My Inspiron 7459 is running with BIOS version 1.6.0. Yes, I know, the "Drivers & downloads" section of the support page shows the latest BIOS as version 1.5.0. Nevertheless, mine has 1.6 installed. I installed v1.6 myself and I guess Dell subsequently removed v1.6 and replaced it with the older v1.5.

I'm wondering whether I should revert back to 1.5.0?

The machine exhibits some strange behavior (I use the HDMI in to support a second computer and sometimes the 7459 won't wake up forcing me to unplug the power and start anew, yesterday I had to move the mouse on Dell machine to get the second machine to awaken etc) I wonder whether this 'unsupported' BIOS has anything to do with it.

Hello, I would be grateful for any advice about how to get into the BIOS for the above machine. I have tried the suggested methods posted on many other forums, but to no positive result. I would like to upgrade form a 32 Bit system to a 64 bit system by carrying out a clean install, but I cannot get to the BIOS to change the initial boot drive to the USB drive.

Many thanks in anticipation.

Hello all,

Is the onboard controller on my T5600 a C600 Intel controller? Here is the listing off the configuration sheet for the T5600: 331-7597: RAID,CNTRL,INTEL,PAYG,A,T5600

I am having an issue trying to install a 1TB SATA drive, using the SATA ports. I have a PERC H310 controller, supporting 2 256 gig SSDs in a RAID1 array. In reading others who are trying to do the same thing it seems there is an incompatibility between the PERC and the onboard controller. It seems the way to solve this is to remove the PERC and use the onboard controller to support the RAID array, as well as be able to add additional drives. Is this a correct statement?

Bottom line I would love to keep the RAID1 array on the PERC, and be able to add this one drive using the onboard controller. If I cannot do that can I just remove the PERC, move the RAID1 array to the onboard controller, and then add the 1TB drive to a SATA port?

Lastly the 1TB SATA drive needs to be installed in the drive bay where the DVD drive is. What is the part number for the bracket to do this, or should I move the two SSDs up top? If I do that I still need a special bracket to split that area for the two SSDs. What is that part number?

Thanks,

Steve

Can anyone tell me what is the wattage rating of the power source in the Inspiron 580 tower? I'm looking to upgrade to a graphics card and see talk of recommended power source and I have no idea what mine is.

PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_8C22&SUBSYS_06251028&REV_04
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_8C22&SUBSYS_06251028
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_8C22&CC_0C0500
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_8C22&CC_0C05

i can't seem to find driver for this device. 

i run dell driver check .I installed chipset , bios and video drivers as it recommended. still no luck.

please let me know the location of this driver for "windows 7 pro 64bit and 32bit"

thanks in advance., 

I am going to buy a desktop and XPS 8910 looks great for me, especially the chassis design. However, I have some questions to select reasonable option considering upgrade in the future. 

1. On the specification of the website says that "65W (standard); support up to 95W k processors with optional high capacity thermal heat sink (Special Edition only)". Does this means that the optional heatsink is only included in K processor? or every special edition XPSs are equipped with that. 

2. Another point that I am concerning about is compatibility to regular m-atx mobo for the XPS chassis. The holes in the XPS 8910 mobo seems to be fit to regular. However, the I am not sure that back pannel is removable. If anyone know this, please let me know.  

How can I reinstall Windows on my Alienware X51 after a hard drive crash?  This means that I do not have access to the recovery partition and I do not have any external recovery disk.  I will attempt this with a Windows bootable USB drive.  What Window product key should I use??  or, can I create a recovery disk from Dell Support??

thanks

I am building my custom computer but I'm going to use the E521 case. The thing is I want a good motherboard that can fit. Also I need to keep the original fan and it has to be below $50. Any suggestions?

Hi Everyone, 

I'm looking for some help regarding this Dell XPS 630i desktop I purchased recently. I'll list the specs below followed by my problem I hope someone can help me with. 

Motherboard: Dell XPS 630i Socket 775 NVidia NForce 650 SLI 
Processor: Intel Core 2 Extreme CPU Q6850 3.0 GHz
Video Card: NVidia GeForce 9800 GX2
Memory: 4GB
OS: Windows 8.1 64 bit

Ok so I got this computer from a garage sale. Brought it home it had Vista installed (the original OS which came with the computer) but I needed to upgrade it to Win 8.1 in order to run certain software. Before upgrading everything was working fine. The video card has 2 DVI outputs and an HDMI output, which i plugged 2 monitors into and it worked just fine. So anyway I needed to format and install Win 8.1 so I did. Now in the device manager there's conflict with the video card (NVidia GeForce 9800 GX2). As if drivers are missing. So because of the conflict I cannot get full screen on my monitor and it won't output to dual monitors only one of the DVI outputs is working and the HDMI output doesn't work either. So I downloaded drivers from NVidia's website for this particular video card (the win 8.1 64 bit version). But still the problem persists. 
I've spent a few days on researching, installing different OS like Win 8.1 32 bit, Win 7 32 and 64 bit etc. Downloading the motherboard drivers, updating bios, video card drivers but I can't get it to work properly. I'm obviously doing something wrong here. Dell doesn't have any drivers for Win 8 for this machine. So I don't know what to do.
At first I thought maybe the hardware is old and loading a new OS like 8.1 is conflicting with the hardware. But when I did some googling, i found out for example on my630i.com people have all types of OS installed on there systems...so it's possible to upgrade. I just can't get it to work properly. 

