Well, well, well...
I know you said you were going to start a thread on the old 1100 'paint-stripper' (my affectionate term for the heat output from the Celly/P4 through that rather stylish rear vent..!), but I didn't think you'd actually get around to it! Fossil always reckoned it was good for his 'rheumaticky' knees....
No, there's no getting away from it; Dell may have churned out an enormous variety of models throughout the latter part of the 90's/early 00's, but the Inspiron range at that time were definitely the 'cream of the crop'. A large part of the weight, of course, is down to that huge, 14-cell, 21.6 v battery pack; needed because the Dells at that time were utilising full desktop Celeron/Pentium 4's, with a correspondingly high TDP; 58W for my original 'Celery', rising to 63W for the replacement 2.6 GHz P4 that's now doing the honours. Low-power, mobile CPUs were still just a gleam in the Intel engineer's eyes at that point in time.
(I know, I know; some of you youngsters will be raising your eyebrows in disbelief at the figures I've just quoted.....after all, the dual-core Athlon 64 X2 in my 'big' Compaq desktop only tops out at 89W.....)
The disconcerting thing is that if you remove that battery pack, then open the screen up to its normal viewing angle, it'll almost (but not
quite) overbalance, if you're not careful.... That screen's no lightweight, either; it has, after all, got a steel frame to it..!
A somewhat more 'flattering' view of the 1100..!
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CPUs
The Socket 478 motherboards in these will only run Cellies/P4s with a maximum FSB of 400 MHz; it's no good thinking you can stick an HT-equipped 'Prescott' in there. Aside from the heat issues those chips had (the Inspiron literally
would go into meltdown with one of those, thanks to Dell's infamously lousy 'thermal solutions' at that time), they simply won't run, as they utilise an 800 MHz FSB. So, forget
that idea.
This means you're looking at a maximum 2.8 GHz Celly/P4 in there. Intel
did make a 3.0 GHz 400 FSB P4, but they're rarer than hen's teeth.....and if you do manage to luck out and find one, they are going for
silly money (since they were all snapped-up long ago by the 'overclock brigade'.....and probably suffered with terminal SNDS - 'Sudden Northwood Death Syndrome' (Google for it; it makes for quite amusing reading!))
But, all joking aside, it
is worth trawling Amazon & eBay to see what's still out there. They come and they go, but there's usually a fair selection of used P4's to be had. And the gains (although small)
are worth pursuing, since, due to the much larger L2 cache, they're not working as hard, and therefore run that bit cooler...
Which, in the case of the 1100, is a
good thing..! Most 'Cellies' were simply P4s with some of the L2 cache either disabled, or 'victims' of faulty production in the Intel fabs.....
Mine cost me all of £4.73p on eBay..... Not bad for an almost mint-condition example.
One word of advice.....and this is
important. They need to be regularly spring-cleaned on an annual basis (not hard, since there's bags of room inside 'em to work with). And while you've got the case cracked open, re-apply the TIM to the CPU's heatsink. It'll thank you for it, trust me.....and will repay you with increased longevity. I'm aiming for the 20th anniversary, now, having passed the 15-yr mark last May..!
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RAM
My 1100 originally came with just 128 MB of DDR1 SoDIMMs. How on earth it ran XP with that, I will never know; I do recall it was
pretty slow!
Dell forum queries of the time were always met with the stock line that 'You can't go higher than 1 GB of 266 MHz DDR1 RAM'. Plenty of folks queried that, but for a good while that was accepted as the max.
Intel did publish the specifications for the 845 chipset, way back in 2002, but they well and truly 'hid' the fact that the 845
would accept up to 2 GB of the stuff. I've detailed this pretty thoroughly,
here.
Currently, I'm chugging along with 1.5 GB. I did have 2 GB a while back, but one of the 1 GB modules I purchased turned out to be faulty, so I simply replaced it with one of the old 512 MB SoDIMMs. It's quite happy at 1536 MB.
Good quality DDR1 SoDIMMs are
not cheap anymore. Don't waste your time with the 'bargain bucket' stuff from the Far East that's flooding eBay & Amazon; it's not worth the postage, much less the purchase price. Micron or Crucial are worth every penny, believe me.....and you won't need to keep replacing it.
