Dell Inspiron B130 now on Dell.com (U.S.)

Congrats...you just got a $90 option for free...nice!!!

 

I ordered my B130 through the small business, the link you gave is for home.

I'm having no luck finding the small business segmant's chat for this issue. :-( I really don't want to call in though.

 

Well, no one wants to post pics so i found these on ebay lol




god..... this thing is nice

 

There are some pictures posted already on page 8 silly!

Thanks for more pictures though! it's appreciated. It only makes me want mine even more, I wish testing would hurry up with my B130.

 

Cool! Now we can identify the ports with that handy-dandy poster. I hope that isn't a box. Why would they advertise on a box that is used to ship an already purchased laptop?

 

LOL. You're silly.

It's one of those Giant QuickStart poster things I bet that is packaged in the box.

 

And you can learn to translate computer lingo between English, French, and German. This laptop is great!

 

I always wanted to learn GERMAN!

Gosh, now if this stupid laptop would get out of TESTING and into Boxing, I'm getting scared it wont make it here on time for xmas, I tried doing Dell Chat to see if I can nick a 'free shipping upgrade' but I cant find it under Small Business.

 

I'm purchasing a 1gb upgrade from newegg.com today ... I remember back in the day, manufacturers would say that you should not mix chips of different kind/sizes. Is this still true? b/c I figure that I would combine the new 1gb chip with the 256gb that's already in there from Dell.

Is there any additional specification I should make sure that are included besides the fact the chip has to be DDR2, So-dimm, 200 pin, 533mhz (pc2-4200)?

Thanks

 

dilseacht,

You want to run the same amount of RAM , i.e. 2X512=1GB...this is the only way you take advantage of DDR2 if you use the way you are talking it will only be 512 DDR2 and the rest will be used as normal. This is something to consider before you upgrade. You won't see much of a difference, but still.

 

Isn't it even worse? Only 256MB will be dual-channel.

 

i was just wondering if you can upgrade from the intgrated graphics card to a one more fit for gaming such as a nvidia gforce? can someone please answer me

 

Far as many other forums are answering your question moscow the answer is no.

 

No way... YOu can't upgrade the graphics card. Only on the XPS and older 9100, and 9300. YOur stuck with intel integrated graphics.

 

Hey guys.. new member, just bought this laptop a week or two ago for $578 after tax and shipping. I got the 14.1 inch screen because I'm cheap and wanted to save money

Anyhow, does anyone else's screen have a snowy layer on top of it? I've already sent it BACK to dell once, they returned it only to say the resolution was at fault.... though it's in the native resolution AND it appears like that in the BIOS.

 

Hey guys, another newbie. I ordered my B130 on Saturday, regular shipping, and it is supposed to be delivered tomorrow. Estimated ship date was the 21st, so don't sweat the expected delivery date too much. It should be much sooner.

I'm having an issue finding an air adaptor for the B130. A Dell rep said to use the Targus PA358U because "it is compatible with all Dell systems." On their own site, however, the description states that it is NOT compatible with all. And Targus has advised me that it is not compatible.

Has anyone found an air adaptor that will work with the B130? I'm looking for one specifically for the EmPower outlets in planes.

 

The Targus may work. The B130 is a new laptop, I wouldn't be surprised if Targus hasn't added that laptop to its database of compatible products.

 

Any chance of using the ExpressCard slot in the future for video-card upgrading? As I understand it, it is based on PCI-Express.

C.

 

So what is preferable?

a) Two 512MB sticks to utilize dual-channel

b) Original 256MB stick & one 1GB stick for 1.25GBs for max RAM

c) One 1GB stick for speed (is this quicker than b option?)


Can anyone confirm the Inspiron B130 (1300 in Canada) can take two 1GB sticks?

Civuck

 

the manual says it has two slots and 1GB is the max for each slot and the max memory is 2gb

 

Yup, that sounds right. I have yet to see it different for any notebook on the market at this time. (Skipped all posts in between): Do you plan to upgrade the RAM?

 

And how is the B130 running, your impressions (to all owners)?

 

Targus told me that it wasn't compatible. I don't know who to believe.

 

It's a matter of output. I think the power supplies on these (if my info is correct) need to be 75W minimum. Most "universal" adapters don't go quite that high.

Looking for a 110V AC inverter that works on the plane connections. Then you can use your regular AC adapter. You could also plug in a number of regular AC products, if you feel the need.

See - http://www.hobbymagic.com/inverter/
or - http://www.laptopsforless.com/laptop-accessories/dc-ac-power-inverter/

or any similar setup.

 

Hey guys, newbie here. I read through this thread last night and was impressed by what I've read and the pictures I've viewed. I also read the review on the b130 by xbandaidx. I don't have the specific specs, but I remember bumping up the processor speed a notch, switching to 60 GB and probably some other things I don't remember. Wish I could have thought about upgrading my memory, though.

