Inspiron 1520 owners lounge

4 USB 2.0 ports -- two on the back and two on the right side.
One firewire IEEE 1394 (four-pin type)
One RJ-11 (modem)
One RJ-45 (ethernet)
S-Video out
VGA port for external monitor
Media card reader (8-in-one card reader)
Express card slot
audio jacks (headphone/speaker jack and microphone jack)
Security cable slot

 

Hey brethren, just chiming in. Loving the 1520 as well, no doubt!

Customized so far: Clean Vista install, XP Pro install, Ubuntu Feisty install, custom-launch Ubuntu MediaDirect button hack, and custom 8600m BIOS flash (570core / 470mem / 1140shaders).

 

Hi Chelet,

many thanks for the information - the Alienware had 3 usb2 ports and a dvi-i video out, had to get a dvi-vga adapter, a right pain in the rear. This 1520 is looking better and better!

Colin D.

 

how does a dvi-vga adapter works and looks?
it there a dvi-hdmi adapter as well?

 

just ordered a refurbished 1520 midnight blue, and it shipped today!

Cant wait to get it, though Im a little scared, refurbished most difinitely means grainy screen and noise in earphones right?

 

not necessarily....btw, the noise thing is most people's problem. i have a 1520 with that issues as well...doesn't bother me though.

 

It's just a plug thingy, like a 15 pin to 9 pin D-plug. Here's a link to a store item here in NZ that illustrates what they look like:

http://www.dse.co.nz/cgi-bin/dse.storefront/46fd9f41005bd59c2740c0a87f3306e8/Product/View/XH6788

I don't know about dvi- hdmi adapters, sorry.

Colin

 

Hi, can you tell me how you made ubuntu boot with the Media Direct button?
Is your Ubuntu partition the last primary partition?
Or is it the last (logical) partition?
Or did you set the partition with Mediadirect utilities?

There is a thread here in which my doubts are laid out in the open:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=161761&page=3

I'd appreciate a contribution from someone who managed to get the boot from MD button working.

 

Hi, I am seriously thinking about getting the 1520 however I just wanted to find out from current owners how loud the fan is as my current packard bell laptop has a very loud and annoying fan.

 

mine is as quite as it can get! can barely hear it when cpu is loaded to the max

 

Agreed!

Where, oh where, did you read it has a loud fan? I can definitely concur that even at full-tilt gaming with an overclocked 8600, my fan is still just a steady, non-annoying hum instead of a *shriek* or shrill pitch. To this day I'm still stunned at how cool and quiet it runs.

 

I finally went ahead and ordered the Dell Inspiron 1520, although have probably what you all will think as a dumb question. Does it automatically include the AC adapter? In my confirmation email didnt see it included but assumed it make sense I didn't have to add it anywhere...

I am quite happy otherwise

 

Yup, the AC adapter comes with it.

-J

 

yezzir, u'll probably also get creative headphones(if u got the web cam)!

 

Thanks, I am really excited for it to come! I will post my laptop details in the morning, I believe estimated shipping date is in a few weeks.

 

Wow I'm so excited - mine has cleared all the customs stuff and is currently in transit with the local carier

 

Here is specifications for the Inspiron 1520 I have ordered:

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7250 (2.0GHz/800Mhz FSB/2MB cache)
Midnight Blue
2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz
Glossy, widescreen 15.4 inch display (1280x800)
128MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8400M GS
Size: 160GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition
CD / DVD writer (DVD+/-RW Drive)
85Whr Lithium Ion Battery (9 cell)

Ordered: 10/1/07
Est. Ship Date: 10/16/07

 

people, u should seriously consider not getting 2 gigs of ram from dell, Unless it is a free option. they charge u for it up the ass...for stupid me it was $125...how i wish i got 2 gigs from newegg for less than $100...

otherwise, soberoi07, it's a pretty decent laptop. if u're into gaming,however, the card doesn't really cut it.

