Legacy Dell Inspiron 4000

The Dell Inspiron 4000 from March of 2000 is distinguished by the 2 external module bays located at the front, where the battery and any one of the compatible drives are located. The back side is more interesting, sporting a whole range of Legacy computer ports, including PS/2, serial, and parallel. The left and right are pretty standard, filling the rest of the necessary I/O.

Flipping it open we see the outlined power button above the keyboard arrangement, with the Dell-E support button to the left of that. Below the keyboard is the touch-based track pad, between 2 pairs of buttons that replicate mouse control (left/right click, etc.). The palm rests on both sides of the track pad assembly can be replaced with any of 4 colors Dell had available (this is purely cosmetic, the protection doesn't change).

Bottom and top only have a few distinguishable features. The bottom has a metal hatch which can be opened with a coin, revealing the RAM sticks, CMOS battery, and PCI card for Internet communication. The top has a large, semi-circle panel with a shimmery Dell logo in the middle, which can be replaced similarly to the palm rests (Refer to Accessories list for more info).

Brand: Dell

Manufacturer: Compal Electronics

Model No.: PP01L

Weight: 2.66kg with floppy drive, 2.8kg with CD ROM drive

dimensions: (WxHxD) 319.5 x 254.0 x 37.4mm

Processor: Intel Pentium III 750 MHz with 'Intel SpeedStep'

• Caches: 32 KB L1, 256 KB L2
• External bus frequency: 100 MHz

Other Processor Options: Available to Official buyers from Dell at the time

• Pentium III 600, 700, 800, or 850 MHz
• Mobile Celeron 600 MHz

Memory: 128MB SDRAM (upon first purchase)

• expandable up to 512MB

Graphics: ATI RAGE Mobility M3* (*graphics chip)

• Integrated 8MB RAM
• AGP 2x

Internal Storage: 12GB ATA-33 hard disk drive

• capacity options*: 6GB, 10GB, 20GB (*for official Dell buyers)

Audio:

• two built-in 4-ohm stereo speakers
• 16-bit stereo analog-digital/vice versa conversion (ESS Maestro 3i)
• Built-in microphone* (*located on the right hand side of palm rest)
• 20-voice 72-operator FM music synth

Compatible OS:

• Windows 3.11 to Millennium Edition* (*can be upgraded to XP SP 1-3)
• Linux Red Hat 7.0

Software Disks:

• Re-installation disk for Dell Inspiron 4000 system software
• Back-up disk for Dell's pre-installed programs
  • Dell-E Software for quick assistance and troubleshooting

Display: 14.1" XGA TFT active color matrix

• Display modes: All use 32-16 bit colors
  • 1024 x 768
  • 800 x 600
  • 640 x 480

Supported Media: (these can be swapped around in the right side modular bay)

• 8x DVD-ROM with built-in software encoding
• 24x CD drive* (*optional)
• 20x CD Re-Writable drive
• 3.5" floppy drive
• ZIP 100 drive
  • A second battery can be used in the bay to double battery life
  • A second hard drive can also be used in the bay for extra storage

Input/Output:

• USB: 1 4-pin (USB 1.1)
• Serial: 1 9-pin
• Parallel: 1 25-pin
• Video connector: 1 15-pin
  • Supported resolutions: UGA, SXGA, XGA, SVGA, VGA
  • there's also an S-video out port on the right side
• Remote control: 1 IR reciever
  • Speeds: Slow 115 Kbps, fast 4 Mbps
• Microphone-in*: 3.5 mm mini jack (*mono only)
• Headphone-out: 3.5 mm mini stereo jack
• External mouse/keyboard: 6-pin mini-DIN PS/2 port (uses both mouse and keyboard)
• Docking Station: Bespoke 200-pin* (*see below for compatible docks)
  • Family Advanced Port Replicator
  • C-Dock Expansion Station
• dial-up & local internet:
  • internal RJ-11 V.90 56K data/fax modem* (*a standard telephone/line cable and port)
  • 10 or 100Mbps RJ-45 LAN jacks* (*A standard Ethernet cable for local networking)
• *The above 2 ports were optional when buying an official product, covering one or both with a door if they aren't wanted by the buyer* (See bonuses and Accessories for more details)

PC card slots:

• Bottom slot: Compatible with Windows OS 95, 98, 2000
• Top and bottom:
  • two 32-bit Type-II
  • one Type-III
  • Card bus-compatible
  • Zoom video support

Keyboard & pointing devices:

• 19 mm keys, 3 mm spacing, 101/102 functionality, 87 visible keys
• IBM analog pointer joystick and touch-sensitive track pad

Power requirements:

• Cable: Bespoke AC adapter
• Battery: removable 8-cell 'smart' Li-ion with 53.0 WHr capacity
  • Located in the left side modular bay, which is only for the battery
• Charge time: 1/1.5 hours charging if the computer is off
• Battery life: 3.5 hours per full charge* (*according to manufacturer's claim)

Swappable LCD back plate and palm rests

• Colors: Tahoe Blue, Storm Gray, Royal Purple, Golden Yellow

Carrying case with internal straps and pockets for serious businessmen

If your unit has no internal modem:

• V.90 56K modem+fax PC card (any brands that makes these at the time will work)

Official Inspiron 4000 support from Dell

Inspiron 4000 Set-up video from Youtube (*Have some water when watching this, it's very dry lol*)

Byte my VDU's blog post on modding and retro gaming for this machine

Reviews:

ITPro's Laptop of 'that' month: Dell Inspiron 4000

HardwareZone's precise specs and testing of the Inspiron 4000 (archived review)

First impressions from TheVooner (Images here are broken from the site's age)

Dell Inspiron 4000 系统：问题解答与指南

Inspiron Setup Instructions (EN, DA, NL, NO, SV)

Dell Inspiron 4000-Systeme Lösungshandbuch

Dell Inspiron 4000 Guide des solutions

Dell Inspiron 4000 システム ソリューションガイド

Dell Inspiron 4000 Guía de soluciones

Dell Inspiron 4000 Guida alle soluzioni