Oh, well. I can't wait to get this; it will be my first notebook. My budget for a notebook was roughly 800; I got this baby for $689, plus free two-day shipping. Orded it this past Thursday, and it shipped out on Saturday. Early this morning (1 AM ish?), it reached UPS, and I'm expecting to see the brown van in my yard on Tuesday.

Can't wait!

 

I noticed some people asking for pics of the B130 so i'll post a few here

 

and a few more for good measure :dell:

 

egad, that textured black looks painful. :/

 

MMmm. I want to eat it. No. wait, thats not right. I want to molest it. Crap! I want to buy a bigger battery for it. Yeah... Thats the ticket.

 

sweet, thanks for those pics. I cant wait to get mine.... 5 more days......

 

more pics on http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=34373
on last page. high res.

 

It's here. So much for the next day air I was promised. But UPS showed when they said they would.

First things first, I'm doing a clean XP install, because I know there's a buch of crap I don't want or need on there (Dell updates, AOL, Earthlink, whater dinky media software they have installed, etc etc)

Looks and feels nice and solid. It feels far better than the 300M or 700M (which IMO are glorified PDAs). It is thinner than a lot of the Inspirons I've worked on. Looks like the basic Dell laptop assembly/dissasembly procedure will work with this. I don't forsee any screen issues, it looks great. I'll know more once I try a DVD on it. It's a standard Dell keyboard. The buttons and the keypad are kind of small, but it's easy enough to get used to. I'll probably use a mouse for the music/DJ stuff I will do with it. Keypad measures 2 3/8"x1 5/8", for those who are interested. I'll not be putting up pictures because they are already elsewhere on this thread.

It feels quality, it's a little heavy for it's size, but it's comparable to other Dell laptops I've dealt with. Overall, I'm impressed. Can't wait to put it through it's paces.

 

ok, once i get mine what should i do with it. Like i hear alot that there is stuff that dell puts on it that just takes up space and crap. What do i do to delete them all andwhat do i delete?

 

The easiest thing to do is to do a fresh install of Windows. Certain things like AOL and McAfee are almost impossible to get rid of. Go to Dell's site and search for "b130 xp reinstall" or just "xp reinstall", then follow that procedure. Make sure you have all of the discs you need before you start. The Windows CD does not automatiaclly ship, you have to specify that. It's worth the 10 bucks, however.

 

ok thanks. I didnt get that cd or cd's, but i heard you can get it anytime you want

 

It may take a little persistence to get the CDs. I went through customer support, and they have a standard reply about how the environment is being saved (something to that effect) by Dell no longer providing the CDs.

Apparently the computers used to come with a system restore feature that let you burn one copy of the operating system backup. Now they use a hidden partition that allows you to restore the computer to the condition it was when you bought it.

Of course, if your hard drive fails, or you want to put in a larger drive, you can't install Windows XP anymore as you have no CD.

There was a long thread on another board about this, and some had easy success getting backups. Others had more of a hassle, some didn't get them at all. It took me a couple of phone calls and about a half dozen emails. When I configured my computer, I was not given the option to order the $10 backup CDs. I told customer service I was going to be installing another drive and that seemed to work, they sent out WIndows XP, Dell drivers, and Dell applications.

If they give you a negative response, or an ambiguous one, keep trying, you should finally be able to get them.

 

I bought mine last week.And now i'm returning it.They offered me 100$ to not return it.

But the screen quality is very bad(no uniform color) and it is simply the worse lcd on a new laptop I saw on the market in my opinion(of course subjective) the view angle especialy the superior one is bad.

Another issue the application are runing very slow(maybe because 256 ram so 256 extra is a must)

And the wireless is poor(my other dell has signal this one is not even detecting the network)

Anyway I think the laptop look nice ...until you turn on that crap lcd and see its bad quality

 

I checked my new b130 celeron M 1.4
It has 915gm chipset NOT 910 which is interesting.So Dell supply the with the expensive version not with the cheap one like others

 

I for one sure hope so. I have an XPS M140 and that possibility makes me feel better about its future graphics capabilities.

 

Its been a while. I got my laptop and I love it. I've been installing Linux over the course of the day. Has anyone else installed Linux on their laptop? If so, what ModeLine did you use in your xorg.conf?

 

thinking of getting one for my wife.... anyone knows if there is any deal besides being so cheap?

 

I bought the B130 for my family for Christmas. I have a wireless network set up that works flawlessly with my IBM laptop (for work). But the B130 keeps dropping the wireless connection in the house. I saw a few messages posted on Dell's website complaining of this problem. Has anyone heard of a fix? If not, is there an "ExpressCard" Notebook Wireless Adapter on the market?

I thought I could use my notebook adapter and spent 20 minutes doing an install when I realized that there is no PCMCIA slot.

