Next: Details   Contents

Experiences With a Dell Inspiron 4100

Features

Hardware Features

CPU:
Intel® Mobile Pentium® III-M CPU, 1.0 GHz. Processors from 866 MHz to 1.2 GHz are available. 32 Kb level 1 cache, 512 Kb level 2 cache, 133 MHz front-side bus. It uses ``SpeedStep'' in which the clock speed and CPU voltage can be reduced, for a major saving in battery power. Chipset 830M (830MP variant), includes a PIIX-4. There was a conflict between the Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller (APIC) and kernels 2.4.10 and 2.4.16, causing the SuSE generic kernel to hang. Here is a workaround. Kernel 2.4.19 et seq can handle it by themselves.
Memory:
256 Mb (2 slots, 128 Mb in each). Up to 1 Gb (2x512 Mb) is available.
Ports:
Serial: 9 pin male; parallel: 25 pin female; video: 15 pin female; external keyboard or mouse: 6 pin female mini-DIN; USB: 4 pin female; audio mike and phones: female stereo for each; S-video: 7-pin mini-DIN; modem: RJ-11 (optional); 802.3 Ethernet: RJ-45 (optional); docking: 200 pin proprietary.
Graphics:
ATI Radeon Mobility M6 LY rev 0, 16 Mb video RAM. 32 Mb is available. nVIDIA GeForce2 GO with 32 Mb is also available. Read about X-Windows setup with Direct Rendering.
Screen:
Samsung LTN141P1 14.1 inch (diag), 1400x1050 pixels, referred to when ordering as ``Super XGA+'' or ``SXGA+''. Available is a 15 inch screen, 1600x1200 pixels, called ``Ultra XGA'' or UXGA. See additional info about the screen, about color, and about video modes.
Pointer:
Dual touchpad and force stick, 2 buttons for each. Further details here.
Keyboard:
87 keys (in US and Canada): 2 Alt keys; inverted T arrows; delete, PgUp, etc. on the top row. I like the feel. How to use the Dell button.
Disc:
20 Gb, IBM "Travelstar" model IC25N020ATDA04-0, 4200 RPM. Up to 40 Gb is available. Here is my partition table. The drive is very quiet, much more so than the 4.8 Gb drive in the Inspiron 3800, which was an IBM "Travelstar" model DARA-206000. The 10 Gb drive available for the Inspiron 4100 is said on the net to be by Hitachi and to be more noisy. Here are more details, including how to extract the drive from the chassis.
CDROM:
24x by Teac. Burner or DVD are available and net reports indicate that people use them routinely, but the warning that a particular DVD drive is for ``WinXP only'' is worrisome. I was later informed that this is a firmware issue, and drives with the latest rev are given to XP users, while remaining stock of older drives is given to customers getting other than XP (e.g. ME or 2000). See this warning about correct insertion.
Removable media:
Floppy drive. Zip drive is available. The floppy, CDROM, etc. all share the same media bay so only one can be used at a time. (See here about hotswapping.) However, a cable is available so you can connect the floppy drive (only) to the parallel port, thus running it and another device (e.g. CDROM) at the same time. It's "Cable, Floppy Drive, Spare, for Inspiron 3700/4000", Dell part number 301-4012, mfgr part number 1823E, price $15, or $10 if ordered with the system. I recommend it.
Sound (onboard):
CS4205 Cirrus Logic "CrystalClear Audio Codec '97 for Portable Computing"; Intel ICH 82901AB PCI interface. They perform well with the proper driver, snd-intel8x0. (In recent ALSA packages the drivers were renamed, and the obsolete name is snd-card-intel8x0.) Here are details of setting it up. The speakers give a sound commensurate with their size; if you want to actually appreciate the sound, use headphones. There is a microphone jack and an internal microphone, but I have not tried them out. It is possible to play music CDs through the sound system, given a suitable control program (I wrote my own).
Modem (onboard):
PCTEL 2304 WT (SUN MDC 56K D/F modem). This is a Winmodem, using the sound codec for signal processing. I was not able to find a driver for it that works.
Infrared:
Since I have no partner device, I have not experimented with the infrared port, but others say they have gotten it to work.
Ethernet (802.3, onboard):
3Com 3C920 (3C905C-TX compatible). It works reliably, with the 3c59x.o driver.
Wireless (802.11b, nominal 11 Mbaud):
Dell TrueMobile 1150 Mini-PCI Card (internal, optional). This is a re-branded Agere (Lucent) ORiNOCO device, with the Intersil (Harris) Prism II chipset and Agere (Lucent) firmware. It is working well. The internal card costs more than a removeable PCMCIA card, but I've found that its advantages are worth the cost. Further discussion and setup info are here.
PCMCIA slots:
Two, 32 bits. The mini-PCI bridge appears as a third PCMCIA slot.
USB:
One USB port. I have successfully used a Kodak DC280 digital camera (with the dc2xx driver and gphoto v0.4.3) and a Microsoft ``Sidewinder Precision 2'' joystick on USB. Here's how to set up the joystick.
Docking:
A docking adaptor is available but I did not get one.
Battery:
Li Ion, 59 watt-hours (3.8 amp-hours) at 14.8 volts. By Sony. The power converter works on 100v to 240v AC and can charge the battery in about an hour with the computer off, or 2 hours with it running. Nominal run time is 3 hours; you can run longer easily. The battery is discussed further here, plus a tale of woe.
Bundled software (variants are available at extra cost):
Warranty:
There is a matrix of choices: 1, 3 or 4 years; on-site or mail-in service; and damage insurance (not licensed in CA, FL or NY). I paid for the 3 year on-site warranty. When the request is phrased so an under-warranty part clearly is involved, Dell does honor the warranty, the contract technician appears promptly, and he gets the job done.