What am I missing here? Any recommendations?

I have an Optiplex 780 Desktop and would like to install a second hard drive between my existing HD (connected to SATA0 on the motherboard) and my CD-DVD (connected to SATA1).

I would like to use the space between the normal HD (at bottom of the drive area when the 780 Desktop is lying on its side horizontally and not standing up vertically) and the CD-DVD (at top of the drive area).  The space in between is designed for a floppy disk drive, which has never been in the PC.  It has always been empty space.

Last week, I tried, but found that the empty floppy-drive space was a cm too short for a new, second drive.  I could not slide the new drive all the way in unless I left off the small black plastic cover that normally covers the unused floppy-drive "front" on the case.  (I had added side-screws to the new drive and was not using one of those blue plastic caddies.  This floppy-drive space seems only to work with the side screws; a blue plastic caddy seems to be good only for the original HD space at bottom.)

But the Dell manual for the Opti 780 Desktop definitely shows the possibility of a second hard drive in that space. 

What's the trick?  Are some 3.5" drives longer than others?

Thanks.

just seeing if I  can upgrade my cpu.

While running a system repair using the XP Pro Re-Installation CD, I received a pop-up message: File: ialmn5.sys is not found, please install this file from another external source.

I have googled this situation and have found this reference: File: ialmnt5.sys not found. I may have copied the message from my computer screen incorrectly by inadvertently omitting the "t" .  So the message probably read as File: ialmnt5.sys not found. 

I cannot seem to find a downloadable source for the missing File.  I also do not know how to install it if I did find a copy of it. What is a .sys file anyway? Is this missing file a system "driver" of some sort? I think the message was in reference to the onboard intel graphics chip or whatever it is called. I do not know how to regenerate the missing file message. I had no recourse but to continue the system repair installation since I have no source for the missing file. 

Can someone help me understand what this missing file is and where I can go to download a copy of it (plus how to install it)?

I know XP Pro is a "relic from the distant past" but I would still like to fix the pop-up error message. 

My Optiplex system is not "supported" for a Windows 10 upgrade, but can anyone tell me if my GX260 will upgrade to a Windows 7 OS configuration?

Thank you for your help. 

Mrc109. 

I just got a brand new XPS 8910 with i7 6th gen 3.4ghz, 16gb ram desktop. I have been using a XPS 8500 desktop for 5+ years and have been thoroughly happy with its performance so far. I used a SSD with it for fast boot and general performance boost. I did the same thing with the new XPS and put a Sandisk Ultra II 240gb on it and installed Windows 10 there.

The factory boot time was 37 seconds from a cold boot (post through the login screen).

With the SSD and legacy boot (non UEFI) the boot time is 45 seconds.

My old XPS booted in 15 seconds.

A 5+ year newer machine boots 30 seconds slower. What am I missing.

I need a resolution soon or this is going back.

I just take it from my school for a home server purpose and after reassembling it it can boot to BIOS but I'm unable to access the boot menu and the BIOS setup,also after the BIOS the lights indicating error 1 2 3 with 2 beeps.Also pressing F2 and F12 will cause a beep too.

My hardware:

Dell Optiplex 320

Intel Core 2 Duo E4300

2x1GB DDR2 RAM

1TB,500GB,2x160GB HDD

Has anyone actually replaced the CMOS battery and verified that it is a permanent fix?

Alienware Area-51 R2  

I bought my alienware desktop 3 weeks ago for £2500. For 1 week, I didn't have any problems and then my problem is started within the 2nd week and still I have this problem. I reported this issue to dell support at 3rd week ( and I still wait their answer ) after I returned to computer to its factory settings to fix this problem but nothing changed. Thus, I wanted to get some help and support from forum if you know how to fix this issue :(.

My problem is " When I open any kind of program or when I play any kind of game after a certain of time like 30 minutes sth generally  my computer totally freeze and even the keyboard is not working which makes me to shut down the all computer from power supply button... then I try to re-open the computer and only alienware emblem with loading appears without any respond + keyboard become in offline mode too. After 2-3 tries I can reopen the computer but the freezing issue still continues. I checked this issue on the google and it seems most of alienware users with windows 10 pro experienced it. I cannot find any solution how to fix it. Is the Dell ( Alienware ) sent me a broken desktop or what that I paid £2500 to experience this issue starting with the 2nd week !!! It seems this issue is random and started to be a certain problem because I even cannot use my python, arduino, eclipse, or play any kind of games in long term anymore and I am really *** off now. This is my only computer right now and I am doing my master degree on artifcial intelligence and robotics in England too. Shortly, I work on computers so much too. If dell sent me a defective desktop why I paid £2500 for it.... When you send your computer to repair it doesn't come for a long time too !!!!!

