Dell Inspiron 1520: Viable After Market Upgrades

Yeah I've tried drivers from Intel's website, Toshiba's bluetooth stack and drivers for the XPS 15. Wouldn't bluetooth in BIOS just be fore the dell bluetooth 365 card? Considering Bluetooth is built into the 6230 it wouldn't need that to be on, correct?

 

Bluetooth drivers from Intel's website installed fine after enabling Bluetooth in BIOS but Add a Device cannot find my mouse or any other bluetooth device.

 

I think that's because Dell Inspiron 1520/1720's were made before the time of combined-bluetooth and wifi card. If Bluetooth is an absolute necessity, I recommend purchasing this and installing it in it's appropriate location which is under the hinge cover, next to the power button. It's a simple and easy 2-3 minute install but make sure the battery is out and the power cord unplugged.

However, I've seen people complain about having bluetooth and wireless connection on the same chip. But to be fair, most of those complaints were from the 1030 card not the 6230. But if your wireless is fine, then I recommend doing this. It's far cheaper and you'll better results with this.

 

That isn't cheaper considering I already own the 6230 and it's installed into the 1520, and the 6230 doesn't have the BT+wifi issues that the cheaper card is known to have.

 

Well, the obvious reason for it not working I would say is compatibility which is about 3-4 years, as the Insprion 1520 was launched in 2007 and the Advanced-N 6230 (Rainbow Peak 2x2) was launched in 2011, specifically with the Intel Mobile Series 6 chipsets (Huron River Platform). This was the first time Intel released dual-signal based wireless modules.

It's probably not going to work for the mere fact that the wireless card is supposed to support two signals, one for Bluetooh and the other for a Dual-Band WiFi. That's why your WiFi is working fine and your Bluetooth is unrecognized because your chipset with the Dell Inspiron 1520 (Santa Rosa Platform) isn't designed to pick up two different signals.

What I recommended up there was an alternative method for Bluetooth, one that I use and it provides decent results for my skype-based headest which I use every now and again. You can also try using a usb-based bluetooth set-up if you don't feel comfortable opening up your laptop.

 

Okay as my screen is continuously dieing (when i got it it had 4 steps of brightness) it only has 2 steps of brightness now, I need to source a new panel+inverter, I was trying to find one on ebay but all i could find (WSXGA+) was panel only, and usually had scratches. Anyone know a reputable place to source a 1680x1050 panel + inverter? Matte if possible, Glossy is fine though.

 

You can probably get the WUXGA (1920x1200) for way cheaper (like $100) but the only place I found that offered the cheapest price was actually eBay for ($138). It's the combo.

 

Remember that I don't have the GPU in my board, so I don't know exactly if the 1920x1200 panel will work, hence why I wanted to find the 1680x1050 panel to swap in.

 

Oh in that case, I would recommend the $138 panel, it comes with an inverter.

 

The WUXGA panels will work with any of the graphics options offered with the 1520. I don't think you'll need a new display cable, but I'm not 100% sure about that one.