spin up a disk and get power and sounded healthy, but the computer acted like it wasn’t even there. This time it didn’t give that error on boot and it reads discs. Hmm. I’ll have to see if the issue comes back.
 
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Hey, guess who just decided to start working again!
It’s getting concerningly hot though, enough that I’m pulling it out for now to let it cool off. Don’t think they’re supposed to get that way while charging, at least, none of my other laptop batteries do 😬
 
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Hey, guess who just decided to start working again!
It’s getting concerningly hot though, enough that I’m pulling it out for now to let it cool off. Don’t think they’re supposed to get that way while charging, at least, none of my other laptop batteries do 😬
They are definitely NOT supposed to get that hot! In my experience they should only get slightly warm during charging. I definitely would not recommend continuing to charge that battery!
 
Yeah, something seems off. I’m going to watch it closely if I do decide to plug it back in. It’s not just one cell, the whole pack heats up a lot. Not sure why that could be.
 
It’s so strange. I don’t why it could be getting this warm other than that it’s supposed to, like, these are too old to be affected by the recall, every cell is heating up, not just one of them, but it’s odd. I tried charging it in another dell and it did the same thing. I’m used to seeing laptop batteries get this hot if they’re NiMH packs where that’s pretty normal but not with lithium usually, at least not in laptops. I’ve had some phones get this hot while charging.

Another thing that could be contributing is that the hard drive bay is right behind the battery bay in these, and the mSata SSD adapters I have in all these get HOT. Could be that that combined with the battery heat is making them heat up more. I’ve gone ahead and put the battery into the second bay in my C640 to test this.

Edit: now with it charging in the modular bay instead of the main bay so it’s away from the SSD, it is still getting warm but no longer concerningly so. I think it’s ok.
 
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You still got that PIII wallpaper? Looks like Vogons nuked the thread for whatever reason. Just signed up over there and the link says I can't view the forum.
Edit: Wayback got it so I'm good. Here's a reupload for anyone in the future:
p3.png
 
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AI upscaled it to 1600x1200 from 800x600, looks better for sure on a high res screen.

800x600 original:
1B39B088-E797-4047-ACF6-38C30909D1B6.jpeg
1600x1200 upscale
0E483BBD-D4C4-4DDF-BE9A-1FEAAC7C57F8.jpeg
May not come across super well in pictures but it made a solid difference.

Here's the image:
p3-upscaled-1600x1200.png
And an even larger one just for fun (3200x2400):
p3-upscaled-3200x2400.png
 
I recently got one of these from a Goodwill for $20 bucks but no charger. They are pricey online but good thing I found the right charger 2 weeks later at another Goodwill for dirt cheap. The thing works although it has a couple of dead vertical lines and pixels on the screen and the trackpoint is bent. Screen is 1400x1050 IBM so that might explain it. My 8000 has a 1000 Mhz Pentium III, 256 RAM, ATI Rage Mobility M4, and 30 GB hard drive. Hard drive is slow as heck and still has old owners personal info so gotta replace that with a new one. I don't think there's a SATA to mini IDE adapter that's tiny enough to fit or a SATA version of the Dell IDE adapter. The plastic is pretty fragile since a bunch of the hooks broke when I opened it and the plastic is cracked around the hinges. Going to try to get the motherboard out and put new paste on the CPU but there's a screw on the ethernet port board that does not want to come out I actually cracked the plastic above the hard drive dock trying to unscrew it. Looking forward to getting this in good order.
 
I recently got one of these from a Goodwill for $20 bucks but no charger. They are pricey online but good thing I found the right charger 2 weeks later at another Goodwill for dirt cheap. The thing works although it has a couple of dead vertical lines and pixels on the screen and the trackpoint is bent. Screen is 1400x1050 IBM so that might explain it. My 8000 has a 1000 Mhz Pentium III, 256 RAM, ATI Rage Mobility M4, and 30 GB hard drive. Hard drive is slow as heck and still has old owners personal info so gotta replace that with a new one. I don't think there's a SATA to mini IDE adapter that's tiny enough to fit or a SATA version of the Dell IDE adapter. The plastic is pretty fragile since a bunch of the hooks broke when I opened it and the plastic is cracked around the hinges. Going to try to get the motherboard out and put new paste on the CPU but there's a screw on the ethernet port board that does not want to come out I actually cracked the plastic above the hard drive dock trying to unscrew it. Looking forward to getting this in good order.
Nice! Yeah, those 1400 x 1050 IBM 15" screens are the worst! I have yet to find one that doesn't have weird issues or lines. Nice you have the 1GHz CPU! Yeah, those original hard drives are painfully slow, and age hasn't helped them either. I would love to see a solid-state drive in one of these, but I have never tried it, so I couldn't help you there. That would make it super snappy for sure! Yours has definitely had a hard life to have that much broken plastic. These typically hold up pretty well if they are cared for.
Can you post a photo of this? I've never seen one of these have a hinge failure before. Sounds like it had a hard life.
Yeah, I agree, it sounds like that one was treated poorly. Sometimes they will get some cracking around the hinges, which is caused by the hinges getting stiff. However, there is a metal internal frame everything is bolted to, so it will never break loose. The cracks are really just a cosmetic annoyance more than anything. It's best to lube up those stiff hinges before it happens!
 
Here are the cracks. Nothing particularly serious just caught my eye after I got home with it. This laptop has had an interesting life it belonged to a vet who brought it overseas and the last files on it are from 2009. Still trying to find how to contact them to ask if they backed it up. I managed to get to the CPU and replace the thermal pad with thermal paste and the thing doesn't sound like a hair dryer during games anymore haha.
 

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