Is there anyone would help me to fix this problem in my computer please ? I run the dell diagnostic test too and it says there is no problem with your computer. But then why am I experiencing this issue now ? 

Note:

Do you know why I bought a desktop this time ? Because I was using alienware 18 laptop for +3 years which is not even producing anymore and this laptop served me very nice too which I didn't experience any of these problem I encountered with my current alienware desktop... But my laptop's dual graphic card is burned and thy said me it will be costed too much and the repair will take a long time because it is an old alienware laptop model ( but I was paid the same amount for my laptop 3 years ago like my current desktop, and it was the best laptop too at that time anyway ) so this time I decided to buy a desktop but I have this problem already!!! 

imagizer.imageshack.us/.../WlziS0.png

So I want to swap my inspiron 580 motherboard with the asrock 110m motherboard.  Will the new mother board fit?

Today, I did a proof of concept for restoring Win 10 using an external HDD recovery partition.   Everything worked fine. Here were my steps:

- I salvaged one of several 40GB HDD drives I have laying around.   I connected this drive to the computer via one of those USB ATA adapters that you can buy on the internet.   Then I opened Disk Management and re-partitioned  the drive.  I really wanted to make two 20GB partitions so that I could keep two recovery images:   One for my new xps8900 and one for my wife’s new Inspiron laptop.  Unfortunately, this didn’t work so well because the Recovery Media Creator creates its own partition scheme.

-  I opened the Recovery Media Creator that came with my XPS 8900.  The 2TB HDD has 4 partitions as it came from DELL.  One or two of those are recovery partitions that I assume Recovery Media Creator uses to create the external media.  One of the first actions is the app prepares the media which in this case means it re-partitions my USB HDD to a 32GB Fat 32.  It left the remaining 8GB as unallocated.  Then it began the process of copying system files, etc.   This took several hours.  Not sure how long because I went to sleep, and when I awoke the computer was at the windows  lock screen.

-  Connect Blank SSD.  I had purchased a 120GB SSD to use as an OS drive.  This scheme I have used for a number of years where the larger mechanical drive held most of my data and many of the installed programs.   Only programs that I wanted good speed were installed on the SSD.

-  Disconnect System Drive.   I disconnected the 2TB HDD.  (Just pulled the data cable).  This simulates complete failure of the HDD and leaves the computer without any operational system.

-  Start Recovery Media.  When I started the computer I pressed F12 to bring up the Boot Menu .   I selected the external USB HDD as the boot device.   This was the recovery media.   I answered the questions to tell the media to recover the system.   The only HDD now on the system was the Blank unused SSD.   Within an hour the creation of a new Win10 system on my HDD was complete.  

-  Setup Windows.   Finally, I was answering the questions Win 10 asks when you are starting a brand new computer. The setup went just like normal.

The newly created OS drive was a mirror image of the original drive, including the two recovery partitions, one 450MB and the other 120GB.  I really don’t need those recovery partitions on the SSD since they still also exist on my 2TB HDD,  and on the external USB HDD recovery media.  Not sure whether I should try to delete those partitions to get more space on my SSD OS boot drive.  

Overall, the process went well.  I am comfortable having a way to recover the system should I have a complete failure.  I will store my old 40GB HDD somewhere safe.  One post said these drives will outlast USB flash drives and DVDs in storage, so that’s a good thing.

I have a PNY GTX 550 ti card, and I'm using a Dell Optiplex 745. My Motherboard is Dell Inc. 0GX297

You can type it in google to see the full picture of the MB. Anyways, im using windows 7 64bit, my PSU is Thermaltake TR2 W0070 430W ATX12V v2.3 ErP Lot 6 Power Supply.   The problem i put in the card,which also requires a 6 pin, i put in the 6pin connector, make sure everything is plugged up to the card  , turn on the desktop everything turns on , but 90% of the time the GPU isn't being detected  , meaning the monitor blue light turns orange , orange means there is no signal . 10% of the time it does detect a signal , and i can see the dell logo, after the dell logo in the upper left corner it says PNY GTX 550 , bios something, etc but then the signal light turns orange, then goes back to the dell logo, blue light turns orange and nothing works.

One time i didn't plug in the 6 pin, and it booted right to the desktop , but couldn't see any picture. so it seems like the card works, but for some reason when everything is plugged in its not getting a signal. i have no idea what is going on. thermal paste is on the chip of the card, so i highly doubt its overheating.

Anyway ideas?

I want to test a USB stick with rescue media on my 8700.  I have the USB drive plugged in, but when I boot, I see the Dell logo, but nowhere on the screen do I see the "Press F2/F12" message.  I've tried various combinations of pressing each one once, multiple times, but it always carries on ignoring me and boots windows.

I'm running Windows 10, three monitors.  I'm starting to wonder if the BIOS doesn't recognise the keyboard (USB) and it only works later when appropriate drivers are loaded.  I will try to find another keyboard, but in the meantime, I would appreciate any suggestions.

Many thanks,

R