Poll: DELL 20% MSN rebate thread #4: HOT upgrade to WIN 2k for free

[jackl81]

can someone psot a link to the I8000 A03 bios file. I can't find it on the site. Thanks.

 

[whitey]

I bought a 4100 during the 20% rebate and recently noticed there was a price drop on my system. I would like, instead of getting a rebate back for the price drop, some extra memory and another 40 gb HD. Is there anyway of dong this. Do i call someone specifically at dell. i tried customer service and it was a no go. She said only the rebate.

 

[SuperRob]

I'm buying an Inspiron 8000 in about a week, and this thread has been quite enlightening. Thanks for all the tips!

 

[loudmouth]

Its not that I don't belive you guys about the win2k upgrade, I just don't know what to say. Do I tell tech support that I WinME is too slow and crashes when I run multiple programs or do I just ask for Win2k since someone says that Dell has that policy. (Thats why I asked for the 30 policy).

Anyway I still haven't gotten my email conformation regrading the 20% rebate, emailed them three times and they say I get something in a few days but almost two weeks pass and still nothing. 20% of 2064.00 is alot of money and I'm getting a little worried. In my last email I told them I was tired of this game and demanded the 20% credit to my credit card or I will return the product which I would really hate to do.

 

[AB]

I was hoping that someone knew of a number to call to confirm the rebate. I have received the initial email saying that I had qualified for the rebate, which I did because I purchased the Inpiron4K on the 11th, but I have not yet received the follow up email stating the exact amount of the rebate. Has anyone else who had purchased their system on the 11th of December, had this problem? I called and talked to a service rep from Dell and they said that as long as I had the initial email stating that I was qualified, I would receive the rebate in 8-10 weeks. I don't know if I should be worrying or not still?

Next, I am nervous about upgrading to WIN2K. ME has performed fine thus far but my desktop is 2K and it never crashes. I want to call Dell Tech Support and complain to get a free OS upgrade, but my question is;

For the Inspiron 4K, are all the software that is installed with WINME, compatable with WIN2K including the DVD software? How about the hardware support? I got this LG DVDROM drive... kinda skeptical about it's support.

If I was to ask for the WIN2K CD, and did the installation on my own, how would I go about doing it? Format, partition then install? How do I access the bios so I can specify boot sequence?

Sorry about all these questions. I have never dealt a notebook before. I really do appreciate all of your inputs. Thanks again

 

[John]

loudmouth, call Dell HSB portables- 800-247-9252 (ext 69219). When you get a tech, simply tell him you are not happy with Win ME and you wanted to order your laptop with Win 2K anyhow....but the Home & Home office didn't have that option.

That is EXACTLY what I told the tech I talked to. I just received the Win 2K cdrom/book today !

 

[RTFMMonkeyboy]

Braxus:

Shrike is right.


Jackl81: The Bios is in the file library. under Flash bios updates. filelib Enter your service tag and the other info. In the download category choose FLashbios Updates. Simple as that.
http://support.dell.com/us/en/filelib/index.asp (in case the linky didn't work)
If it isn't there then it isn't available.

 

[John]

I only see an A02 bios for the i8000....

 

[johnmiles79]

2 things:
1 ) I ordered my dell inspiron 8000 on dec 1st thru msn passport, I never got a email about the 20 perecent rebate when everyone else did within 2-3 days of the order.
I later emailed US_holiday_promos@dell.com They told me they couldn't find the info that I made the order thru msn passport. I made 4 other emails to US_holiday_promos@dell.com, 6 emails to customer support, 4 voice messages to Joni Jennings (my stupid CSR rep), I went thru a customer support rep who yelled at me just for mentioning about the MSN passport deal, I got another one who hung up on me right at closing time on a Friday. I sent three messages with three seperate customer case numbers... I have had only 1 reply from us_holiday_promos@dell.com no replies from the rest, no one calling me back, etc... I gave up... and my days were at it's end (almost end of 30 day return policy)... so I called up returns and instead of returning they gave me the option to buy items for the laptop .. which was absolutely stupid.... I want the money not the damn products... what good is the CDRW when the laptop is obsolete...bah!!! I gave in and got me some extra battery, CDRW, wrist pads, external speakers. I wonder what the actual price is for making these laptops?? few hundred bucks?

2) If I get the Win2k from Dell.. will I still have all the features from WinME intact? like DVD, Firewire, a working 3com miniPCI modem/nic ( I think the modem is a winmodem!!!! SUCK!!!)
I don't understand how Dell can get a "Designed for Windows 2000 professional" decal when you can't install Win2k retail CD...

 

[RVN]

Dell sent me a Dell/Windows 98SE CD instead of Win2K yesterday. I thought I had everything worked out. Like many of you here, I've spent countless hours on the phone and online with them. I've got extension numbers, badge numbers and countless names. I have zero confidence in Dell now, and worry about whether or not I'll receive the MSN 20% rebate. I'm thinking about returning this "Christmas" puppy.

RVN

I spoke with a supervisor later this morning. I complained about getting the wrong O/S disc and how much of a problem this purchase has been, between getting the MSN rebate confirmation and trying to solve the "locking up" of WinME, the countless phone calls and on hold times, etc... I told him that I was thinking about returning the computer. As a consolation for my trouble and as an effort to get me to not return it, he offered me 128 MB Ram, I told him I had already bought a stick of Ram and he offered me $100 off and overnite delivery of the promised Win2K.

