Inspiron 600m and Windows 98: Drivers available / downloadable?

That was a good questiion...I, too, checked, and you are right.  The hardware is newer than the OS, and no support.

Hopefully, someone has an answer.  I was ready to to a dual-boot setup, since a few of my customers have 98, and my memory stinks when trying to walk them through something.  Guess I'll put that plan on hold...

Other than that, I hate 98.

I doubt that you will find drivers specifically set up for the 600m by Dell since Windows XP is the only OS offered.  Not Win98.  Dell is not obligated to create drivers for obsolete Operating Systems.

Someone may be able to help you get drivers that are close and the system will operate.  I wish you good luck in your search.

After formatting the drive and wiping away the evil and bloated XP OS, I created a boot menu (dos/windows) and used mscdex under dos to at least move files between the CD drive and the hard drive (until I got the CD working under Windows).

I was able to download some Intel chipset drivers using this link:

ftp://aiedownload.intel.com/df-support/6934/eng/infinst_enu.exe

And I downloaded the Radeon 9000 video driver using this link:

http://www2.ati.com/drivers/wme-catalyst-7-97-031212a-013118c.exe

You can't run the ATI install directly (well you can, but it will reject the install attempt).  Once you unpack the driver, use the control panel display properties to change/update the driver for the display adapter (have-disk, etc).  It will warn you that the driver you tell it to use was not specifically designed for this hardware, but ignore it.  I've got it working at 32-bit, 1280 x 1024.  Sweet.  The Dell drivers CD does not have Win-98 drivers.

I had to change a resource setting (one of the I/O range) for the Intel 82801DBM ATA controller for it to be fully functional (odd - there were no conflicts being displayed but the device wasn't fully functional).  I could then use the 32-bit drivers (and recognize the CD drive) once I changed the resource setting manually.

I still don't have drivers for "other devices" such as PCI card, PCI multimedia audio drivers, PCI USB.  Although the Intel USB host controller (3 of them) and USB root hub (3 of them) are installed and showing no problems).

On startup, it's looking for drivers for "PCI ethernet controller, PCI network controller, and O2Micro-SmartCardBus Reader.

What does the 600m use for an ethernet controller?  Audio?  I guess those are the next drivers to hunt down.

I'm loading Win98 on my machine right now too, and it's harder than I thought it would be. Luckily, my machine is considerably older, so Dell has some drivers because some of the hardware was available on machines that had Win98 installed.

I'd say that your best bet is to sign in to Dell Premier Support, to see if you can find out what kind of hardware is on your system under "configuration as shipped", then go direct to the manufacturer to see if they have drivers available.

Best of luck!

Unless I'm missing something, I have to fault Dell for not making it easy to determine the parts used in this 600m inspiron.  Even the docs that come with it are useless.  In contrast, every $75 motherboard from asia gives a schematic layout of their board, the chips used, etc.

Anyways, it seems it uses "Wireless, Mini PCI Card, INTEL2100".  I will check the CD's that came with this thing, but I don't think there are drivers (or win-98 drivers) for it.  This is Intel's "Centrino" hype, and Intel absolutely does not have drivers for it posted on their web site (they say go to vendor or system builder).  Is there no desktop retail-PCI card that uses this chipset (and hence there would be drivers posted somewhere for it?).

Still don't know what this thing uses for the RJ-45 based network port.

I haven't checked the modem yet, but it is "Internal, Modem Daughter Card, BCM94154M".

Not sure if I need a driver for the LCD screen itself (Liquid Crystal Display, TFT, SXGA+, SPWGB, 14.1, SHARP)

No mention of the audio chipset.

Well, most of the information you would need is included in the info you can get from the configuration tool and the configuration as shipped tool.

Why not just boot into XP and identify your hardware through the device manager? I'm sure it would be easy to figure it out from there. Or, you can check the downloads section for your machine under WinXP, and try to identify which NIC, etc. you have from the 3 or so that are listed there, and then try to go to the manufacturer for drivers.

You can't really fault Dell for not making it easy to determine your hardware under Win98, when the machine was never meant to be used with 98 on it.

