Official Inspiron 1545 Owners Thread

Hi all,

It's been suggested in a few other threads that an Inspiron 1545 owners thread be started to discuss any problems, fixes and general thoughts on the Inspiron 1545.

So here goes.

Now I appreciate that, after going through many other posts, this model is not loved by many; but lets remember that this notebook is aimed at the price conscientious individual - it's never going to compete against the XPS or anything.

My own inspiron is sat with the depot now, will be delivered tomorrow. I'll have a play with it over the next few days and post up a full review asap to help anyone who is deciding whether this machine will fulfill their requirements. Until then, anyone own one of these have anything to say about it?

 

Hi all,

just got this notebook 2 days ago and i must say that its pretty decent for what i need it for. specs are in sig.

 

yay at last 1545 owners rejoice!!!!
im waiting for mine to arrive to. but i played with one already !!!

that one got a problem with USB. i insert a markvision USBdrive and it did not recognize it. but a USB hardrive worked with no problem!

i got 2 BSOD messing with the card reader ( disabling it).

all of these were after a fresh install (shes wanted to start from scratch)

so i think it was for not having the rigth drivers. but she havent complaing.

 

Well I have mine now, and I must say that I am actually happier with it than I thought I would be. I'm just installing everything I need and will then start running some benchmarking tests and start writing up a review.

 

I have just 1 little annoying issue....The white light on the front showing it is turned on...

They should have made it blue..It would have been a little less annoying.

other that that it is great...

 

And although it is a finger print magnet; I don't actually find the glossy black palm rests as tacky as I thought I would. In fact the people at work (where I got my laptop delivered) were commenting on how nice it looked because of it.

I might feel differently in a months time when it looks like the back of a land rover after a trip to the farm with the children, but hey.

 

My Studio 15 has glossy plastic palmrests too...they do accumulate fingerprints and stuff really easily after a while, but it's an extremely easy cleaning job. Just get some rubbing alcohol and a rag or cloth, soak part of the rag with alcohol, and rub the palmrests clean. The alcohol cuts through that grime like a knife through warm butter. The whole thing should take less than a minute. Dry it off with a dry part of the rag, or a separate rag.

It'll feel (and look) good as new, trust me. I do this to my Studio 15 once a week now.

 

im waitin for mine. my sister said it looked beautyfull in blue. ( i delivered to her house cuz theres always someone in there.)
maybe by next week i got it in my hands!!.

should i make a restore DVD and wipe everithing and make a fresh install?

 

It's up to you. I'm very picky about having a very minimalist Windows installation, so I reformat and reinstall Windows regularly. Although when I first turned on my Studio 15, there wasn't too much extra crap installed, other than the free trial of whatever antivirus they forced on me.

 

I'd love to see some benchmarks of the HD 4330!

 

I'm at the office right now, but I have run some benchmarks for the HD4330and will do a quick post of them tonight before I write up a full review over the next few days.

Off the top of my head though, 3DMark06 score was 2565 on my setup without any tweaks and leaving my standard apps running in the background. This is better than the HD 4350, 8600 GTS & HD 3470 according to the following:

http://service.futuremark.com/hardware/graphicsCardsList.action

Still, it is lacking major performance, but it's not aimed at the serious gamer so it is adequate enough for many. I will tweak a little bit and run without background apps to get a better score and run some other benchmarks when I get home.

EDIT Even just a quick test by changing the graphics performance using ATI Catalyst Control Centre standard settings for optimal performance increased the 3dMark06 score to 3134, with all my apps still running in the background; so I'm certain that this could be tweaked even higher and possibly the card can be overclocked a little too.

 

im looking foward to that review. im gonna make the benchmark on the 4500mhd. and test some games.
L4D(is like crack!!!!!!!!!!!)
Guitar Hero 3 (version1.36)
combat arms
GC/WII emulator

how is ubuntu treating you?

 

Ubuntu is only used for work, but it sits on the machine without problem.

Not a happy bunny.....just found that my Crysis DVD has inherited some scratches from a friend and now I can't install it to run the benchmarks for that one. Not that I'm expecting anything great mind you.

Just did the Far Cry 2 benchmarks and they were over 30FPS with some features turned down low; but not all. Just trying to find the optimum levels, though I do have some work to do tonight.....bleh!

