Fwd: Experience with Dell Inspiron 1150 laptop?

[Andrew Sparrow]

On Wed, Jan 05, 2005 at 01:24:10PM -0500, julesg at newebmail.com wrote:
> A friendly FreeBSD'er in the Netherlands helped me get some perhiperals
> running; and I did learn some things for my efforts; Conexnat(?), the
> modem people, are beginning to be quite responsive to the Linux the
> FreeBSD communities, and I expect they will begin to offer Linux drivers
> for their modems -- but right now, the 1150 Winmodem (which I require)
> only works with M$ OS's.  I purchased this, believing that I could make
> things work with FreeBSD -- but not so.  I was replacing an old Tecra and
> everything worked fine, with both Linux and BSD -- not so the 1150.

All mini-PCI cards of the same type (form factor) are interchangable,
TTBOMK. If they don't have the same connectors for the same
function(s), they're not standards-compliant.

HP, at least, defines this procedure as "user-servicable" (i.e. same
as fitting extra memory) and it doesn't even invalidate warranty
on a new laptop. Takes about 3 minutes the first time.

I've swapped out multiple 3Com combo cards (with the non-functional
Conextant winmodem) for the Intel/Lucent combo card where the Lucent
winmodem works perfectly with ltmdm from ports.  As a bonus, the
Intel 8255x part of the card works better for me under heavy network
load than the 3Com xl part/driver too.

IBM, Compaq and HP have all shipped these Intel-based combo cards
at one time or another, I've never paid more than $25 US on Ebay
for one.

Tricky part is often identifying what's on offer. Look for the Intel
logo in the photo. Caveat: I've never seen an Intel combo card
without a Lucent/Agrere(sp?) modem, but that doesn't mean they don't
exist.  The 3Com cards are far more common...

Even laptop CPU's can be upgraded (assuming they're removable), and
some Dell's even have the video cards on daughter-cards that are
interchangeable, usually with nVidia and ATI variants. I upgraded
my laptop from 14.1" XGA (1024x768) to 15" SXGA (1400x1050) display
with spares from Ebay.

Stuff that's truly integrated (i.e. surface-mounted on the mobo)
is a lot harder to deal with if it doesn't work/isn't supported...

Cheers,

Andy.