Inspiron 620 Windows 10 upgrade

I have the Inspiron 620 and tried the windows 10 update. All seemed ok although the video playback was strange, I assumed codecs would need updating. The next start up came with no sound, I tried updating drivers with no luck, I then tried the front headphone jack and surprise, the sound was fine. After a little more playing around the sound came back on (not sure why) .The next day no sound again and very grainy video, after a couple of unproductive hours I restored the machine back to windows seven. This did not come without problems though, the factory installed OS image has been removed and all system scheduled tasks have been corrupted. It has taken a few days to get the machine running ok but restoring the system tasks is complex and the best way to fix this and I assume the recovery image will be a full restore using the system back up discs I made when the machine was new. I have tried asking Dell the question but they do not seem interested in the many many Inspiron users across the world.

My family and I bought the Dell Inspiron 620 back in late September 2011 with pre-installed Win7 SP1 that has onboard Intel HD Graphics 2000 (Sandy Bridge) and Conexant CX20641 Smartaudio HD.

Thanks for trying out Win10 on your Inspiron 620 machine, trip47.  It looks like I will not be upgrading to Win10 anytime soon and will stick with Win7 & postpone the W10 upgrade for a few more months (until either near end of 2015 or early 2016) due to lack of some Win10 compatible device drivers, especially the Conexant audio and some other potential problem that may occur when using Win10.

For Inspiron 620/620s that use Intel HD Graphics 2000/3000 (Sandy Bridge series), only a Windows Update driver (v9.17.10.4229) will make the device work on Windows 10 as Intel themselves will not provide a Win10 driver for 2nd generation Intel HD Graphics and older Intel graphics chipsets on their web site.

The 620 also uses Realtek Ethernet/LAN and Realtek USB 2.0 Card Reader drivers and Win10 compatible versions of those Realtek device drivers are available from the Realtek web site.

For Intel Management Engine Interface [MEI] device on the Inspiron 620, there's a Win10 compatible version of the Intel MEI driver available from either the Intel web site or Windows Update (v11.0.0.1157).

And for the Dell Wireless 1525 (DW1525) WiFi/WLAN adapter that I have on the 620, a Win10 version of that driver could be used from this package which is v10.0.0.0 (but driver version included is v10.0.0.321.

But the biggest holdup (roadblock) in upgrading to Win10 on the 620 is Conexant 20641 audio, which there are no Win10 compatible audio drivers (except for the built-in high definition audio driver included in win10) for this audio device from Dell.  So I'll either wait for Dell to release a newer conexant audio driver made in 2015 (a longshot) or attempt to use a win10 compatible conexant audio driver from another manufacturer (and modify its INF file) to make the conexant audio on the 620 work.

I was searching for a card reader driver for my 620 when i came across this thread.  For months I've been trying to find a driver after a hard drive crash and a reinstall of win7.  Many forums suggest it is a ricoh driver; I've tried just about every driver I came across.  Today I was determined to get it working. 

When you said it was a Realtek reader, I went there (your link) and found the driver.  Tada!  It works just fine now.  Thanks a lot for your post.  I know this is a win10 upgrade thread, but I would have been pulling my hair out still if I hadn't come across this.

I too am suffering thru the Inspiron 620 / Windows 10 / Conexant smartaudio HD problems.  I've somehow managed to avoid the "no sound" problems that others have reported, but I have an ongoing "Failed to initialize SmartAudio" error with every bootup.  From what I recall, I didn't really *use* the SmartAudio utility, but there also doesn't seem to be any way to uninstall it without also uninstalling everything else for the Conexant product.

So far, this has only been a minor annoyance for me, requiring nothing more than clicking the OK button each time the error warning pops up.  But it is frustrating that Dell and/or Conexant seem completely uninterested in doing anything about this problem.

I have a 620, and the Windows 10 system checker says that my machine is able to be upgraded. However, I think I'll stay with 8.1 for now to see if Dell widens the assessment of its models. I doubt it will though.

Microsoft informed me today that the 620 is NOT Windows 10 compatible and an upgrade probably caused a hard drive to crash.

Upgrade to window 10 works, just update bios and chipset before upgrading to window 10.  For that matter update everything you can before you update to windows 10.  You should have and I5 core more than enough to run windows 10 and you might want to increase your ram to 12 GB  or 16 GB

OS Name Microsoft Windows 10 Pro

Version 10.0.15063 Build 15063

Other OS Description Not Available

OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation

System Name DEN

System Manufacturer Dell Inc.

System Model Inspiron 620

System Type x64-based PC

System SKU To be filled by O.E.M.

Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2310 CPU @ 2.90GHz, 2901 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)

BIOS Version/Date Dell Inc. A10, 2/22/2013

SMBIOS Version 2.6

Embedded Controller Version 255.255

BIOS Mode Legacy

BaseBoard Manufacturer Dell Inc.

BaseBoard Model Not Available

BaseBoard Name Base Board

Platform Role Workstation

Secure Boot State Unsupported

PCR7 Configuration Binding Not Possible

Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS

System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32

Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume2

Locale United States

Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "10.0.15063.0"

User Name DEN\Rusty Edwards

Time Zone Mountain Daylight Time

Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 12.0 GB

Total Physical Memory 11.9 GB

Available Physical Memory 8.49 GB

Total Virtual Memory 23.9 GB

Available Virtual Memory 19.6 GB

Page File Space 12.0 GB

Page File C:\pagefile.sys

Device Encryption Support Reasons for failed automatic device encryption: TPM is not usable, PCR7 binding is not supported, Hardware Security Test Interface failed and device is not InstantGo, Un-allowed DMA capable bus/device(s) detected, Disabled by policy, TPM is not usable

Hyper-V - VM Monitor Mode Extensions Yes

Hyper-V - Second Level Address Translation Extensions Yes

Hyper-V - Virtualization Enabled in Firmware Yes

Hyper-V - Data Execution Protection Yes

I , too, have suffered the same. In the first instance, you offer a pop-up for free upgrade to Windows 10. And then, without notifying the absence of drivers for some hardware, the system upgrades. Luckily, I had backed up Factory Settings Restore. So, now, instead of showing Factory Settings Restore option, I have to select D Drive. It restores to factory settings without removing the partitions - only C drive is formatted and Factory Settings are installed - software that came with the system and other settings. I don't know, why DELL is playing with the sentiments of the users who want to maintain the system in its original format. Or else, DELL should provide all the drivers of Windows 10 to enable users to have the feel of the new OS.   

I have the old Inspiron 620s with windows 10. There's no working sound driver. I bought a cheapo USB sound card and get it done.