 

Crysis? Good luck with that on a 4330.

If you really don't want to wait for a new disk, download the demo.

 

Nah, I'm not interested in running it on this machine, got an i7 for anything serious I want to do. It's purely for benchmarking - seeing that Crysis is a common game used for this.

I would download it, but it's over 1Gig and I've already exceeded my usage this month..... Besides, more annoyed that my friend added his own little touch to the game, the swine.

I don't seriously expect a machine with a 3dMark score like this to run Crysis except with absolutely everything turned off; perhaps even the laptop

 

Hey everyone, found you all through a google search and was hoping you could answer a question for me.. I'm not most computer-knowledgeable person.. humorous because I work in an IT dept..

I just ordered a 1545 with the "basic" Home version of Vista, not either of the premium versions.. it did not specify 32 or 64 bit or anything else, just said "Home."

I also got 3 gigs of RAM. Are 3 gigs even supported with this version of Vista?! I will be righteously annoyed if Dell let me order RAM that wasn't supported.

I'm not a gamer but I do run Adobe programs, sometimes a couple at once (Photoshop, Dreamweaver, InDesign) - I didn't upgrade the processor - it's the Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T6400 (2.00GHz/800Mhz FSB/2MB cache).

I'm not going to have any problems running Adobe programs, you wouldn't think?

And finally - I paid $650 before tax and shipping - for what I've listed above, plus a 250 gig hard drive, 6-cell battery, integrated webcam, internal bluetooth, the "Bright, glossy widescreen 15.6 WLED display (1366x768)," the standard video card (no upgrade), and a 2-year in-home warranty, did I get screwed on the price?

I have to say I'm really excited to have a blue notebook - I've always had gray or black!

 

That's a good price for what you got, especially with 2-year in-home service warranty, and the LED display. You didn't get ripped off.

All 32-bit versions of Vista can read up to 3.3GB or so of RAM. It's a limitation of the 32-bit architecture, not an artificial limit setup by Microsoft to get you to spend more. And if you ever want more than that (4GB or more), you can get Dell to send you the 64-bit Windows installation disk for free, which will be compatible with your existing license.

The biggest drawback to that system is the fact that you got Home Basic instead of Home Premium. The Aero interface is very nice.

I've never used Photoshop or anything like that, but from what I've read, it's much more demanding on RAM than on your processor. But either way, a Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz and 3GB of DDR2 should suffice. If it ever starts lagging, you can easily upgrade to 4GB of RAM for $40, and get Dell to send you that 64-bit disk.

 

i dont think home basic have a 64bit version...

the WLED screen are a free upgrade , (yeah right after i order mine )
well a friend use adobe alot i her old toshiba so dont think theres a problem running them.

 

All editions of Windows Vista have 32-bit and 64-bit versions, including Home Basic.

 

Thanks shroom, you just (mostly) made my day! So if I decided I wanted to upgrade to 4GB RAM, do you think it would be worth it to wait for Windows 7 and get the premium version of that? Then do the RAM thing? I ask because I thought Windows 7 was supposed to be coming out pretty soon...? Also, I've never had Vista before so I don't know how bad it really is - are you all planning on upgrading when 7 comes out or are you happy with Vista?

I really need that warranty, shroom. In the past 7 years I've fried four (count 'em, FOUR) Dell laptops and everytime they've replaced at least the motherboard with no questions asked. Even though 3 times it was really "my fault" and I don't have the accidental damage coverage. I don't think the techs really care.. anyway..

I expect to fry a few more Dell laptops in my lifetime...

 

Vista is an excellent operating system, if you ask me. It's come a long way since its sketchy beginnings (but hey...XP was the same way), especially with Service Pack 1.

I know I'm going to get Windows 7 as soon as it hits the market, which will be later this year. I've used the beta, and all I can say is, it's everything that's good about Vista, and then some, and still runs faster and lighter. But as it is, I am very satisfied with Vista Home Premium 64-bit.

Jesus, what the hell do you do to these things?

 

Let's see - spilled Fresca, spilled pinot noir, spilled nail polish remover (that was the worst), dropped a heavy bottle of lotion on the keyboard (you could see a visible dent, it was cool), and once just plugged it into an outlet that fried it. Plugged the stupid thing in and it just blinked off and wouldn't turn back on.

