Still have my 8600, but it now has a younger brother,t he 710M. BUt I do most of my computing chores on the Dimension E310.

Still running my 8500 after god knows how long, it's served me so well - has been all over the world with me and kept me entertained watching dvds, and has earned me a living doing freelance work for a long time now as well....in the time i've had it i've had to do a few things to it to keep it alive:

New GFX Card (ATi 9600 M10) With copper cooling mod
2Gb RAM
New keyboard - glass of wine took care of the old one
Larger HDD
New battery.
Zalman notebook cooler.

I think thats about it...

Still very reliable, and still working just fine for all my development work - at the moment it's running office 2007, sql server 2005, visual studio 2005, visual studio 6, and i use it for playing cs source sometimes too...It runs all these apps just fine - I continue to be amazed. I even installed Vista on a spare hdd a couple of weeks ago - and it runs that ok as well.

I was on the verge of ordering an xps m1710 last week - then looked at old faithful on the desk, and couldn't see the point of spending 2K plus at all, its been the best machine of all I've ever bought or built, and i'm sticking with it

Mine has and still serves me well. Now it functions mostly as a desktop driving my 24 in WS monitor. It ran Vista as well as my e1505, but I reinstalled XP becasue I was not satified with Vista.

I give my i8600 2 thumbs up!

I use an 8500 for work. It's a hot plate, is just as heavy as my 9300, and can't play modern games for poop, but it is a great size and does what I need for work very well.

Noody

I still use my 8600 at home when I leave my 9300 at work. I love my 9300 but sometimes its a beast to plug / unplug and lug around, especially when I have another briefcase (with my paperwork inside) to lug around also.

I'm still modding my 8600 too - just added a dell bluetooth and upgraded the wireless to a 2915. Not sure if an Atheros will work in it but I might even upgrade to that once I have a chance to test out the Atheros in my 9300 (on backorder) with my new MIMO router.

Since I keep all my media files in my desktop media server (900gb in 3x 300gb HDs), the faster I can stream my wireless - the better.

I'm even thinking of setting up my old Toshiba S5105 Pentium 4 (1.7ghz)Laptop in the kitchen as a cooking / internet reference for while I'm in the kitchen doing stuff but haven't gotten around to it yet - since that only has a 2100 wireless in it.

I used an 8500 daily for the last three and a half years, until it started to fail in the last couple of months and totally broke a couple of weeks ago.
I'm typing this on a loaned 8500 of about the same age (with my old hard disk in it)

(edited to add machine specs so they are still there when my sig changes)

Dell Inspiron 8500 | 2.5GHz P IVM | 1Gb 266 SDRAM | Hitachi DK23FB-60 Gb 5400 disk, 8Mb cache | 1920x1200 | ATI Mobility Radeon 9000, 32Mb, Omega drivers

My 8600 is still going strong and problem free after 2.5 years of use. Now it is doing the duties of a desktop. It sits on the APR (advanced port replicator) and drives dual monitors and other devices. It is still my primary computer. My newer E1505 goes to work with me. My wife use my 5 year old Compaq Presario 2715US series notebook. This one has also been a great computer. Still runs strong. I love my 3 laptops.

My 8500 has been flawless until two days ago. Thanks to this forum I have figured out that my video card is going bad. This is going to save me a good bit of cash, All I need to do now is figure out which card to get.

The 8500 I have has at least 2400 hours on it. And I play call of duty on it when I'm bored. That game will make it run quite warm though.

Thanks to all who contribute to the board.

Don

I've just bought a Sager 5760, had my 8600 for over two years and it's sitting on the desk right beside me right now
I'm not sure what to do with my 8600...I could sell it but I have a hard time parting with it, it's been a good computer for a fairly long time

Mine is almost 3 years old. Still running strong. All 3 of my laptops are still running great.

Ive had my i8600 for 2 years now. Still in good condition and never had any problems with it. I mainly use it as a desktop replacement and bring it to school with me. I'm planning on giving this laptop to my mom when my new laptop arrives.

I put the new refurbished video card in yesterday, and the thing is as good as new. I opted for the same card that the machine was built with. The Geforce 4200, 64 mb. Cost $98.00 including shipping.

Thanks to the contributors of this board, I fixed my problem.

I am still using it, and here comes a question, I have seen on ebay a Pentium M 780 - 2.26/2M/533, and I am thinking on buying it. As we all know 8600c is running at 400Mhz FSB, so my new micro will run at that speed too, so instead of 2.26 looks like i will have a (2.26*4/5) = 1.8Ghz. Does anyone of you if this is true, will it work, has someone done this before?

Cheers

Had my I8600 for little over two years, bought it new. It's used about 6+ hours per day most every day. Does everthing I need, not really a gamer but I have the Radeon 9600 video running at 1900x1200 res.

Great machine, probably have it for awhile or hand it down .


robert