Will the inspiron 5150 support an external hard drive without external power?

It should support a 2.5" notebook hard drive in an external enclosure, but I think you need an external power supply if you are using a desktop drive in an enclosure.

usb can't support a desktop drive. unless there's some contrapment that can combine the currents of like 3 of them. but even then, it would kill the battery. presumably, of course...

Yeah, you can only use a 2.5" HDD on bus power. you need an external power supply for 3.5". Problem with 2.5" is that they are available in smaller sizes (max 100GB i think) and they might be slower than 3.5". They are also more expensive. Good for portability and computer-to-computer use.

It can (read the other thread) so long as it is a 2.5" variety with two separate USB cables (1 for data and 1 for power). However a normal one no. The USB ports are unpowered so generally it is a better idea to get one which is exteranally powered via an AC adapter to save one of the USB ports.
stu

Essentiallly the same thing. The 5150 is the upgraded version of the 5100. You can't get the 5100 anymore. I had problems with my 5100. It kept overheading and was a bit slow, even though I had the 2.8Ghz processor. I would never buy another one.

Yes, same would apply for the 5100.

As for the 5150 being an upgraded version of the 5100, that may be the excuse from Dell, but I disagree. Yes, the 5150 board's chipset can use a higher-clock processor, but I have a 5100 that runs very cool (cooler than most 5150's) and I'm running a true desktop P4/2.66Ghz-533. The 5100 can also be upgraded to the ATI 9000 video cards and you will never.......(and I say this sincerely).........ever have to worry about why your cpu is running slowly when you have it at full-power in all of your bios/power settings. (Check the Dell forums to find out how many times that question's been asked).

To top that off, the 5150, 8600 and even 600m (I suppose the 700m will also follow suit) don't run much (if any) cooler than the 5100. (Look up "8600 hot" and "600m hot" on the Dell forums for that one too). The 5100 has gotten a bad rap by people who don't maintain their notebook and Dell who early in 2003 sent out units they shouldn't have. (See here for details.... http://forums.us.dell.com/supportfor...ssage.id=55307 ) Do I wish Dell would've gotten it right for ALL 11xx/51xx versions from the start?.......sure I do, but it didn't happen that way, so we gotta do it ourselves. And as for battery, power, don't kid yourself, the 5100 most often lasts as long as the 5150 on my 12-cell tests, so I don't know what the point of the "mobile" P4 is in the 5150.

If you don't like the form factor, just go to a Centrino setup & don't be surprised if a 600m even gives you heat/power issues 'cuz it will!!!

P.S. Oh, and why does a 5150 use a 130w a/c adapter and the 5100 a 90w a/c adapter???

P.P.S. The 5100 can still be had on the Dell Outlet page & I can honestly say that Dell Outlet systems (if not grossly under-priced for cosmetic reasons) are as good as new.

err... my 600m can run at full throttle for hours on my lap and not get near uncomfortably hot. as for "power", 4.5hrs on 1 battery doesn't seem like an "issue" to me.

You are correct. The 600m's will run much longer than their larger P4 brothers on battery power, but if you care to read about some hot 600m's, just do the search I recommended.

See, I was originally under the impression that Centrino's would run as cool as my old P3 Thinkpad. (Absolutely beautiful laptop.....quiet.....cool, etc. etc......just simply died after 3 yrs.). Anyway, such is not the case. Cetrinos can run just as hot & noisy as any laptop out there.

And as for *uncomfortably*-hot, I don't think anybody mentioned *unconfortably* here, but the 8600 seems to take the cake on that one.......forums.us.dell.com....

I don't know what you mean by "noisy", as the only noise I hear from my laptop is the optical drive.

And yes, I don't expect my laptop to be as cold as a refridgerator, because I bought it with the best components (graphics card, hard drive, etc). But that doesn't mean I have had heating problems. You might want to look at those threads you searched for, because most of the people who had i8600 that were running hot had it happen while running graphics intensive games, such as FarCry. This is perfectly normal, and I have no doubt that my i8600 will run FarCry better and cooler than an i5150.

ok, to clarify, forget uncomfortable, it doesn't get hot at all. and as for noise... i think my muted TV is louder.

http://forums.us.dell.com/supportfor...00+hot#M161794

hmmmm.....maybe I missed where they said they were playing "Far Cry"??

http://forums.us.dell.com/supportfor...600+hot#M26646

......or maybe this guy's right & all 8500, 8600, D600, 600m etc. etc. owners are either very intolerant to heat or just have defective laptops?

http://forums.us.dell.com/supportfor...00+hot#M145666

......or maybe yours is like "psminn" and if you're just surfing the net with a glass of wine, you'd never notice heat/noise??
(FWIW, I could say the same thing about my 5100 as I did just about that very thing last night while watching the Olympics)

I could also show you posts about how the 600m/D600 sounds like its optical drive is gonna take off & the 8600's ram gets too hot, & etc. etc. etc. etc.

Point being..........if you want a cool/quiet laptop go pick up a P2/450 Thinkpad & you'll never have a problem. But I could list link after link after link of hot 600m's & 8600's. It doesn't mean they're bad. Would I trade my 5100 for an 8600?...........sure.........simply because it's the next step up the scale for a Dell model........no big shakes......just some food!

P.S. Most important is to maintain the cooling system on *ANY* contemporary laptop. The i8600fangui program wasn't invented for kicks!!

The people in these links mentioned heat in two places, these being the left palmrest and the middle of the bottom of the laptop. It is widely known that the hard drive is directly under the left palmrest. Its gets slightly warm due to the heat radiated off the hard drive. As for the underside, the part they are reffering to is the cover of the RAM slots. Yeah, the RAM cover gets pretty hot. Most RAM does heat up. And as the guy in this link you posted said, "Newer laptops will run warmer than old ones, due to the kinds of components that are in them now... bigger, faster harddrives, faster processors and graphics chips, etc.". So far the only problems you have mentioned are ones that all new laptops have, not just Centrinos.

Dell doesn't make the optical drives; they are made by manufacturers that make the same drives for all laptops. This isn't a problem specific to Dell or the i8600 or 600m.

Neither the palm rest or the bottom of my 8600 get hot. I find the warmth on the left hand rest nice. Good for typing on a cold night, and not noticable during the day. The bottom gets warm, but not uncomfortably warm. The 5100 could have fried eggs on the bottom of it, with the amount of heat that the bottom had. Felt like I was cooking. Never got to the stage of heat that that idiot with his privates let is get to though... what an idiot!