Dell Inspiron 8500

hjlane3 · Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2003 11:17 pm Post subject:

booooo

KeithReuters · Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2003 8:54 am Post subject:

I don't see anything else that might expalin the difference. You can try different kernels but I doubt this will solve the problem, because if you were using the wrong driver you would get approximately 2mb/s.

Now I have some questions.
Can you guys start glxgears and tell me what output they get?
I get :

hjlane3 · Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2003 6:07 pm Post subject:

Hi, i'd like to coment on the screens. I just got my laptop 3 weeks ago, and earlier this week i noticed the burn in problem. This is really wierd since lcd screen arn't suppose to have this problem. I called up dell tech support on a saturday and they told me they'd shipa replaacement screen down to an affilate down here where i live, and they'll come to my house and replace it for me. I'm just workied that after 3 week i'll have more burn ins :-\

hjlane3 · Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2003 6:11 pm Post subject:

As for glxgears....

KeithReuters · Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2003 10:24 pm Post subject:

yeah, you are getting normal results.
What kernel are you using?

glxgears isn't a great benchmark. I've noticed that it rather benchmarks the processor. I guess it is mainly a program to check whether the GLX extension works.

I have a friend who has almost the same machine as I do (desktop athlon 2000+, GeForce 3 ti 200) and who is getting 2500fps as well with an ac kernel.

As to the screen.. where do you live? I can't get mine replaced here in France, because I'd have to send my laptop back to Ireland, and since I am moving to California in a month's time, I'm afraid they might not send back the laptop in time. I'll just wait... I got the 3yrs international warranty.

Wait, did you just say they would replace the screen AT YOUR HOUSE? Meaning, the guy shows up with a screwdriver and a new screen in a plastic bag, and does it all in front of your amazed eyes? cool!

hjlane3 · Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2003 4:25 am Post subject:

hjlane3 · Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2003 2:46 pm Post subject:

Yep, a repair guy is going to come by my house in a few hours to replace the screen.

I have a question, do you guys notice the laptop gets extremely hot? I'm dual booting it w/windows xp right now ( wireless card won't work in linux), and it doesn't get as hot as it does in linux, not nearly.

hjlane3 · Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2003 3:07 pm Post subject:

I just realized something. If you boot off the livecd, when you close the lid, the power goes off to the monitor, and when you lift it back up the monitor comes back on! how is it doing this?

KeithReuters · Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2003 6:49 pm Post subject:

I have no clue as to how it does it, but I have an update to the gotosleep script.

mshaneck · n00b Joined: 29 May 2003 Posts: 10 Location: UMN

Ok, so in the output of dmesg I get this when it starts loading acpi:

KeithReuters · Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2003 8:57 am Post subject:

What BIOS version do you have? You should consider rolling back to A01, I heard that A02 breaks things in ACPI. I'm going to try A03 and post if it works fine.

hjlane3 · Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2003 10:25 am Post subject:

mshaneck · n00b Joined: 29 May 2003 Posts: 10 Location: UMN

I don't have it in front of me right now, but I am pretty sure that I have A01.... I'll have to check tonight when I go home.... If A03 works for you, then maybe i will try that... I contacted Dell tech support but haven't gotten a real response yet...

KeithReuters · Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2003 2:29 pm Post subject:

Well, I am now using A03. I haven't noticed any visible changes, except for the system diagnostics.

Maybe the message a boot up is something normal because the kernel expects an inspiron 8000 or 7500 or something.

ACPI works fine here anyway, even though I get the message.

hjlane3 · Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2003 4:16 pm Post subject:

Me again, I did a reinstall for varies reasons, and i'm trying to set up closing lid suspend again and it isn't working. i have acpid started, and both /etc/acpi/events/closelid and /etc/acpi/sleep, but when i press the little lid botton that tell if its closed or not, nothing happens. This is the output of /var/log/acpid...

flokno · Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2003 11:48 pm Post subject:

i consider buyind this dell laptop. how about the cpu cooler? is it on all the time and when it is on, how loud is it?
and what about tv out?

mshaneck · n00b Joined: 29 May 2003 Posts: 10 Location: UMN

Well I have been having a lot of trouble getting time to work on my laptop, but I did manage to flash the BIOS to version A03 (it was on A01), but it had no effect..... Apparently there is some dell diagnostic CD that will help me find out more about what is wrong...

crweb · n00b Joined: 20 Oct 2002 Posts: 66 Location: Illinois

crweb · n00b Joined: 20 Oct 2002 Posts: 66 Location: Illinois

Fully Functional Script:

*****************

#!/bin/bash
sync
/usr/X11R6/bin/xset dpms force off
echo 1 > /proc/acpi/sleep
hwclock --hctosys
/usr/X11R6/bin/xset dpms force on

************************

This will make it so when you push the power button to wake the computer, the screen will come back on. I had to include the full path, because /usr/X11R8/bin is not in roots path. I am currently studying how to make the screen and sleep both "auto awake" when the lid is lifted.

mshaneck · n00b Joined: 29 May 2003 Posts: 10 Location: UMN

So appartently my BIOS is fine and my hardware clock is fine, it has something to do with linux... So I tried last night to upgrade my ac-sources to ac4 and this time it had the speedstep-ich module... so i compiled that in as a module and rebooted, but still got the same error message and still no power button functionality... I even stopped acpid and did cat /proc/acpi/event and it told me when I pressed the power button... What else can I do to troubleshoot? I am in uncharted waters right now and not sure where to go next.... Maybe I am enabling options in the kernel that I shouldn't be... The only thing i can think of is that I enabled Dell laptop support in the Processor type and features section.... Should it be ok to enable that? (It seems to be dealing with the same area of the laptop - power management/fan control...)

mshaneck · n00b Joined: 29 May 2003 Posts: 10 Location: UMN

Well, as it turns out, the problem was not the BIOS and was not Linux.... Which leaves one option. I seem to have forgotten to enable the power management option, and thus nothing worked... duh... although I could make the argument that I thought it had to do with APM, and that is why I didn't know I had to enable it, but it was right there in the help... Oh well, part of the learning process. At least everything works now.

Festy · Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2003 1:20 pm Post subject:

cca93014 · Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2003 3:38 am Post subject:

Has anyone been able to get the headphone socket to work?

I have been through the ALSA guide on the gentoo site, and have xmms working through the laptop speakers, but I cant get the headphone socket to produce any sound at all. I have run alsamixer and set the headphone socket to 100%, but nothing happens...

Any ideas?

hjlane3 · Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2003 5:40 am Post subject:

headphones work fine for me, run alsamixer and you'll notice there's a seperate control for the headphones volume...
_________________
I wish hell would freeze over already. :-(

EDIT: w00t, it has!

cca93014 · Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2003 5:55 am Post subject:

As I said, I have the headphone setting to maxiumum...