Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

This weeks orphan is a Dell Inspiron E1505. It arrived with LCD screen that would go blank during boot/post.

During cold boot the Dell Logo screen progress bar would reach about 80% and then the screen would blank. The hard drive activity light would continue to blink indicating the boot process was proceeding, just without video.

Several post on the web listed the same issue, but there was no definitive fix. Things like bad cpu seating, overheating, bad ram, bad gpu solder joints (motherboard) or bad LCD were suggested but none reported how they resolved it.

Connected an external monitor, booted and got video even after the LCD went blank. This immediately eliminated:
-bad cpu seating
-overheating
-bad ram
-bad gpu solder joints

That left either the LCD or the LCD voltage inverter. Luckily the E1505 LCD and inverter was the same as a Dell 1521 which was on the parts shelf.

This video is useful for working on the E1505:

IMPORTANT NOTE:
The video is a general disassembly procedure, you DO NOT have to remove the lid from the base

Skip to 1:12 in the video and remove the Power Button Cover.
Skip to 2:49 in the video to remove the Bezel and LCD.

Did have to use a case pick (the blue thing in the photo) to separate the right and left sides of the bezel (you could also use a guitar pick or old credit card).

Once installed the 1505 was back to normal. Also used some "canned air" to blow the fuzz out of the heat sink/fan system.

A rugged old machine enjoyed by other forum members. Here's the specifications:

Dell E1505 (2006):
cpu = 2.0ghz core 2 duo T7200, 64bit, passmark v9=1167
ram = 2gb (2x1gb pc2-5300 0 empty slots)
NOTE: system can only use max. 3.2gb ram due to chipset limitation.
hard disk = 100gb sata
cdrom = DVDRW 24x +
sound = y
modem = y
ethernet = 10/100
wifi = y
bluetooth = y

wizard

@wizard I have this exact machine! Was a real work horse.....now retired but still fully functional. Had a full life at AMGEN being the project manager's laptop! Was gifted to me with Windows 7 onboard which was upgraded to Win10 during the first offer of free upgrade.

Runs super hot with Win 10 but it did the taxes with Turbotax until Turbotax required more than the 1505 could deliver.

Dual boots with lots of Puppy Linux's and KLV's and DebianDogs just fine....still runs kind of hot...will try the external monitor trick sometime

@wizard the one drawback is the 1505 is 32 bit only. Hence why TurboTax stopped working this past tax season, 64 bit Windows 10 and upwards only supported!

@rockedge

This one runs a little warm, 60C+ when streaming video, but setting CPU scaling to "Conservative" helps quite a bit. Runs 64bit Puppies fine.

wizard

@wizard I'll have to check if F96-CE_4 will run on it.

For some odd reason the Windows 7 Pro was 32 bit.

@rockedge

I'll have to check if F96-CE_4 will run on it

Both F96 and BW64 run, but F96 has no audio . F95 works with audio, it loads kernel driver snd-hda-intel.ko, F96 loads the same driver, so guessing it's related to pulse audio. Any ideas for getting the audio to work?

Thanks
wizard

@rockedge

the one drawback is the 1505 is 32 bit only. Hence why TurboTax stopped working this past tax season, 64 bit Windows 10 and upwards only supported!

If your 1505 has a 64bit CPU, it will run both Puppy and Windows 10 64bit OS's, just tested W10 to confirm. Probably want to have 3gb ram.

wizard

that's the thing, this E1505 has a 32 bit CPU. No chance to run 64 bit. I had a Dell Dimension laptop even older that was 64 bit capable. But not this machine,

I am typing from it now runnnig Tahr-6.0.5.

processor	: 0
vendor_id	: GenuineIntel
cpu family	: 6
model		: 14
model name	: Genuine Intel(R) CPU           T2400  @ 1.83GHz
stepping	: 8
microcode	: 0x39
cache size	: 2048 KB
physical id	: 0
siblings	: 2
core id		: 0
cpu cores	: 2
apicid		: 0
initial apicid	: 0
fdiv_bug	: no
f00f_bug	: no
coma_bug	: no
fpu		: yes
fpu_exception	: yes
cpuid level	: 10
wp		: yes
flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx constant_tsc arch_perfmon bts aperfmperf pni monitor vmx est tm2 xtpr pdcm dtherm
bogomips	: 3661.55
clflush size	: 64
cache_alignment	: 64
address sizes	: 32 bits physical, 32 bits virtual
power management:

Look at the flags.....no 1m