Secret from a Knight’s Journal

Dell Inspiron 5150 Laptop

My Dell Inspiron 5150 laptop has been with me for at least 3 years old and it has been function very well. To be frank, this baby is the fourth laptop that I have owned over the last 8 years, since 1999, and it the most lasting laptop. The others have a lifespan of, generally, not more than 2 years.

The laptops that I have before Dell Inspiron 5150 are Aus Pentium II 350MHz laptop, Compaq Pentium III 750MHz laptop and Dell Latitude Pentium III 500MHz laptop. All three were damaged to a certain extent and thus, I was forced to buy a new one (or a replacement) each time. Of the 4 laptops that I have owned so far, only the Dell Latitude Pentium III laptop was bought off a second-hand. As a matter of fact, this current Dell Inspiron 5150 can be considered as a second hand, except it was better than that.

Historical Background
This laptop was born in February 2004, at the time when I was in Glasgow, Scotland (United Kingdom). Before then, I had a difficult time with my previous laptop, also a Dell brand - Dell Latitude CPXi - running at 500MHz, bought off a second-hand from a third reseller agent. I needed a laptop for myself, at that time because I was doing a very intensive research work on Machine Learning. Without that, it makes research works really difficult.

Though I may be heavily reliant on a laptop, I did not start buying one until a few weeks later, that the previous (Dell Latitude) laptop finally gave up on me. I browsed the website, and probably Dell was my option at that point in time, since the University has some connection with the company. Eventually, I still did not go by their route. My Dell Inspiron 5150 laptop was not bought off first hand as well, it was purchased from a Dell Factory Outlet. On seeing that the price was suitable, and the functionalities were excellent, I decided to go for it.

Early Problems and Issues
One of the early issues that I encountered is delayed delivery. When I first made an order for this laptop, it was before Christmas season; hence, the order was made and money was transacted, but the machine did not arrive until early February. Well, I am not going to dwell on this since it is not a major issue, other than waiting for a few weeks.

When the baby was finally “born”, it did not come smoothly. The very first problem I had was that the system automatically shut down, or rather hang, after a few minutes of booting up. When I do some research on the related forums, I found out that this particular model of laptop is considered to be high-end processor, which means that the processor tends to get really hot. Thinking that the temperature could be a problem, I even stuffed this laptop inside the freezer compartment of my refrigerator just to keep it running (unfortunately, that fails as well). Powering at 3.06GHz, it is no laughing matter when a processor such as this, gets fried during the first day of purchase (arrival). I immediately, requested for the laptop to be sent back and to be fixed. Along the way, I held several phone conversations with the helpdesk, such that even at certain point, they sent me a hard disk drive to change my hard disk. They, somehow, refused to believe that it was the motherboard at fault, and the processor had potentially been “fried”. It was not until 2 months later that I finally have a fully functional Dell Inspiron 5150 laptop.

During the last couple of years, this laptop has encountered several hiccups, such that its motherboard and processor were changed not less than 4 times. The last time that this laptop required a servicing was probably 2 years ago (2005), in Ireland. Since then, the laptop is at “tip-top” condition. So far, I am extremely delighted with this laptop, and I will continue to use it!

Specifications and Information

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