 

The 2 gigs of RAM was included as part of a special deal promotion I have recieved and no lower option was available. As for the video card, I don't plan to use my laptop for heavy gaming as I am a college student and won't really have time to do so, thus didn't need to go any higher. Very grateful for the laptop I am getting.

 

Well I couldn't help I dove in and bought it the price was just right.

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7300 (2.0GHz/800Mhz FSB/2MB cache)
Jet Black
2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz
Glossy, widescreen 15.4 inch display (1280x800)
256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT
Size: 160GB SATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition
8x DVD+/-RW Drive
Refurbished

Hopefully this won't dissappoint me. I will be using it for about 6 months till I can afford the 1730 or the Clevo 9261 (or whatever better comes out). I wanted an interem laptop better than my beast:

Acer 1721
3.4 Intel Prescott
2Gb Desktop Ram
160Gb Desktop Harddrive
256Mb GeForce Go 5700
DVD+/-RW Drive
20 Lbs
It served its purpose for me though. It definitely is a beast.

My Fiance will get my 1520 when I get the new one.

 

how much was ur total, if u don't mind telling?

 

Sure it was $1079 shipped to an APO

 

great deal then, man!! congratulations

 

Had mine about 3 weeks and I loe it. If I had to do it all over again, I would have gone 2GB of RAM and a dedicated video card. I figured since I was using audio applications the most I would benefit from more RAM. The only video intensive thing I use is BeatHarness for Winamp...and its not often.

I guess the grass is always greener. Oh well, I only paid $940 for mine.

 

Thanks I am so glad I found this forum by accident it has some awesome information here.

 

I have some kind of problem with my brand new laptop.

The configuration is: Centrino Core 2 DUO T7300 @ 2Ghz; 2GB DDR dual; 160GB 5400rpm; 256Mb 8600GT; WXGA anti-glare.

The problem i have it's with my hard disk. It is a Western Digital model WD1600BEVS-75RST0 160 GB, 5400 RPM hard drive. It makes a crackling sound(metallic sound) every 5-10 seconds, 2 times per minute. This event happens every 10-15 minutes when the hard disk it's in idle, not doing anything. When i read some forum, or some e-mails, or when i write something on the notebook.

I have searched throughout the net for some advice and people that has the same problems but my question remains unanswered(some opinions said that the hdd is about to die, some say that some new hdd do this sound and it is normal, some say that it's because some process or option in vista). I have found a website at hitachi where there are posted some sounds that were made by hdd that were about to die: http://www.hitachigst.com/hddt/know...4b1a62a50f405d0d86256756006e340c?OpenDocument

My sound doesn't match any of the ones above. It is a clicking/metallic sound that you can hear about a fraction of a second. I have made tests with a HDD HEALTH program taken from western digital website and the tests were passed without problems. I will attach an image with the tests and the archive with the sound recorded with my cellphone, then a little bit enhanced in soundforge.

I don't have too mucht time to get the laptop to warranty and wait for the prediction. My work depends much on this laptop. Should i warry? What explanation there might be? Is there a solution to this problem?

I have seen smth about HDD in bios, something about quite, bypass and performance option enhancing or slowing the hdd performance and noise. Does it have to do with these options?

Thanks in advance

 

it might, give it a try(bios settings 4 the hdd)....but i'm not sure whether that will eliminate the crackling sound. i had a hard drive that would beep(literally) every once in a while...nothing happened to it, yet my dad's using it now

 

Nope, those setting doesn't have to do with that sound. My hdd doesn't beep, thanks god, it just makes a very short(fraction of a second) high pich metallic sound. In the file it seems that it's like a drop of water but in reality it seems real metallic.

 

Sp33dY,

check out the link in my Sig, helped a lot of people.

 

Cyanize many-many thanks, that solved the problem Now i can live happy with my inspiron 1520

 

Does 1520 really have the room to store a 320GB hard disk as advertise ?

http://www.dell.com/content/product...nb_152x?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~tab=bundlestab ?

 

it shows up in the configuration...

look at pic.

