Inspirion B130 I want upgrade! Advice needed!!!

I want to know can I change my 40 gb ATA with 100 gb SATA from Inspirion 9300 or not??? Please if you think that it is impossible, tell me why???

 

I took some time to read up on the chipset, and the 915G chipset does indeed have SATA controllers. Now I saw that the B130 has the 915G chipset as well (I am assuming it is because of the 533Mhz FBS), so it should have SATA on it too.

Now that I think about it, perhaps the reason why its "budget" is because the harddrive is ATA, I would think you'd be able to put SATA HDD on it. However, if its not a configuration option with Dell, putting in that drive it wouldn't go nicely with warranty on the dell, however if you save the drive and put it back in (whenever you need to send it back in, also assuming its not a HDD problem)

How do you even know if its ATA? I would assume its already SATA.

Your best bet is actually calling Dell with this question. Just ask them if the laptop supports SATA harddrives.

If you find out, make sure to come back and post your findings.

 

Jost one more question! I want also put DVDRW from my broken Inspirion 9300 то B130
but I have read that that there is may be a problem. Please tell me if you know answer on my questions!!!

to Xbandaidx

Thank you! I'll try to ask Dell and post here results

 

I believe the DVD/RW will not be a problem unless the B130 has the drive fixed to the computer. I don't know too much about the B130, but if the other drive is not "fixed" to the computer I do see that being a problem.

 

You can't swap SATA and ATA drives. My order for the B130 lists the drive as "40GB Harddrive" While the B120 shows it as "40GB Ultra ATA Harddrive". I wonder if they are actually different or if they accidently typed in different descriptions.

Althought the chipset is SATA, there is a chance the motherboard contains a SATA->ATA bridge. Can anyone with a B-series tell us what the connector on the harddrive looks like?

 

I would image that the optical drive is user upgradeable since is has the option to configure the notebook to have a DVD burner on the Dell Website.

 

HELLO ALL!!!

There is my chat with tech support Dell for my problem:

Question/Comment: Inspirion B130 I want to know can I change my 40gb ATA with 100gb SATA from my broken Inspirion 9300? Motherboard supports SATA?
AMSystem You are now being connected to an agent. Thank you for using Dell Chat
AMSystem Connected
AGENT Thank you for contacting Dell Consumer Hardware Warranty Support.
AGENT You cannot attach the hard drive as it is not compatible with the current system.
ARAX Please tell me which type and size maximum I can swap 40 gb ATA
Sure, Please give me a moment
You can attach 80 GB hard drive from Toshiba and part # for reference is FF362
You can also attach 80 GB hard drive from Fujitsu and part # for reference is XD932
Please provide these part #s as reference to sales .
ARAX Can I upgrade Videocard (put in external video)???
ARAX 80 gb it is maximum???
AGENT Yes, you are correct.
ARAX So what about external Videocard
AGENT We cannot attach external video card to the system.
AGENT Is there anything else, apart from this, I may assist you with now?
ARAX Can you tell what motherboard is used???
AGENT I would give you the specification of the board chipset.
The Key West will use the Intel Mobile 910GML Chipset (Alviso). The Alviso is the equivalent of Intel's 915 and 925 Express chipsets for high-end desktop PCs. This chipset uses the same graphics controller as the 915GM chipset seen on many of our portable systems.
Features Include:
Support for dual channel DDR2 400/533-MHz memory technology
Support for Dothan and Celeron-M processors that utilize a 400 MHz Front Side Bus
PCI Express Bus Architecture
Direct Media Interface (DMI) to ICH6-M South Bridge
1210-ball Flip Chip Ball Grid Array (FCBGA) package
910GML has an integrated display interface supporting 2D and 3D graphics
ARAX Ok

ARAX Please repeat me SATA IS NOT SUPPORTED???
AGENT Yes, it is not supported with this motherboard.
ARAX Thank you for your answers!!! Good buy!

 

After all I think that I have to order 80 gb and I advice all to do this!!

Inspirion B130 is very hard to upgrade - that is what I knew.

 

Well.

SATA is theorically faster than Ultra ATA. I think Ultra ATA is 100mb while SATA is 155mb. When tested for actual results are typically the same, so basically its not a very noticeable difference

I will definitely be checkng this out when I get mine, perhaps write a review where it actually shows the internals too.

 

Arax, I'm interested if it just won't support 100gb, or if that is all they will offer to sell you. I have a 2.5" 100gb ATA I can try out in my B130 once it arrives. Its true that SATA is faster than ATA. At the moment, however, the mechanical device is the bottleneck, so unless it is an enterprise drive the two will offer comparable performance.

 

Best bet is to go back to that Dell Chat and ask them.

Ask them these questions.

1. Which type of harddrives are being used? SATA or Ultra ATA.
2. Seeing that the chipset is 915G, and is stated to have SATA on it contollers on it, is there some form of adapter/bridge in the notebook that is allowing it to be Ultra ATA? (I dont know if these exist, but some people here implied that it does)
3. Is there a limit set by the BIOs on how much HardDrive space is viewable by the system?

Those should be pretty good questions to ask them. Make sure you post the answers

I'd be interested to see if Notebook manufacturers still employ the BIO's thing I listed above.

 

Just to clarify what I meant: Its not an adapter. But, a chip built into the motherboard that will convert the serial ata signal to a parallel ata signal. These chips exist because alot of first generation SATA Drives use them (since they are actually retrofitted Ultra-ATA drives). I wouldn't be surprised if Dell uses one to support cheaper Ultra ATA drives.

 

Would there be some way to make it SATA though?

 

Depends on what the actual case is. Lets find out what type of drive the B120/130's actually support. If they support UATA, then why would you even be concerned about using SATA drives? The UATA are cheaper. Additionally, there wouldn't be any performance increase (if you managed to bridge a SATA drive to a ATA controller)

 

There is answers:

1 U-ATA is used only.
2 There is no such adapter
3 There is no limit set by the BIOs

 

Cool. So that is basically what we want. The motherboard must contain a SATA-ATA bridge since the chipset is supposedly SATA only. Again, a bridge is not an adapter; not physically anyways.

So I guess I'll be dropping a 100-120gb in my laptop some time next January.

 

Yes, thats great to know that Dell doesnt follow the BIOs HDD space restriction.

I really couldnt care if its SATA or UATA because like AngryLlama said, because of Mechanical limitations, they are both running pretty much at the same speed.