New Inspiron 11 3000 (11.6" Haswell Celeron Touchscreen)

The 2 screws will not make any difference- you could put an SSD in there w no screws and would be fine. As for the drivers you can attempt install of both and if not for your sys will say so and install will cancel. Unless you have any devices with an exclamation in Device Manager i would not worry about drivers.

 

Has anyone been able to dual boot on this machine? I've taken all the necessary steps to start an Ubuntu usb live session, get to the loading scree, and get all sorts of Squashfs errors. Anyone having this? I checked the memory (it's fine), used different usb drives, ISOs, fedora, and nothing will load. Am I missing something? Mine came with Win 8.1 by default.

 

Cheers mate! I've also read that the missing two screws are actually screwed in with the back case as they are for the case screws!

So I've gotten everything working with installing as little of the Dell drivers as possible and everything seems to be a go!

Is there any suggestions of settings I should be setting in the bios, windows or any battery options I should change to improve the laptops overall experience?

Cheers

 

I installed Ubuntu 14.04 without problems and have it set up for dual boot using grub. I was not able to boot 13.10, looks like it had a graphics driver issue.

 

Hi TomBl,

Have you had any issues with your touchpad? I have Arch Linux installed on my Inspiron and the touchpad does not work properly. After waking from sleep, it works fine for a little while, but inevitably stops responding on the entire touchpad, and then stops working entirely. This looks similar to problems that some people have had using Windows 8.1 before they installed the latest Dell drivers, so I figured it was a driver issue and not a hardware problem. But if you got yours working properly, then maybe there's some hope. Are you just using the SynapticsTouchpad driver as it comes with Ubuntu, or did you have to change anything else?

 

Yes, occasionally the touch pad goes crazy, as if a finger was still on there and then any other touch is going to act as if two fingers were using it simultaneously. I also had similar issues in Win 8.1, but the latest synaptics driver helped a lot (on Windows). I have not tried any other driver in Ubuntu, other than what is installed by default. I haven't used Ubuntu as much, recently.

 

Attention people who have trackpad problems:

When I got the machine, yes, the trackpad really sucked. But there is a fix.

Go to the synaptics website and download the latest .zip of drivers and unzip them into a folder in a location that you can remember (DO NOT go to dell's site).

Before you do anything, you must boot Windows 8 into Unsigned Driver mode (PC settings->general->advanced startup->Restart now->troubleshoot->advanced options->startup settings->restart->hit the 7 key on your keyboard)

You must install these new drivers through device manager. You have to click "browse my computer for driver software" then click "let me pick from a list of drivers on my computer" then click "have disk" and point to the folder where you unzipped the synaptics drivers to, let them install. You will have to reboot now normally. Your new drivers will be installed.

By going into your synaptic trackpad settings, you now have a wealth of new settings. Tons of different things can be enabled and disabled. The trackpad is also much more responsive now.

 

Dell's most recent official drivers have attempted to resolve the trackpad issue by intermittently "resetting" the trackpad.

The root of the problem is faulty engineering, not software. The trackpad builds up static, which causes it to go haywire. You can Google around for references to what Dell Tech Support calls "flea power". So there's no way to actually fix this unless you open the computer up and wire a ground or something. But the newest Dell drivers basically say, ok just reset the touchpad every once in a while so even if it went haywire due to static "flea power", it will be reset and "forgotten".

Also has anyone else noticed that the laptop has been significantly slower with the Windows 8.1 update? I think it was faster without updates. Even when I reformat, I notice it's speedier before the updates get loaded on.

 

Man I have been so frustrated with the track pad and touch screen I really wish they would offer a proper fix for both. Yes it is an inexpensive laptop but I bought more RAM and an SSD for it and would like if it worked consistently.

Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk

 

Does anybody have a recommendation on a good pen to use with this? I would love to take notes and need a pen to work effectively with this laptop. I know it's just a capatence screen and not like my Venue Pro !1. But it would be nice to have.