Why not boot into XP and ID the hardware that way?

What if I formatted the hard drive and wiped XP completely away first?

It's irrelavent now.  I've installed drivers for the Broadcom 570x Gigabit Integrated controller, a generic cardbus controller, O2 Micro smart card bus reader, and (for the heck of it) some blue-tooth drivers (even though no blue-tooth hardware was ordered as part of this Inspiron 600m).

So basically this Inspiron is fully functional as a laptop running Windows 98, in spite of Micro$oft's (and Dell's) desires to the contrary.

The only remaining driver is for the wireless ethernet adapter (Intel Pro/Wireless 2100A LAN MiniPCI Adapter Type 3B).  The .INI files that I've come across do list the relavant DLL, SYS, and INF files that are specific for Windows 9X/98, (which means they must exist somewhere) but I have yet to find them (W70n98.sys, W70n98.CAT, W70n98.INF as listed in the file SETUPWLD.INI that is part of the Intel PRO/Wireless base driver install application).

As I have no plans to use the wireless ethernet device at this point, this isin't too important.  But if anyone knows where I can find those files, please post it here.

-----

After a little more poking I found a link to the 2100A drivers on Toshiba's South African web site.  Here's the link (apparently to Toshiba's German web site):

http://support.toshiba-tro.de/tools/portege/pm100/win-98/wlesslan-pm100-win98-1160.zip

Message Edited by sm5w2 on 01-31-2004 12:06 AM

Could you give links to the locations of the drivers you found?

Thanks!

It's normal for vendors of mobile parts to reference the OEM for drivers - that's why Dell provides drivers for all of the devices, for the OS that came installed on the computer.

I'm not sure why anyone would want to run Win98 instead of WinXP, unless (as in my case), they have programs that won't run under XP. I got my 98 partition up and running, and my Dos-based programs run fine under it, but I use WinXP for everything else, since it's a more stable OS, and it's easier to work in than 98.

For sound issues, I had problems as well while running under the manufacturer's drivers. The last time, I tried some Dell drivers (for the Inspiron 4000, an older model than mine), which didn't solve the problem, and then I installed drivers from ESS (the manufacturer of the card). This seemed to work... maybe there is something missing in the drivers provided by the manufacturer that Dell includes? Of course, if there aren't any Dell drivers for your card, this may not be a solution that works for you. Maybe there are drivers for older iterations of the card?

I'll put together a more comprehensive post later, but unless I've missed anything I've posted links to (all?) the drivers in earlier posts.  It hasn't been easy to find win-98 drivers for this 600m.  There is clearly a consipiracy to kill 98 by hiding drivers and not making them available (not because 98 has any inherent shortcoming as an OS).  Many vendors of chips and components are using the excuse that "hey, we just make the chips, go to your computer vendor or system integrator for the drivers".  Intel claims to have something called "reference drivers" but I can't find them.

Here's a link some of you might find interesting:

http://www.intel.com/support/notebook/centrino/os.htm

Anyways, here is a link to the audio drivers:

I am still trying to get the modem working.  Dell's part number for it is BCM94154M which there is no mention of such a number anywhere on the internet.  This is a Broadcom modem, basically equivalent to a controller-less "win-modem" typically used by desktop pc's.  After many downloads of what looked like good candidates from Dell, Gateway, and a few other places, I actually did manage to install what looked like a driver that the system was happy with, and a "BCM V.92 Voicemodem" now appears in my device list.  But it doesn't work (although the device manager says it's working fine).  It doesn't appear to have created any sort of working link to a COM port.  I've been studying the .INI and .INF files related to all the modem drivers I've gathered as well as run the program ListMdm to see what the Vendor ID, Device ID, Sub-vendor ID and Device ID are for this device.  I might have to alter the content of some of these .INF files, or disable the modem and buy a third-party modem for this thing (one that comes with win-98 drivers).