I guess that makes 5, not 4.. (I'm a disaster walking a string of small catastrophes.. )

 

Damn, that's quite a trail of destruction you leave behind.

 

Oh you have no idea. I will keep this forum bookmarked for when I inevitably screw up my brand new computer.

 

Good call. The people here are very helpful; they've gotten my Studio 1535 out of plenty of jams.

 

Glad to see Inspiron 1545 owners are increasing day by day.. personally I am really happy with my purchase...its a great laptop.. and congrats to everyone who bought this beauty.

 

It would be nice if somebody with the ATI HD 4330 could contribute to my (poor) table of benchmarks. It would be nice to see how does it compare against the 3450.

 

yay !!! i got a 4500MHD buddy!!!!

one question do you have the crazy keyboard issue!!

I´ll get mine on Saturday !!
fresh install FTW!!!!

 

I have had mine for a little over a week and I am still trying all the bells and whistles. I do have a couple of gripes:

-how does one get 5 hours and 40 minutes of battery life? I have mine on the battery for 90 minutes and the PC starts complaining! I guess if you turn down the display brightness to a faint blur it might work!

-I can't see the other PC's on my home wireless network through my wireless router. Getting on the internet was a breeze, but I have been running in circles trying to get the laptop to talk to my other PC's!

Al

 

5 hours of battery is with the 9Cell battery. i think you got the 4 cell like me.
try the undervolting guide in this forum so you can achieve like 2 hour or 2h20mins.

the network thing, i cant help i live in a house with 1 pc.
when mine arives imma start sharing drives.

 

cross posting this because this seems like a likely place for some help

i am looking to pick up some New Inpsiron 15 laptops for a 3D modelling course that i give for a non-profit organisation. the price point for this laptop is very good for us but i want to make sure that it can run the software nicely.

if you have a New Inspiron 15 with the x4500HD GPU (or the HD4330, id like to hear accounts from both users) can you go download the Autodesk Maya trial from http://www.autodesk.com/maya-trial and run it, maybe just scrolling and rotating around the workspace for a bit just to see how smooth it is (create some primitives (spheres, cubes, whatever) and see how much it bogs it down (if at all). i know its a lot of work but if i am ordering 15 of these suckers, i want to make sure they work properly first

 

You can join this post:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=4791667

 

@Cammerv8
no issues here what so ever...i don't play much games, ill be only watching movies, surfing the net and playing around with photoshop a bit so i guess i wont be having any issues with the graphics.

You are lucky because you're getting Vista with ur lappy, I only got Ubuntu with it .. but ive got rid of it and installed fresh copy of Windows 7 and I must say that it runs much much faster than vista ...

 

there was an ubuntu option?!!!!
well if you can find a Dell OEM disk you could have vista.
remember Windows 7 beta is aparently going to selfdestruc once the final version comes out. or so i ve heard.

im wating for W7 to make the 64bit change. so i hope it just only get better!!!

 

Well, I joined the 1545 crowd today after picking up one at the Outlet. First impressions are that the machine is very nice looking and I must say that I am getting alot better battery life than the e1505 that I had. My only things that I am having a problem getting used to are the sound, it sounds a little worse than my old laptop, however that isn't the biggest problem I am having. Coming off from the 1505 that I had I am used to having a desktop option to scale the desktop, but using the integrated card I am not seeing an option for doing so. I want to keep the laptop, however this screen is starting to frustrate me a little bit.

 

well i bought the laptop here in Romania(where i am currently located) and they had only the ubuntu option so i had no other choice but to go with it.

I currently have Windows 7 RC Build 7100 installed and I will be grabbing the final release as it comes out...

 

Windows 7 comes in both 32-bit and 64-bit right now

 

well mi desktop got w7 build 7000.
i find some thing i that doesn't works and kinda of anoying, so im waiting for the retail version.

and i got like 5 key for the 32bit and 2 for 64bit

 

The keys for 32 and 64 bit should be interchangeable.

 

Ok, so i recently found out I am going to get an Inspiron 1545 and my main concern is whether or not it will decently support Source engine games.

I read what was said about it "running Source games beautifully," which is always good to hear, but it just sounded a bit theoretical and people hadn't really attempted to do it. I just want to make sure that in know way would I end up damaging it by running such sweet games such as Counter Strike: Source, Left 4 Dead, Day of Defeat: Source, etc.?