"Available" means offered by Dell as of 2001-12-28; offerings may change, so check on Dell's web site for authoritative configurations and prices. Refer to Dell's tech specs for authoritative info.

System Mass

Component Lbs Kg
System (empty) 4.5 2.0
Battery 1.0 0.5
CDROM or Floppy 0.5 0.2
Total 6.0 2.7

(The system mass varies depending on installed accessories.)

Behaviors

Booting
The system boots without problems with LILO. Windows XP does not object to being started by the archrival's booter. Here is my lilo.conf file. It also boots from the floppy or the CDROM, but not by default; here is how to turn those on, and further information.
Installation
It was a major struggle to get SuSE Linux 7.3 onto the machine, because the generic kernel froze up, because of conflicts with the APIC. Here is how to do it.
Suspend to RAM
Suspension is surprisingly trouble-free. It occurs promptly, in about 7 seconds from closing the lid to power off. Resumption takes about the same time, upon opening the lid. The wireless and wired network units recover their IP addresses. However, any live TCP/IP connections through them will have timed out if they used keepalives, which is common. Also under DHCP the lease on the address has a finite length and you should be aware what the policy is on your network. If a USB joystick is plugged in, there seems to be a problem reconnecting it upon suspend. Unplugging and replugging brings it back.

With the framebuffer X-server module under XFree86-4.1.0, the screen comes back as you left it, except for some mouse droppings at the top. These clear gradually and are gone by the time control is returned to the user. With the Radeon module the screen is randomized upon resume, and stays that way during the 7 second setup interval, but is instantaneously restored when control returns to the user. With both modules there is a tendency to spurious mouse clicks, so it's a good idea to leave the cursor in the root window (background) when suspending. With DRI turned on, a patch is needed to the AGPGART kernel module to get it to not kill your kernel when you resume.

Suspend to Disc (Hibernate)
Windows XP has its own hibernation method and a large save file, which you must enable if you want it. Therefore a BIOS hibernation partition is not provided by the factory. Here is how to set one up, how to hibernate, and important warnings. Hibernation takes about 90 seconds since all of memory is written or read back from the disc using non-DMA I/O. If the BIOS is set to hibernate when the battery gets low (which I don't recommend), I wonder if the battery would reliably have enough charge to get through the procedure. On my previous machine I found that I rarely used the feature; I usually had plenty of battery charge for suspend to RAM to be safe.
Fan
The two fans are quiet when running (at low speed), but are only needed for continuous computation on AC power. Fan and temperature performance is discussed here, and a reference is given to a utility for controlling the fan and reading the temperature.
PCMCIA Hotswap
The PCMCIA subsystem performed without trouble. For situations where the wireless networking needs to be deactivated, like on airplanes, the wireless network mini-PCI card can be software ejected, killing its power.
PCI Hotswap (floppy and CDROM)
The floppy drive can be hotswapped with no special care, except of course that you must dismount any filesystem on it manually first. If the CDROM is in the machine when you boot, it also can be hotswapped, but if you boot without the CDROM it is permanently nonexistent. In future kernels a PCI hotswap feature will be released similar to, and eventually merged with, PCMCIA hotswap.
Memory Test (memtest86)
This memory tester is provided with SuSE Linux. Unfortunately it freezes after about 30 seconds of operation. The behavior is very similar to that of the SuSE generic kernel (2.4.10) which was cured by disabling the APIC. No proof that the APIC is involved, but deep suspicion.
Diagnostics
Dell provides an extensive diagnostic program. Boot the diagnostic CD to run it. All tests passed.
Next: Details   Contents