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Difference between Latitude C640 and Inspiron 4150?

post #1 of 9
7/30/05 at 11:16am
Thread Starter 
I broke my Latitude C640 mobo and just replaced it with some board I found on the net.
Turning it on it turns out the replacement board is an Inspiron 4150.

It does work (after it found a few 'new' devices), but it's kinda hard to believe it's 100% the same. Is it?

I Googled and found that the Inspiron board may not work with my Latittude Docking Station and I'm all out of money to go and test that. (and possibly kill it again).

Can anybody shed some light on this?

(p.s. how about a bios chip swap?)
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post #2 of 9
7/31/05 at 1:05am
It is very possible that the motherboards are identical. I had the motherboard in my Inspiron 3800 replaced a while ago. The tech that replaced it brought out a latitude MB. He put it in and when it booted it thought it was a latitude. It would not work in my docking station though. So the tech took out a floppy and flashed my bios with the inspiron 3800 bios. My laptop then thought it was an inspiron again and worked in the docking station. So, the switch between latitudes and inspirons of the same type seems to just be a bios flash in some cases.
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post #3 of 9
7/31/05 at 5:17am
Thread Starter 
So... theoretically, if I just swap the bios chip (I still have the old MB) it should think it's a Latitude again and wil work again in the DS?

Any chances they're using a completely different bios chip configuration on two (almost) identical MB's?
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post #4 of 9
7/31/05 at 7:38am
Thread Starter 
Ok, new problem!

I swapped Bios chips and as expected, it works. But..
Now I get the following message with every reset:

System Bios version is different from Keyboard Bios version, please re-flash"

With the Inspiron Bios there is no message.
I conclude that this means the Keyboard Bios is not a part of the System Bios chip and is also not located on the Keyboard.
The MB has no other removable chips and I haven't heard of Keyboard Bios flashes.

I don't know how to resolve this conflict, anybody have a clue?

SOLVED
I just flashed the Latitude Bios chip with the latest Latitude Bios version and now it no longer complains about different verions.
The 4150 now thinks it's a C640.
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post #5 of 9
7/31/05 at 2:08pm
Excellent. I'm glad you figured it out. I wonder if you could have flashed the 4150 bios chip with a latitude bios?
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post #6 of 9
8/1/05 at 6:02am
Thread Starter 
I think I could've... then again, if there's a check of some sort...
You know what, I'm gonna find out and tell you!

Edit: fudge it, I'll spend my time on my XPS instead of this old piece of crap.
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post #7 of 9
8/12/05 at 11:42pm
Yes the C640 and the 4150 are basically the same laptop , just one is configured for 'home' use and the other toward businesses . For more detailed info on the differences and what is swappable try this site -> http://www.bay-wolf.com/index.htm
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post #8 of 9
8/13/05 at 7:41am
Thread Starter 
Excellent site, it helped me a great deal on modifying my 9600PT.
Even a very good tutorial there for making a USB key bootable.
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post #9 of 9
8/19/05 at 1:44am
Yw
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