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STORAGE
Nothing wrong with HDDs, but for decent performance, go with an SSD. PATA/IDE interface SSDs are now available from quite a few sources, although as Puppyt says, you
can get SATA to PATA converters. If you stick with PATA interface SSDs, and you can run to it, pay the extra for a model from
Transcend. They've only recently broken into the consumer market, but for years they supplied flash memory modules to the industrial sector.....where reliability is of paramount importance. Businesses can be notoriously tight-fisted when it comes time to replace stuff, but many don't mind paying a wee bit more if they know they'll get years of trouble-free service. And the build-quality of Transcend SSDs is
exquisite. You definitely get what you pay for.
I'm using a 64 GB model at present, although 128 GB is a decent, practical maximum for these machines. I can't find any reference to the maximum size the 845 chipset will comfortably support, so I'd rather not push it. And you can get
lots of Pups on 128 GB! With Pup's 'running-in-RAM' model, actual speed is determined by your RAM clock speed; go for the 400 MHz modules; the 845
will support it, despite Dell claiming to the contrary!
I'm also using a pair of 128 GB SanDisk 'Ultra Fit' nano USB drives in the rear ports as external storage. These might be USB 3.0, but they will run considerably faster through a USB 2.0 port than a standard USB 2.0 drive. The only downside to 'em is they get bloody hot.....but they don't get hot enough to melt the plastic end-caps, fortunately. From the original tiny 20 GB of storage, I'm up to a much more acceptable 320 GB.....
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WIRELESS
Unlike its 'big brother', the 5100, the 1100 doesn't come with built-in wireless; it only comes with a Broadcom Ethernet controller. So, practically, you have 2 choices. Either a USB wireless adapter.....or a PCMCIA 'CardBus' model, which will occupy the slot under the hard drive caddy (and has the distinct advantage of leaving both rear-mounted USB ports free for other duties.)
(Incidentally, that CardBus slot gives you all kinds of possibilities; there's no end of different cards available for them, if you know where to look...)
I'll recommend 3 different wireless adapters that I
guarantee will work with the 1100.
a) NetGear 'RangeMax' WP-511N CardBus adapter.
https://wikidevi.com/wiki/Netgear_WPN511_v1
This has an Atheros chipset, and uses the 'ath5k' driver, which has been in the kernel since, basically, forever..! I've yet to find a Puppy it won't work with.....and the range isn't bad, considering it tops-out at 54 MBps. Recommended.
b) TP-Link WN725N 'nano' 150 MBps 'n'-rated USB adapter
Absolutely brilliant, with an incredible range. At over 100 feet from the router, it's still operating at full strength.Uses the 'r8188eu' driver for the RealTek chip. Make sure you get the v.2 model; the v.1 was known to be 'awkward' under Linux.
http://uk.tp-link.com/products/details/ ... N725N.html
This thing cannot be faulted; it seems almost unbelievable that something this tiny can give such a strong signal, or work at such a range.....but it
does. (And it runs cool, too; unlike under Windows, where it gets distinctly warm to the touch...) Build quality is simply beautiful. TP-Link cost a wee bit more, but their stuff just 'works'.
c) NetGear WNA3100M USB 'mini' wireless adapter
Again, a Realtek chip.....and this one uses the 'rtl8192cu' driver (which, again, has been supported in the kernel for quite a while now.) Good range.....but don't try and connect with the 'WPS' button on the top. That only works under Windoze!
http://www.netgear.co.uk/home/products/ ... 3100M.aspx
This one's a 'mini', as opposed to a 'nano'; a little bit bigger, but still acceptably small.....and doesn't stick out that far. Slightly more expensive than the TP-Link, but well worth it.
Where the kernel doesn't contain the modules for the last two, Bill (better known to all as
rcrsn51) produces a range of drivers for both these two, for a range of different kernels. Look for 'em in the 'Hardware;Wireless' sub-forum.
rtl8192cu -
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=100675
r8188eu -
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=107047 Tahr 6.0.5 seems to have this one built-in, so if you're using the TP-Link, or any other utilising that chipset, the k3.14.20 kernel already has it; you just need to OK it when the wizard asks you for confirmation on adding it to the list.
(These three above will definitely work with the 1100.....guaranteed.)
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It just goes to show that sympathetic upgrading with newer technologies as they come on to the market will keep even elderly hardware like this still viable, useful, and productive. And it helps to keep the landfills from filling up so quickly; I'm no 'green warrior', but I absolutely
cannot see the point in chucking out gear that still works 100%. To me, that's pointless.....but the tech companies would
love us all to swallow their claptrap, hook, line and sinker.....
(*shakes head in amazement*)
Well, that's my lot for tonight. No doubt I'll be contributing further to this thread, but I'm yawning like a good'un right now.....so it's off 'up the wooden hill' for me. The Sandman's a-calling!
Mike.