 

[whitey]

What is the phone number for returns? I can't find on dell's website.

 

[MusashiX]

Ab,

Call Customer Support and request that they send you an email confirming that you are entitled to the 20% discount. If you don't get paid in 8 weeks, call them back with your proof.

If ME is fine for you, and you're nervous about installing Win2k, maybe you should stick with it? That said, I just upgraded to Win2k on my i4000 and I'm very happy that I did. If you look through the CDs that Dell supplied, you'll see one that has the necessary drivers for all of the pre-installed hardware and software. just reinstall all the drivers after you upgrade to Win2k and you'll be set. The only thing missing is the "Bay Manager" software for hotswapping your floppy and cd/dvd drives. This is fine though, because Win2k natively supports hotswapping of drives. Also, I just watched a Jet Li movie under Win2k for the first time, and I'm very happy with the result. In WinME, I watched about 5 movies, and I NEVER got through even one of them without a temporary lock-up in at least a couple of the sequences. The Jet Li movie, though, flew by without a hitch. I don't know if this is due to Win2k's stability, but hey, results are what counts. And Win2k so far gets an 'A' in my book.

As for the actual re-install, on bootup, you can press F2 to access the BIOS. The 2nd page allows you to specify the boot sequence, so you can just put the Win2k CD into your dvd drive and boot from there to install it.
It's not all that difficult. If you have a backup boot disk, you can use that too if it includes cd-rom support.

 

[MusashiX]

I never noticed this before, but today the noise that comes from my i4000 seems annoyingly loud. Is this normal? I don't know if it's the fan or the cpu, but it sounds like a refrigerator. Maybe it's just my imagination? Is this standard for laptops?

 

[WallyKid]

Where can get the cheapest laptop bag, which can fit a i8000 15 inch screen laptop? Thanks.

 

[AlphaVMS]

To combine this thread with another Hot Deals thread, I picked up an HP Photosmart P1100 for $250 and tried to get it to work with my new Dell Inspiron 8000 under Windows 2000. BSOD every time. I called HP tech support and they walked me through deleting some items from the registry but that didn't help. I had installed W2K on a spare drive (I already had a 20GB drive so I ordered a smaller drive with the i8k) so I reinstalled the original drive and the printer worked just fine with Windows ME. You may want to check before switching to W2K.

 

[loudmouth]

damn it. I just checked my processor with wcpuid and damn thing says its at 553. I order a p3 700. Anyone know how to fix this or did they give me the wrong processor?

 

[luv2chill]

loudmouth--that's speedstep. What Inspiron model do you have?

In any case, that's by design. When you're running on battery power, your lappy slows down the clock speed to conserve juice.

Try plugging your system into the ac adapter and running wincpuid again. If you're on an 8000 you'll need a reboot before the speed will change back to 700.

l2c

 

[loudmouth]

Thats kind of strage. When I order the I8000 the CSR told me that Intel had stopped making the processors with speedstep and that all new processor were without it. If you look at the order pages all the notebooks except the I8000 are offered with speedstep. CSR says one thing and I get something different.

Question...Does the floppy drive make strange noise when you read a floppy. I get a lite humm before it reads the disk. Is this normal?

 

[luv2chill]

loudmouth

the CSR is correct... the processors in the 8000s don't have SpeedStep per se. SpeedStep is the ability to change the clock speed of your processor on the fly with a software program. The 8000s don't support this. However, the BIOS has the ability to set the clock speed lower if you're running on batteries. This is a feature to save battery life (I actually like it as the 8000 is power-hungry as it is).

You can turn it off in the BIOS if you want...

l2c

 

[John]

Did anyone ever find the mysterious "A03" bios for the i8000?

 

[AB]

For everyone with the Inspiron 4K who are still running WINME, what is relevant in the startup. Meaning what can I have checked or unchecked in the startup tab from msconfig? As of now, I hate the bootup time.

 

[johnmiles79]

>Call Customer Support and request that they send you an email confirming that you are entitled to >the 20% discount. If you don't get paid in 8 weeks, call them back with your proof.

Musashi, if you were able to get a email confirming the entitlement of 20% rebate you are lucky.. CSR refuses to issue email confirmation of the rebate, many of them will tell you verbally "...if you ordered your laptop through msn passport then you will receive your rebate in 8-10 weeks..." the problem is that US_holiday_promos@dell never sent me a confirmation at all, and they reported that they are not able to find my rebate info and were researching into it
(over 2.5 weeks). Tough luck for me!

I complained and all I could get was 20% worth of laptop items, my CSR who offered this never told me that I went over the 20% amount with items I selected, so they had better not charge me.

 

[johnmiles79]

Which reminds me if you never received your 20% email confirmation at all, do not sit and think you are going to get your rebate, you will not EVEN if CSR has logged the issue down, I already talked with someone about it. My best guess, if after 8-10 weeks you don't get, and they say they can't find any info about the rebate on your order you may not be able to be compensated for the full 20 percent rebate by purchasing the laptop because it's so long into the time period you have kept the lappy.

 

[johnmiles79]

does the inspiron 8000 support the 133 FSB?
does the p3-800 run @ fsb 133?
so all I'd need to do is change the memory from pc100 to pc133 right?

 

[AB]

How many dead pixels before return? I am still within the 30 days and I just noticed one dead pixel. Is it worth the hassle to return and risk not getting the MSN rebate? How many have you guys had? Is there any way to get them out?