Dell Inspiron 1501 Restore/Upgrade/Upcycle

Dell Inspiron 1501 Restore/Upgrade/Upcycle 

Again another thing that has taken on a life of its own and become a project and bullied its way onto the TO-DO list. I think I need to start a MUST-DO list and get on top of that and put these things on the TO-DO list, although more interesting that 99% of the TO-DO list! I thought I'd take a look at this and see if I could get it running a bit better so I could at least do a bit of eBaying on it.

I was having computer issues, my laptop died a few years ago and I didn't have the spare funds to replace it, then recently my desktop power supply blew taking the motherboard with it so I was without a computer for a short while. I remembered that my dad had given me his old laptop to us for my daughter to use while she was homeschooling during the covid pandemic lockdown but it wasn't up to the task, being a 2005 model running Windows XP it was struggling to run some of the online software which caused some frustation and a lot of shouting and didn't have a webcam. At that time I hadn't given it much thought or really looked at it properly, I just didn't have the time and wrote it off as just an old 'throwaway' Dell. 

Now requiring a computer I decided to dig into it a bit more, it had 2GB of memory that I replaced with 4GB of memory from my old broken laptop so it kind of worked a bit better, being a 32bit OS it was only using just over 3GB of that memory, and I couldn't update chrome browser it being Windows XP, just looking at the system details it said it was 64bit ready. I picked up an SSD drive at a price I couldn't ignore and installed Windows 10 64bit and it then started to run quite well, but there's always room for improvement! I had a look around for two 4GB RAM DDR2 modules but the few I could find would be half the cost of a much better laptop so that idea was ditched.

I found a blog online that gave some instructions and some code that un-bloats the Windows 10 install, taking off all the crap like the built in games and cortana nonsense that never gets used, this helped a lot as well, so it was working well and did pretty much all I needed, but the keyboard had worn badly and the missing letters had been tipexed back on which made the feel of typing a strange experience. 

Stumbling around a dusty corner of the internet one evening I also found that the CPU could be upgraded, it had a 1.7GHz CPU installed from new and I found with a bit of online searching a couple of compatible ones, a 2.0GHz CPU turned up on eBay so I nabbed that, it came from Hong Kong and was only £5.92 delivered, so worth a punt! I also found a used keyboard it had the 'V' key missing, but the 'V' key on my keyboard was in good condition so I ordered that from ebay for £6.50. 

I set aside some time to break down and clean and replace the CPU, Keyboard and put a new button cell battery and clean out any dust from the CPU cooler. 

First things first though and that was to upgrade the BIOS to the latest version to make sure that the CPU would work, luckily Dell still supports the BIOS so I downloaded that. Installing the BIOS was not as straightforward as I'd hoped. After a lot of faffing and internet searching it turns out that the BIOS update software would only run on a 32bit operating system and I'd only gone and I'd installed a 64bit operating system. Luckily I still had the old HDD with windows XP on it so it was a case of swapping the drives, running the update and switching it off and on again a couple of times then replacing the Windows 10 SSD and I was up and running again.

So updated BIOS installed and all working correctly I set about dismantling it, there's about 500 screws in the bottom, and one hidden under the on/off button panel, with the on/off panel unclipped you can then also access the screws for the keyboard, this pops out to allow access to the backup battery. I pulled the top off and set it aside and removed the heatsink for the CPU, it was clogged up with dust so I cleaned it up. 

The CPU is fixed into a socket that is unlocked using a small flat blade screwdriver and the CPU pops out. I cleaned off all the old cooling paste and any dust clogged in the surrounding first then removed the CPU and replaced it with the 2.0GHz one, new paste was added and the heat sink replaced. 

I fitted a new button cell battery and fixed the shell back together. The new keyboard I bought cheap had a button missing, I thought I could just pull the good one off my existing keyboard and replace the missing one, but it turns out they are different, the old one has plastic fixings and the new one has metal ones and the anchors to the back plates are different!?! So I'll be missing a "V" key for a while, it's still usable, but a much better tippity-tappidy experience than the tipexed old one!

Keyboard back in and on/off panel back on it all started up fine, it took two retarts for the new CPU to show in the system settings, but now all is good, performance is fine, plenty enough for me to edit photos watch youtube etc, hopefully it'll last me a few years.

Bearing in mind this laptop is from 2006, it weighs about a metric ton as well, it's not a bad old thing, the next thing to have a think about is battery, the one in it lasts about a minute so it fine for moving it room to room. I don't think I'm going to be putting it in my luggage at any point to take on trips, it's just too lumpy for that. I'm thinking about replacing the cells in the battery case, assuming they are of a normal size, the few replacement onces I've seen for sale are rather pricey, and I would have thought be past their best at this point being the best part of 15years old. 

The screen on this is a good size it's quite tall, but limited by the screen resolution, I did wonder if I could get a better replacement if it's not the on-board graphics card that is limiting the resolution, more research for another day me thinks.

So for less than £20 I have a working laptop, a bargain I think.