Any suggestions or insight is appreciated.

 

My wireless works flawlessly (some problems in linux though). The "built-in" wireless is actually a mini-PCI. Check the user manual about removing the card. Perhaps the antennea is not attached to the card. You could purchase a replacement mini-PCI card. I would recommend a card with the Prism2 or Prism2.5 chipset. I would do this over an expresscard because it will probably be cheaper, your Express Slot will still be free, and you can use the built in antennea for better reception.

 

Hi!
I have installed Linux on my Dell B130, and it works just fine.
I have tried Slackware 10.2 and Ubuntu Breeze, and I'm quite happy with it as it is. I would recommend you to switch to some lighter kind of Window Manager, I use the XFCE, and that is just fine for me.
:dell:

 

Were you able to get your wireless working with it? I have Slack 10.2 installed as well but so far no joy with the wireless. I would appreciate any help you could provide.

Thanks.
-Al

 

I installed Gentoo Linux on my Dell B130. You will have to have ndiswrapper to use the Dell 1370 wireless. I used to "bcmw15" driver. (A little bit of googling will let you find the driver and a ndiswrapper howto). Another big issue was getting the widescreen to work properly.

Linux checks the bios to determine valid resolutions for the system. Apparantly, Dell's BIOS returns 640x480, 800x600, and 1024x768 at 8,16,24bpp -- however, it doesn't "support" 1280x800. Install 855resolution and add it to your rc-scripts so it will run on startup. You can configure 855resolution to modify the the corresponding bios table. Note, no permanent changes are performed, it merely changes the in-memory bios image. configure your xorg.conf or xf86config file to run at Mode 1280x800. (note, you do not need any "special" modelines)

I spent some time getting acpi and various features working. I'm going to try adding software suspend in a day or so.

Some are some more hints:
- Create a separate runlevel for battery usage. You can use this to change the cpufreqd rule when the ac-power is unplugged
- Use the "synaptics" input module in you x configuration. It will let you drag with the touchpad, scroll, etc..
- You can patch x.org to support DRI on the i915. Follow the directions here: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-364512-postdays-0-postorder-asc-start-0.html (The instructions are for gentoo, but you just need to worry about the .diff files)
- Use ndiswrapper with driver "bcmw15" for wireless support
- The broadcom 4400 kernel driver supports the built-in 10/100 network
- Use 855resolution to unlock widescreen support for X
- Linux runs much nicer on the laptop than Windows XP.

I will post my kernel config or any other configs to those who are interested.

 

I want to get a B130 for my parents, and it will mainly just be used to get on the internet (wirelessly) and word processing. My question is, is there any reason why I should spend an extra $150 to upgrade to a Pentium M over the Celeron if they are only going to get online and type?
Also, what is the advantage of ordering the Dell 1470 wireless over the Dell 1370 wireless?

 

I believe the 1470 supports all three standards of wireless (a/b/g) while the 1370 supports two of them (b/g). Since "b" and "g" are the most common access points, a 1370 should be all you need (unless you know of an access point that you frequently access that uses the "a" standard).

The celeron should be fine for very simple tasks like you state. I heard somewhere that the Celeron M can't "SpeedStep" (ie, can't underclock to save battery power while off AC) but I'm not sure if this is true.

 

I got my B130 last week... I actually bought it with high-end specs for the B130-line: Pentium M, 1GB RAM (which I upgraded myself), 15.4in screen, DVD Burner...

Took only 5 business days from "production" to being at my doorstep. Reinstalling a fresh copy of XP was simple (had dl'ed the drivers first and burned them to disk) since I had an old XP home CD lying around. I've been impressed with the performance--its pretty fast for being a relatively cheap computer. I'm sure the gig of ram helps. The integrated wireless works great, but one thing I noticed is that it initially forces you to use Dell's driver utility to set up your network. I disabled that and used Windows built-in software and haven't had a single drop. Battery life isn't that great, about 2 hours with the 4-cell battery that I got with it. Another thing I love is it doesn't get ridiculously hot. My old Inspiron 1100 had a celeron desktop processor in it and got so hot it would scald my legs when i used it in the airport. It would burn the table I put it on. This computer stays nice and cool.. the fan only comes on for a few seconds and then turns off. Lastly, I think the LCD display looks fine... its sharp and clear and displays high-res images fine. I'm not a photoshopper, so maybe my tastes are at a lower standard than others, but it looks fine to me.

Overall, I'm very impressed.

 

I bought a Dell B120 and want to install a a370 wireless card. I opened up the compartment and see that tere is a slot for the card, but dont see any antenna wires to clip to the 1370. Dell adds offer an upgrade to a 1370 card, does the card have the antenna built in?. I have a Dell 5100 with truemobile, I popped that card into my B120 & the system found new hardware but needed the software, so the system does see a card. Whats your take on this