 

A new bios was released dated Aug. 25 that discusses changes to the the touchpad. Also, if you google synaptic 18.1.12 you find a newer DELL driver for the touchpad.

 

The latest BIOS from Dell is A05 dated 1/10/14, there is no update from August 25th.

 

I show latest BIOS to be from May and is A10.

Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk

 

3137 model - latest BIOS is A05
3138 model - latest BIOS is A10

 

8 loud beeps today, screen is dead, Dell sending someone to repair.

Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk

 

It really needs MSATA support. Then, it would be perfect.

 

I put an SSD in mine made a difference. Biggest bottle neck now is by far the cpu.

Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk

 

How much of an improvement did you see? I often have around 12 tabs open in Chrome and often see annoying slow down if one of them is a streaming video. I am assuming this is because of the stock hard drive's slow RPM speed and small cache. Considering upgrading to a hybrid SSHD

 

A big improvement but you will need to use the task manager to see what is causing your slow down. The hard drive us not usually the cause in video play back issues. My guess is the cpu is being utililized 100%.

I would test on mine but screen died and they are going to send me a replacement system.

Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk

 

Does anybody know where to maybe buy an upgraded battery for this machine?

I have found the stock replacement 50Wh batteries all over eBay, but was wondering if there perhaps existed a 75Wh or 100Wh battery that I could use (that was possibly from a different Dell laptop). It's be great to have 9 hour battery life.

(For anybody interested, you can use the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility to undervolt the Celeron haswell processor. I have mine set to a constant and stable .59v and have noticed a slight gain in battery life.)

 

They replaced my 3138 with a 3147. So much happier. screen is great, etc. My RAM and SSD went in from the 3138. New one is faster, brighter, touch screen works way better. etc. cpu has 2 more threads, less features and uses half the power. I am stoked.

Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk

 

Congrats! Enjoy the new toy

Which CPU sits in it exactly?

 

n3530 cpu
not as many instruction sets, older gpu, but more threads, higher speed and lower power consumption.

Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk

 

How did you get them to all-out replace it? I am going to talk to them tomorrow about fixing a fan in mine that is starting to die out (from what it sounds like).

 

The hardware failed it was their suggestion. Mine had no fan which I liked. The new one has a small fan but seems to turn on very little. touch screen and touch pad get flaky often. closing and opening the lid seems to solve most of the time. Not going to bother trying to have them fix it. No more ultra budget laptops for me. Good luck, hope you get it sorted.

Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk

 

Can the Haswell Celeron in this laptop be upgraded?

 

I own the 3138 and have a curious problem with Windows. After the laptop has bee running for awhile (hour at least) and the screen shuts off waking the screen shows you a desktop with a black background, no icons in the task bar and no right click menu. The start screen does have a background but no tiles. CTRL+ALT+Delete to reboot and everything is fine. Running A10 BIOS now. All sleep settings (other than shutting off the screen) have been disabled. HDD or SSD makes no difference. I'm running Ubuntu 14.04 now with none of the same issues.

 

Hi, I installed A03 Bios (3147)and I noticed that i was haveing problems with touch screen reactions when tablet was on battery (when adapter plug - ok). Touch screen did not recognize every touch. So I roll back to A02 and everything is ok. Does anyone find that problem too?

 

I have the 3147 and I can't imagine how slow the 3138 is because I think the 3147 is pretty slow. Overall, this is a good laptop for people who take really good care of their stuff. The plastic around the SD card slot WILL BREAK. It's thin cheap plastic, it's only a matter of time. The touchpad is pretty horrible in my experience but I have no issues with the touchscreen. I used some extra shelf liner as a skin for the top and bottom because this cheap plastic scratches VERY EASILY.

Can't argue with the size of this, it's perfect. I can get 4.5 - 5.5 hrs runtime out of this, which barely gets me from the midwest to the east coast playing movies. If I have a layover, I have to charge it.