The modem file I found is: Msi_MS-6946_win9xme.zip (which I've tried but can't determine where I got it from).  Somehow it's associated with a Microstar motherboard (6946) but internally the files are Gateway drivers dated 8/6/02.  This page might help:

http://www.modemsite.com/56k/bcm.asp

A few things I still have to look into:

1) volume control and speaker mute buttons (beside the power button) don't seem to work (but I can play sounds through the speakers).  What Dell-specific audio applications or utilities should I look into?

2) When shutting down, I get the "it is now ok to turn your computer off" message instead of the computer turning itself off.   Anyone know how to make that work?

My needs for 98 are a little simpler...

People like to call me (at all hours) for advice on their computer.  It's been so long since I used 98, that I am rusty.  I just figured it would be nice to boot into 98 to see what they are looking at, instead of guessing.

The greedy part of my alter-ego wants it to work!

(Now if I could just get it to emulate from within XP, so I wouldn't have to reboot........)

Found the 98 drivers from Broadcom here:

http://www.broadcom.com/drivers/downloaddrivers.php

That covers the 570 integrated ethernet.  Still looking for the Wireless 1300.

Also need the touchpad drivers from Alps.  I'm sure I can get som genric ones, but I like the scroll functions in the later versions.  Anyone?

Found some generic ALPS Touchpad drivers here:

http://members.driverguide.com/driver/detail.php?action=downloadnow&driverid=60165&from_ums=1

If you need to login, use:

login:             drivers

password:     all

Hope that helps!

Message Edited by incognito_user on 02-01-2004 10:11 PM

Dell has some TrueMobile drivers for 2000... wonder if those would work?

http://search.dell.com/results.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=DHS&cat=sup|dyd&cs=19&k=truemobile+1300&img=True&sum=True&qmp=10&qo=0&eh=NoEvent&rrr=False

If you can't adjust the volume, you need other sound card drivers.

I might try the ALPS touchpad drivers, but I found that my touchpad worked right off the bat.

I was poking around with the Dell Drivers and Utilities disk and managed to (partially?) install something called "quickset".  It comes up in the system tray.  When I try to open it, I get the message "You do not have adequate rights to set power schemes.  Contact your system administrator".  Yea, sure I will.  Seems I can control on-screen brightness, volume, wireless activity indictor with this (or at least that's the theory).  Oh- now when I press the small speaker mute or volume control buttons an on-screen volume control slider pops up (but it doesn't respond to the volume buttons). 

From the Dell cd I also installed something called the Modem Helper.  It tells me that an unsupported modem was detected so it can't help me.  Brilliant. 

Broadcom Advanced Control Suite (v.6.13) doesn't seem to work properly (tells me the 570x driver isin't loaded).

Although the sound effects come through just fine, and I can play digital audio from the internet, I don't think I can play CD's (they play, but I can't hear them).

My fan comes on and off so there's some automatic control kicking in there.

I've installed a "Dazzle" USB compact-flash reader and it works so the USB ports are working ok.

And- I don't think I'm going to be able to get the floppy working via the USB cable.  I took the floppy apart and it's a Sony.  Model number is MPF820U (go ahead and google that - you won't get anything).  Another number on it is U5/1D6 and also 4-671-035-31.  I've been able to find a Sony MPF820, but it's listed as having an IDE interface.  It's really the same floppy.  There is a very small board that translates IDE signals into USB that goes to the main floppy board.  I've tried a few old VAIO floppy drivers but they don't work.

I have the "port replicator" for this 600m (kinda s*cks that the older Inspiron's have a docking station where you slide the laptop into, rather than drop in onto this "replicator" which I don't think I like doing).  Anyways, I connected the replicator and turned on the 600m.  Windows started in VGA mode and said it detected a new configuration (and it called it "dock1") and it did some sort of reconfiguration and then did a re-start.  Trouble is it stayed in VGA and I had to force-feed it the Radeon drivers.  Ethernet port (and external mouse port) worked fine.

I've done the Windows-update thing (nice that Micro$oft is still supporting 98 that way), installed DirectX 9, Media player, updated Intermet Exploiter, and now it's time to crack open my MSDN and install good old Office 2000 Pro...