Dell Inspiron 8600 User manual

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Dell™ Inspiron™ 8600
Owner’s Manual
Model PP02X

Notes, Notices, and Cautions
NOTE: A NOTE indicates important information that helps you make better use of your
computer.
NOTICE: A NOTICE indicates either potential damage to hardware or loss of data and tells you
how to avoid the problem.
CAUTION: A CAUTION indicates a potential for property damage, personal
injury, or death.
Abbreviations and Acronyms
For a complete list of abbreviations and acronyms, see the Tell Me How help file (see
page 94).
____________________
Information in this document is subject to change without notice.
© 2003 Dell Computer Corporation. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of Dell Computer Corporation is strictly
forbidden.
Trademarks used in this text: Dell, the DELL logo, TrueMobile, DellNet, Dell TravelLite, Inspiron, Dell Precision,
Dimension, OptiPlex, and Latitude are trademarks of Dell Computer Corporation; Intel, Pentium, and Celeron are
registered trademarks of Intel Corporation; Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation;
Bluetooth is a trademark owned by Bluetooth SIG, Inc. and is used by Dell Computer Corporation under license; EMC
is a registered trademark of EMC Corporation.
Other trademarks and trade names may be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming the marks and
names or their products. Dell Computer Corporation disclaims any proprietary interest in trademarks and trade names
other than its own.
Model PP02X
July 2003 P/N D2513 Rev. A00

Contents 3
Contents
CAUTION: Safety Instructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Battery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Air Travel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
EMC Instructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
California Residents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
When Using Your Computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Ergonomic Computing Habits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
When Working Inside Your Computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Protecting Against Electrostatic Discharge . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Battery Disposal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
1A Tour of Your Computer
Front View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Left View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Right View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Back View. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Bottom View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2Setting Up Your Computer
Connecting to the Internet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Setting Up Your Internet Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

4Contents
Modem and Internet Connection Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Transferring Information to a New Computer . . . . . . . . . . 36
Setting Up a Printer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Printer Cable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Connecting a Parallel Printer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Connecting a USB Printer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Printer Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Setting Up the Docking Device to Connect to a Network . . . . 41
Power Protection Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Surge Protectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Line Conditioners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Uninterruptible Power Supplies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Turning Off Your Computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3Using Batteries and Module Bay Devices
Using a Battery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Battery Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Checking the Battery Charge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Charging the Battery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Removing a Battery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Installing a Battery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Removing and Installing a Reserve Battery . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Storing a Battery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Power Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
About the Module Bay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Checking the Charge on the Second Battery . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Contents 5
Removing and Installing Devices While the Computer
Is Turned Off . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
If the Device Screw Is Not Installed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
If the Device Screw Is Installed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Removing and Installing Devices While the Computer
Is Running . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
If the Device Screw Is Not Installed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
If the Device Screw Is Installed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4Using the Keyboard and Touchpad
Numeric Keypad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Keyboard Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
System Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Battery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
CD or DVD Tray . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Display Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Radios (Including Wireless Networking and Bluetooth™) . . . . 61
Power Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Speaker Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Microsoft®Windows®Logo Key Functions . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Touch Pad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Customizing the Touch Pad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Touch Pad or Mouse Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
External Keyboard Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Unexpected Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

6Contents
5Using CDs, DVDs, and Other Multimedia
Using CDs and DVDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
CD or DVD problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
If you cannot play a CD, CD-RW, or DVD . . . . . . . . . . . 68
If you cannot eject the CD, CD-RW, or DVD drive tray . . . . . 69
If you hear an unfamiliar scraping or grinding sound . . . . . . 69
Sound and Speaker Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
If you have a problem with integrated speakers . . . . . . . . . 69
If you have a problem with external speakers . . . . . . . . . . 69
Copying CDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Using Easy CD Creator Basic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Using Blank CD-R Discs or Blank CD-RW Discs . . . . . . . . 71
Helpful Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
How to Copy a CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Connecting a Television to the Computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
S-Video and Standard Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
S-Video and Digital Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Composite Video and Standard Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Composite Video and Digital Audio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Enabling the Display Settings for a Television . . . . . . . . . 82
Enabling Dolby Digital 5.1 Audio for DVD Playback . . . . . . 84
6Setting Up a Home and Office Network
Connecting to a Network Adapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Network Setup Wizard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Network Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Contents 7
7Solving Problems
Finding Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Accessing Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Error Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Video and Display Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
If the display is blank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
If the display is difficult to read . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
If only part of the display is readable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Scanner Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Drive Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
If you cannot save a file to a floppy drive . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
If you have problems with a hard drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
PC Card Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
General Program Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
A program crashes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
A program stops responding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Error messages appear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
E-Mail Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
If Your Computer Gets Wet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
If You Drop or Damage Your Computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Resolving Other Technical Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Drivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
What Is a Driver? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Identifying Drivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Reinstalling Drivers and Utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Manually Reinstalling Drivers for Windows XP . . . . . . . . 105

8Contents
Using System Restore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Creating a Restore Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Restoring the Computer to an Earlier Operating State . . . . . 106
Undoing the Last System Restore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Resolving Software and Hardware Incompatibilities . . . . . . . 108
Reinstalling Microsoft®Windows®XP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Before You Reinstall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Reinstalling Windows XP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Reinstalling Drivers and Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
8Adding and Replacing Parts
Adding Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Adding a Mini PCI Card . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Adding a Modem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Replacing the Hard Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
9Appendix
Specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Standard Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Viewing the System Setup Screens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
System Setup Screens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Commonly Used Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Dell Technical Support Policy (U.S. Only) . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Definition of "Dell-Installed" Software and Peripherals . . . . . 139
Definition of "Third-Party" Software and Peripherals . . . . . . 139
Contacting Dell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

Contents 9
Regulatory Noticesthe help file, see . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
NOM Information (Mexico Only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Limited Warranties and Return Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Limited Warranty for Dell-Branded Hardware Products
(U.S. Only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
"Total Satisfaction" Return Policy (U.S. Only) . . . . . . . . . 162
Limited Warranty Terms for Dell-Branded Hardware
Products (Canada Only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
"Total Satisfaction" Return Policy (Canada Only) . . . . . . . . 165
Dell Software and Peripherals (Canada Only) . . . . . . . . . 166
1-Year End-User Manufacturer Guarantee
(Latin America and the Caribbean Only) . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Intel®Warranty Statement for Pentium®and
Celeron®Processors Only (U.S. and Canada Only) . . . . . . . 169
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

10 Contents