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Posts Tagged ‘dell inspiron 6400’

Dell inspiron 6400 – Three Unknown Base System Devices

17 Dec

I am not a fan of Windows Vista, which is the reason I still use XP. I am used to XP, have learned to make it work the way I want it, so I’m not in a hurry to upgrade.

About a year ago, someone I know purchased an Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop from Dell and tried to get XP installed on it instead of Vista. They had no luck and ended up with Vista. Recently, they have decided to remove Vista and install XP on that same laptop, and asked me to do it. No problem, Dell Inspiron 6400 Battery, at least until I ended up with three devices that weren’t recognized by XP.

If you have an Inspiron 6400 and have noticed three Base System Devices in the device manager,Dell Inspiron 6400 Battery, then I will explain how to correct that issue in this post.

Hardware and Windows XP

As I mentioned above, I recently was tasked with installing Windows XP on a Dell Inspiron 6400 that once had Vista installed. The one problem I encountered was that all the hardware installed was new, so XP didn’t have any drivers included.

I went onto the Dell support Web site and downloaded the drivers to the local hard drive. I installed the chipset, video, sound, network adapter and wireless drivers without any issues. After I rebooted I noticed that I still had three unknown devices in the device manager.

Unknown devices in the device manager means that I still need to install some drivers. Unfortunately, the devices were listed as a Base System Device, so it wasn’t very descriptive to help determine what I was missing.

After a quick search on the Internet, I read that there was an additional set of drivers for the card reader that was included in the laptop.

Dell Inspiron 6400′s standard 6-cell battery is absolutely not enough for a lot of people both in the work and in the life. For this sense, any possibility to enlarge the capacity of the laptop battery?

I strongly suggest that order an extended 9cell Dell Inspiron 6400 battery to enlarge the working time in,

I went to the Dell support site once again and expanded the Chipset drivers. One of the items in the list was called Ricoh – Driver, which I promptly downloaded and installed. After installing the drivers I checked the device manager and noticed that the three unknown devices were now gone. I also had three new card reader devices installed, which were the three unknown devices.

As a side note the Dell Inspiron 6400 battery is also known as the Dell Inspiron E1505 battery.

Summary

After installing XP on a Dell Battery Inspiron 6400 I noticed that there were three unknown Base System Device entries in the device manager. After some quick research I learned that these devices were the Ricoh card readers. I downloaded the driver from the Dell support Web site and the three unknown devices disappeared and were replaced by the actual devices.

A 9-volt battery is actually made up of six 1.5-volt cells. Those cells are actually quadruple size,Dell Inspiron 6400 Battery, but you can make them work in AAA compartments.

Watch this video to see how. With some needle-nosed pliers, pry apart the casing of the 9-volt battery. As long as you’re careful not to puncture the cells themselves, there’s nothing harmful inside. Once you get it open, pull off any casing that’s holding the cells together and you should get a sort of sausage string of cells.

Clip those apart, but leave some of the connector metal on each end of each cell. When you put them into a AAA compartment,Dell Inspiron 6400 Battery,bend the metal over to give you the extra room and conductivity to make them fit.

You may or may not be saving money here, since the cost of a 9-volt battery does run roughly 6 times as much as a single AAA. But in a pinch, the 9-volt battery could come in handy, just don’t expect to use it as a 9-cell inspiron 6400 battery any more after you do this.

Also via Kipkay, The Energizer brand of A3 12-volt batteries can be pried apart to reveal eight button-cell batteries, useful for watches and other devices. Here you’re saving money: the 12-volt is a couple bucks and each of the button cells can run about $5.

That’s it for now. Be careful if you do this, by the way. Don’t want you slicing up your hands or the dell inspiron 6400 batteries. Use proper protective measures.

 
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Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop andy Battery Review

14 Dec

The Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop is a laptop that meets you. It’s pretty light and portable (like the Inspiron e1405) and offers high performance and great media options. Basically, you get the best of both worlds, at a reasonable price. Before we begin reviewing anything, here are the specs of my system:

Intel Core Duo T2400 / 5 Mb Cache / 1.83 GHz / 667 MHZ FSB

15.4″ Wide-screen XGA Display with Truelife

120 Gb 5400 rpm Sata Hard Drive

1 Gb DDR2 SDRAM / 553 MHZ

256 Mb ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 Hyper memory

Windows XP Media Center

9 – Cell dell inspiron 6400 Battery

Dell Inspiron 6400 Build & Design

The Inspiron 6400 feels very sturdy. It doesn’t feel flimsy, and doesn’t look like things are going to get loose anytime soon. Opening and closing of the screen is not too loose or too tight. One hand is sufficient enough to move the screen, provided the notebook itself on a stable surface.

The notebook design itself is slightly above average. The silver paint looks very appealing, but not when combined with the white bumpers. Overall this laptop can’t compare to the XPS series, but its design is good enough to catch some eyes.

Dell Inspiron 6400  Processor & General Performance

If you are a multi-tasker, you will love the Core Duo. For example, You were installing software, playing a video, and chatting on Windows Live Messenger at the same time with no troubles. Start-up time is very quick once you get rid of the annoying stuff Dell includes.

Dell Inspiron 6400 Noise & Heat

For the most part, the laptop is very quiet. When doing normal tasks such as word processing, email and Internet you don’t hear it at all. When doing more intensive tasks or prolonged use, the fan kicks in. This fan isn’t loud, but it isn’t quiet either. It’s not loud enough to bother you though. Heat is a small issue.

Wireless

The Intel Wireless card (Intel Pro Wireless) is very good using my standards. Dropped connections were limited and it was easy to use. You can easily shut it off when you are not using it by pressing Fn + F2. For this card, you can use the software Intel provides or the one Windows has, Windows Zero. I personally prefer Zero because it’s easier to use.

Dell Inspiron 6400 Battery Features:

New 7200mAh (9-cell) 11.1V Lithium-ion inspiron 6400 battery | High Capacity Extended life battery | Manufactured for Dell Inspiron 6400, E1505

Battery life on the 6400 is very respectable. Under normal tasks (WiFi on, 75% brightness, Windows Media Visualizations), the battery lasted about 3 hours and 15 minutes. With WiFi off, and playing games with low brightness, It was able to get about 3 hours and 34 minutes. This 9-Cell Smart Lithium-Ion Primary Dell Inspiron 6400 Battery has internal circuit board with chips that allow it to communicate with the notebook to monitor battery performance, output voltage and temperature. It also gives the notebook much more accurate ‘fuel gauge’ capability to determine how much battery runtime is left before the next recharge is required. This product has been tested and validated on Dell systems to ensure it will work with your computer and is compatible with Dell Inspiron notebooks.

 
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