Friday, August 14, 2009

Windows 7 – Installing on a Dell Inspiron 1520

Decided to go ahead and try installing Windows 7 onto my Dell Inspiron 1520 laptop and here is my experience:

– Downloaded RTM ISO Bits for Win 7 Ultimate
– Copied personal files from laptop onto an external hard driver
– Burnt ISO to a DVD
– Started Installer
–– Choose to reinstall Windows 7 on my computer instead of upgrading – figured this would be a good time to start with a clean slate.
– Installer ran for about 45 minutes, rebooted the computer a couple of times before it was ready for use.
– Found that Windows 7 didnt have drivers from the video card (nVidia GeForce 8600M GT)
–– Dell didnt have any drivers for Win 7 either.
–– Found a NVidia “reference” driver, decided to bite the bullet and install it.
––– When computer started up, there was a conflict between the video driver and the mouse.
––– Restarted the computer and it fixed the problem.
– Had to run update for Win7 to get some drivers for unknown devices on the computer.

Before I installed the nVidia drivers I got a measly 1.7 performance score. Aero was turned off.
After installing the nVidia drivers the score got to 4.7
 image

Been extremely happy with Win7 on my Inspiron up to now (tested for 24 hours).

I will continue reporting on my experience installing other drivers and applications on my new Win7 laptop.

Update 08.14 –
Installed Windows Live Write – no problems
Installed McAfee anti-virus – free from Comcast – no problems

Update 08.15 -
Installed MS Office 2007 – no problems
Installed Brother MFC-490CW networked printer – no problems (was unable to find Win7 version of the apps that came with the printer. Scanning is currently not working as I dont have the drivers).

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did you install the Sound Driver(s) for the same PC for Windows 7? If yes, can you give me the link from wherever you downloaded it?

Am downloading the NVidia driver as you have mentioned above. But dont know whether it'll get installed or not.

gasolini said...

yes, you can help us to install windows 7 with correct driver in our inspiron 1520.

do you give us a driver's link you used?

thanks

Unknown said...

Im gonna assume ur using 32bit WIndows 7. Any ideas for the drivers for the 64bit

Anonymous said...

how is your internet speed? I have the same model and recently installed Windows 7, and I used the wlan driver from the Dell website, but download speeds are much lower than my other computer.

Anonymous said...

I installed Win 7 on Oct 2009. But of course there are some problems:
1. I can not use BlueTooth connection between my laptop and SE K790i perfectly. There some needed drivers, but i still can't find it all. And not only SE K790i has problems, i have Nokia E61i which is also having problems. So Bluetooth works not perfectly.
2. Not every additional keybord buttons work. For example i can modify volume, but can't go forward, play or stop etc.
3. The next problem i meet is that Win7 doesn't support printers like HP LJ1010. But this printer is not supported in principle and Dell have no affects.
It seems to be all.

Anonymous said...

Hello,

My motto has Always been If It's Not Broken, Don't Fix It!! That being said, I have found it to be much easier if and when Dell comes out with all of the Windows 7 drivers for my Dell Inspiron 1520 laptop. My 1520 is one awesome powerhouse machine, even better than many so-called hi-tech gaming laptops I have reviewed. And I like Windows 7, have it on my Fujitsu tablet laptop as wella s my new Toshiba NB205-N325BL netbook, but I don't like 7 better than I do Windows Vista. I adore Vista. I have had less issues with Vista than I had with XP, and the first time I installed my purchased upgrade copy of Windows 7 on my Fujitsu, not even two days later, I had to reformat and reinstall it on the Fujitsu due to a continous email error. Since the reinstall, however, I have had No issues. I currently have a driver error on it though that I haven't been able to fix, and I don't care for 7's tablet writing input upgrade, but I do like Windows 7 more than i do XP. Now, as far as my Inspiron 1520 goes, I see no reason to try and put 7 on it and have all of these headaches and have-to-get fixes for a laptop that may or may not ever be compatible with it. And als0, I adore Windows Vista. I believe that Microsoft was serious when they came out with Vista. Thanks for reading!

Jay said...

Hi Raj,

I just installed Win7 on my Inspiron 1520 as well. But I am getting a really low CPU score for the performance score (for a C2D 2.0Ghz, the score is 2.2!).

I am wondering if you noticed something similar on your end? And if so, did you install any special chipset/or other drivers to correct that issue?

Congrats on the successful install btw!

Many thanks.

Unknown said...

Hi there, seems a lot of people tried WIN7 on their Dell Inspiron 1520, I'm one of them.
When I first installed it I didn't have no problem installing the drivers. I used the XP ones, for those who still have issues try the Vista ones those work to.
Install the Chipset driver for better compatibility. As for the video driver both XP and Vista work.
If still, you have difficulties with the video-board (this applies only to those with dedicated video- card from GeForce) visit the website and download the latest drivers from there.

Now for the issues I did have: fist time I installed it I had a problem with sudden restarts, after installing the chipset driver worked just fine.
2nd problem I have is now due to hardware changes, as I replaced the original HDD with one that has higher capacity. Now I get a sudden crash from time to time (when I'm not working on him) and when restarts seems to have problems discovering the new HDD. But if I press CTRL+Alt+Delete, the laptop restarts and the OS starts loading.
FOr this problem I plan to change my HDD with another one and see if I get the same error (I plan on using a W.D HDD with 16mb buffer and 7200rotation)

Until DELL provides us with Win 7 Drivers for 1520 we'll still have some problems.
Until then if anyone else knows or had my problem (the restart I mean, and the HDD problem) please post and lets see if it fixes it.

After I will install the new HDD, I plan on installing Win 7 again, and see what errors I get. If no more errors occur I will post a HOW TO for DELL 1520.