 

Yeah, sometimes they do those deals, and sometimes they add it as a bundle if you get an extended warranty or something.

But for the rest of us, there is always newegg or frys.
I got my 2 gigs at frys:
$60 + $20 mir, so eventually it will be $40

Not sure what to do with the RAM that came out of my laptop, I looked on ebay and the pc2-5300 512MB sticks seem not to sell at all. Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

I would like to know if i should go for

1.2 Ghz /2mb L2 cache Processor

 

or
2 ghz /4 mb L2 cache processor

please tell me if it is worth spending the extra money on it

 

Has anybody tried connecting m1520 to external 24" or 27" monitor? Can the 8600m handle it?

 

Since when a 2.5 320GB hard disk is available on the market ? Can't find it at newegg.The maximum is only 250GB.

 

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/33470/135/

Dell is actually offering dual 500GB drives on the 1720 for a total of 1000GB.
That's a lot of disk space for a laptop.

They'll probably show up on Newegg soon.

 

UPDATE:

Dell must really be picking up the pace on laptop production, they just shipped mine out today! I am excited .


Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7250 (2.0GHz/800Mhz FSB/2MB cache)
Midnight Blue
2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz
Glossy, widescreen 15.4 inch display (1280x800)
128MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8400M GS
Size: 160GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition
CD / DVD writer (DVD+/-RW Drive)
85Whr Lithium Ion Battery (9 cell)

Ordered: 10/1/07
Est. Ship Date: 10/16/07
Shipped: 10/6/07
Est. Delivery: 10/10/2007-10/12/2007

 

what processor models for both 1.2 and 2.0 Ghz?

a few things you should consider

Pentium Dual Core -- lowest performance, ***EDIT***: new info: actually, I was wrong -- the Pentium Dual Core in notebooks is a Core 2 Duo with only 1 MB of L2 Cache for both cores.
the max thermal spec for this processor is actually the lowest:

Pentium Dual Core < Core 2 Duo 5xxx < C2D (core 2 duo) 7xxx

however, don't forget that throttling can reduce the ACUTAL OPERATING thermal spec.

someone with more expierence please state the battery life differences, although i think that santa rosa is the best.
---end edit--
Core 2 Duo -- offering a completely new archtecture for executing x86 instructions, does wayyy more work per clock cycle than Pentium Dual Core.

two sub classes for Core 2 Duo:

T5xxx -- NON SANTA ROSA -- does not support the latest power saving tech nor 800mhz FSB (but memory is still 677 mhz)

T7xxx -- SANTA ROSA -- supports the newest power saving tech - 800mhz FSB (but memory is still 677 mhz)

**however, santa rosa processors and their new power saving tech seems to cause headphone buzzin.

My take: 1.2 Ghz is like 9" notebook range...honestly.

i may also add that more cache probably won't help unless video editing. photoshopping, data crunching, distributed computing, processor intensive

 

Well Dell has officially pissed me off now! They cancelled my order and gave me no reason why. Why would they do this. I thought it was kind of strange when my credit card wasn't charged oh well Sager here I come!

 

well I found the problem and Ordered a new one. Because I am deployed and they can't call me to confirm my address I was unable to get one refurbished so I ordered a new one through the Army and Airforce Exchange Service (it's kind of like our wallmart) Here's the specs:

Inspiron 1520;Intel® CoreTM 2 Duo T7500 (2.2GHz/800Mhz FSB/4MB cache)
Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition
Anti-glare, widescreen 15.4 inch display (1280x800)
Jet Black
Integrated 2.0M Pixel Webcam
2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz
DVD+/-RW Drive
256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT
Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem
160G 7200RPM SATA HDD
Office 2007 Enterprise
85Whr Lithium Ion Battery (9 cell)
Sound Card: High Definition Audio 2.0
Dell Wireless 1390 802.11g Mini-Card
Built-in Bluetooth capability (2.0 EDR)

and the bad part now price: $1,480.00
Wish I could have gotten it a little cheaper but oh well still a good price

Originally ordered: 2 Oct 07
Canceled by Dell: 8 Oct 07
Re-ordered through AAFES: 8 Oct 07 (better than origanal order)

 

NEW UPDATE:

My Dell arrived today, 2 days ahead of estimated delivery according to DHL . Recieved all parts as ordered and have had no issues. This notebook is as quiet as advertiesed; at times it feels like its not even on. No signs of headphone issues or grainy screen. Everything is good so far.

