I got my inspiron 6400!

Hello Friends,
I got my inspiron last week . First of all would like to thank all my friends here for their help, reviews and comments. Based on your helps I am now happy with my decision .I have couple of questions I would like to ask about this laptop . The specs are as follow:

Inspiron 6400d
Intel Core 2 Due T7200 (2.0 GHz)
15.4" WXGA True Life (Brite)
2GB DDR2-667MHZ
ATI Radeon X1400 256
120 GB HDD 5400
Made in Ireland

1-I know that this is 64-bit capable laptop. Have you tried windows XP-64 or vista 64 on this laptop? Are they ok? Can this laptop handle them well?
2-Is it possible to test 64bit capability in a 32 bit Os?
3-It comes with bios A08.Should I update to A11?
4-I am confused about Dell media experience and dell media direct. When it is off when I press Media direct button it turns on the laptop and load windows xp and after that when it is in XP it loads media experience software which is like windows media center. But I have heard that media direct is something different and can be loaded separately without OS. Should I buy this separately? (If yes where?) Or is it downloadable?
5-Is it possible to load Windows Vista Media Center when you hit the media direct button?
6-The screen colors look a little bit pale. Is it something normal?
7-How can I see the content of hidden partition?


Thank you
Touradg

 

Thank you for your answers!

 

I think it's a late sleeping crowd!

 

Unless you have a specific need for 64 bit, ie using a 64 bit 3d program, don't worry about it.

I used Media Direct once for about 5 minutes. I have no plans to ever use it again.

 

I'm not sure how your laptop is configured but as far as Dell's Media Direct and Windows Media Center....

With the laptop off you can hit the Media Direct button and play music, DVD's view photos etc. without turning on your laptop and opening XP. Media Center is similar in nature with your laptop on. The advantages of one over another? Beats me....

PS With my laptop on, when I hit the Media Direct button, nothing happens...

 

try to press it when it is off..

 

Hi
for 64bit, I am interested in 64-bit programming. So it is important to have a 64-bit CPU and a 64-bit OS.
about media direct, when the laptop is off and I press the button it starts the laptop and boots into XP and following that media experience. Not able to play DVD or… Without OS.

have you updated your bios to A11?is it ok?

And for media direct button I programmed the button in my second OS so that it starts Media player 11(based on a post in notebookforum.com). I am writing a tool which allows you to assign whatever you like to the button. It is in .NET and will be ready very soon. I will post it in this forum.

Regard
touradg

 

I think A08 is fine because I'm correct that was the most recent drivers Dell had that had support for Windows Vista. Remember if you install a 64 Bit operating system it will be backwards compatible rather then 32 bit not compatible upwards. I have a E1705 specs are in my signature and I am running Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit. The only issue that your going to run into is software support; some software will not load for some reason. Like I got Trend Micro Internet Security with my laptop version 12 and I cannot get it to work under Windows Vista for some reason. The only issue you'll probably have is with Media Direct, because I don't believe there is a fix for Vista yet. I had to do a clean install and I did not delete my Media Direct Partition. And I can't access Media Direct from within vista, someone told me that there is a fix coming out.

 

Hi
As for A08 I have read in Dell's website that the new bios has thermal enhancement simply don't dare to update my bios. I just need your confirmation.
I was not able to install vista. The setup gave me an error regarding the bios version.
For 64-bit I heard that the CPU is 64 but the motherboard chipset doesn't support 64-bit OS. Is it true?
I think that Vista Media center is much better than media direct. You can simply assign the button to that. The only problem is boot time playing.

Regard
Touradg