Please, please let me know how these games work on there, and if they dont to well, what the best next step would be to make this happen. Thanks!

 

There's no way to damage a computer by running Source games (or any games, really) on it. If your Inspiron has dedicated graphics of any sort, then it should run most Source games just fine. That's the lovely thing about Source; it's extremely well optimized for PC use. Hell, Half-Life 2 usually runs pretty well on integrated graphics! That's an impressive feat in itself. Counter-Strike: Source also tends to run strikingly well on older hardware and integrated graphics. Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress 2 are newer, and more technically demanding than HL2 and CS:S, so odds are they'll lag more on weak hardware.

If you have dedicated graphics, you should be able to play just about any Source Engine game, even the newer ones. If you have Intel integrated graphics, then you should be able to play Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike: Source smoothly at the very least.

 

NOW THAT'S WHAT I LIKE TO HEAR! lol thanks alot for the fast response man. : ) I so relieved I can take my games to college with me, even if it does just end up being Counter Strike or HL2 because anyone who has played those knows how endless they can be with mods, game types, and such.

Sorry, but just one last question- anything about overheating, or tips to prevent it if it is possible, when running said games?

 

I agree, Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike: Source are two of the finest games of the genre.

It's very unlikely that you will have overheating issues when gaming (that's why they have heatsinks and fans), but if you are concerned, one of the cheapest things you can do is buy a notebook cooler/cooling mat. They usually run from $20 to $60 depending on the size of your notebook, location of vents, etc. There's some pretty extensive topics on it here at NBR in the Accessories forum. I bought a Targus ChillMat for $18 for my Studio 15, and it fits nicely and keeps it cool.

Like I say, it's strictly optional, but it sure doesn't hurt. And cooler is always better.

Another thing you can try is undervolting. It's the process of reducing the voltage used to power your CPU. In most cases, you can use considerably less voltage than the factory settings specify. Less voltage generates less heat, not to mention uses less battery power. The T9500 in my Studio 15 is undervolted right now. And it's pretty safe, too. The absolute worst thing that could happen is a Blue Screen of Death if you use too little voltage, which is quickly fixed by increasing the voltage.

So, those are the two best options for additional cooling (although I don't think you'll have any issues in the first place, it doesn't hurt to be safe). The cheaper option, undervolting, is completely free (done with RMClock, a free program), although it requires some confidence in your own ability to mess with important stuff. The other option, getting a cooling mat, will cost you a bit of money, but it's the easiest option. Put the laptop on the cooler, plug the power cable into an open USB port, and power the thing on.

 

I actually considered buying an Inspiron 1545 but I read that there are no HDD or WiFi LEDs. It's such a simple thing that I can't live without. How are you 1545 owners dealing with this?

 

i dont really care about the leds. ( i like them tough).
the only led i could see was the power one and nothing else.

when mines arrives ( hopefully Tuesday afternoon ) i will install L4D and play some survival (strees test) to see if it can perfome well. mi pc can run it with a celeron 1.8
1gb ram
nvidia 7200/7300 (512)

so the i can hope the multicore takes some of the graphic load.

i can live with just playing l4d and GH3(this has a x3100 compatibility so it will work on 4500mhd)

 

Not to walk all over your hopes and dreams, but my Studio 1535 with a T9500 and ATi 3450 can't run Left 4 Dead at 1280x800 with a consistently playable frame rate, especially in Survival mode, where it's just hordes on top of hordes, with a Tank or two for good measure.

 

The 4500MHD is actually a formidable opponent to low-end dedicated GPU's. The X3100 is a horrible UMA solution. Intel is really creeping up with their integrated graphics. I wouldn't mind buying the 4500MHD configuration over a dedicated GPU. Enjoy the new Inspiron.

 

That may be true, but unless it's better than the dedicated 3450, then I can't foresee Left 4 Dead playing any better.

 

I don't think it is, Lol. It's probably more comparable to the HD2600.

 

Then Left 4 Dead will probably have to be played at 720x480 with all settings on off, low, or medium. That's the only way I can play it and see what I'm doing.

That is to say, unless I'm on my desktop, armed with an 8800GT.