I am proud to be a owner of the Inspiron 1520

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7250 (2.0GHz/800Mhz FSB/2MB cache)
Midnight Blue
2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz
Glossy, widescreen 15.4 inch display (1280x800)
128MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8400M GS
Size: 160GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition
CD / DVD writer (DVD+/-RW Drive)
85Whr Lithium Ion Battery (9 cell)

Ordered: 10/1/07
Est. Ship Date: 10/16/07
Shipped: 10/6/07
Est. Delivery: 10/10/2007-10/12/2007
Delivered: 10/8/07

 

Congrats I can't wait to get mine now

 

Mine arrived yesterday, almost 3 weeks ahead.

Its pretty good...screen is a AOU2077 and its not bad, the headphone noise is only audible when I turn the volume up to almost max. And I know what I'm talking about because my Latitude D610 had that issue on every volume level.

Oh and there is almost no CPU whine...the only strange noises are that the Samsung harddrive sounds like it were hissing, and there is a clicking sound every now and then from the left palmrest.

 

I've got mine a month ago, when I 1st got my 1520, I found out that my system is extremely slow especially during boot up. So I required a replacement laptop and my wish is granted. Well, after i got another brand new laptop as a replacement, everything works fine. I can play C&C Tiberium War with max settings no problem.

Until recently, when I've inserted an audio CD which borrowed from my friend and started to play it in Windows Media Player. The songs can't play smoothly and pause periodically. Then, i thought it was the CD's problem, so I tried to play other CD and the result remains the same. I've also tried to rip it into my library but after more than 10 minutes, it's still remains at 50% ripped (1 song).

Gosh!! Is my DVD-RW having some problems?

Here's my 1520 specs:
Intel Core 2 Duo T7300
2GB DDR2 RAM
160GB SATA HDD
256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT
CD / DVD writer (DVD+/-RW Drive)
widescreen 15.4 inch display (1280x800)
Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition

 

Hi All,
I wish to get one for me too.
I am surprised to see that we can not pay online.
The sales person asked me to give my credit card details on phone.
Which I don't want to do.Has anyone has any knowledge on this kind of payment process?
Do let me know.

 

Hi Razor,

looks like you got the same initial problems as I did.
Although my headphone jack noise is barely audible, even at full volume.

The AUO2077 isn't that bad, I never noticed any grain at all on mine (the only thing that was a bit annoying in the beginning was the backlight bleed). And I had a similar HDD noise issue you're experiencing. If you check out my sig, you'll find a solution that'll take care of the problem for good.

C.

 

Looks like I'm joining the club too. Not my first Dell PC, but my first Dell Notebook. I've been lurking for months building systems, comparing coupons, etc. Today's the day. It will be replacing an old Compaq Presario AMD XP2800+ that's about 4 years old.

Windows Vista Premium
T7500 (I wanted the 4MB cache, not sure where the T7300 went...)
1GB RAM (2GB on order from NewEgg: $60 rather than Dell's $125)
1440x900 Display
8600M GT
160GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
DVD+/-RW Drive
85Whr Lithium Ion Battery
Bluetooth
Dell standard 802.11g
Dell Travel Remote Control

$1,140 w/ tax and the $325 off coupon. Est ship date is 10/22.

 

hey i have a new Dell Inspiron 1520.... its my firsrt notebook and i love it...

my lil bro got a pen mark on the Red LCD Cover... its from a ball point pen... anyone has any idea how to get rid of it as it has been disturbing me... thanx

and the t7300 does have a 4 MB cache... all Santa Rosa systems have 4 MB.. i think