Dell Inspiron 531 Troubleshooting & Repair - How to Fix a Black Screen and No Boot Issue! 

Hola de nuevo, paso por mis manos exactamente esa misma caja algunos años atrás y me acuerdo muy bien ya que al final se la regale a un sobrino que quería estudiar informática , y lo hizo posible gracias a este equipo en concreto ya que fue su primer equipo y actualmente ya trabaja como Desarrollador full stack web y mobile · Arteco Consulting Sl , Desarrollador fullstack . La caja fue recogida de un punto de reciclaje , estaba en excelentes condiciones , me gusto mucho por el color blanco, las ranuras laterales de aireación, que nunca había visto en una caja así y me llamo la atención , así como el botón azul frontal con los leds . la tapa deslizante frontal era un clásico en las cajas de esa época tanto de Dell como otras marcas,asi como alguna tapa superior para poner algunos CD. Aunque la configuración era muy distinta, siendo la misma fuente de alimentación el equipo se componía de un Intel core 2 Duo , 2 Gb de RAm ddr2 667Mhz y disco de 256Gb con una versión de Windows Vista, una cosa que no me gusto nada fue la posición del disco duro en la caja, ya que en mi caso producía en algunos momentos una especie de vibración o resonancia muy audible al funcionar. Esta caja después de actualizar la bios y algunos de sus componentes (como un procesador Intel core 2 Quad Q6600 Revisión G0 SLACR , 4 Gb de ram ddr2 800 Mhz , tarjeta gráfica Gigabyte con salidas de video Vga + Dvid de 1Gb de Vram y disipación Pasiva para poder conectar 2 monitores , un disco SSD de 128Gb para el sistema operativo y otro disco mecanico de 500Gb mucho mas silencioso por cierto. Decir que el año pasado gracias a sus primeras ganancias del trabajo me pidió que le montara un nuevo equipo con Windows 11 pro , Intel core i5 12400F, 32Gb de ram ddr4@3200 Mhz una Nvidia RTX 3060 y 1 disco Nvme de 1Tb y otro mecanico de 2 TB ,disipador Noctua Nh U-12A , fuente Seasonic de 750W y una caja con cristal y luces rgb . Pero lo mejor de todo es que el antiguo pc ahora ha pasado a su hermana y sigue dando guerra.

Nice find. From previous experiences I have found that Opensuse Xfce or similar is the only thing that runs on those old dual core CPUs, anything else is way too heavy. Having W10 running got me impressed.

Hi, it's me again. 🙂 I rescued the Intel version of this pc many years ago. It seems that it has the same i/o at the back as yours. It runs the fastest core2duo available without issues. Along with a simple quadro video card and 6gb of ddr2 800mhz ram. I use it for diagnostics and cloning hard drives. It even supports hard drives larger than 2tb and even 4tb it seems. :O Cloned a 2tb to a 6tb drive long time ago without any problems. Linux can be very picky with some older amd/ati video cards. Nvidia should work fine.

Hello Jason, yes, it's a neat case and a fine gift, but apparently 4 gig., is the maximum which that computer can handle and that is why Dell only ever installed a 32 bit OS., on those computers. Perhaps you could try installing a 32 bit Linux OS., on a different drive, Linux Mint offer one which is based on Debian as do Sparky Linux and there are others too. I have also had problems with installing Linux on some older computers and I have tried several different distros, Linux Mint Mate and Cinnamon, Zorin, Sparky Linux, Q4OS, to name just a few and I concur that it has to be a bios setting which causes that problem, but I did not find the setting either. One old Lenovo laptop which I fettled was very difficult to get a Linux Distro installed on, but an old 32 bit version of Sparky Linux did eventually install from a disc, however, I did some research into that old laptop and the mistake which I had made was assuming that it was designed for a 32 bit OS., I made that assumption because it has a single core 1.86 GHz., processor, but it's actually designed for a 64 bit OS., and it now has Linux Mint Mate installed on an SSD., and it's maximum of 4 gig., of ram., and it works surprisingly well. One HP 8000 USDT., pc which I fettled will not work with any Linux distro, but it currently works well with Windows 10 installed. An HP laptop which I fettled would let Linux install, but after the first restart it would not see the OS., though it did still see the drive, but it's currently working well with Windows 11 installed. A Samsung laptop which I fettled would not let any Linux OS., install nor would it let Windows install, but when I installed an SSD., from another Samsung laptop it booted straight into the Linux Mint Mate installation which was on the SSD., and Linux Mint immediately saw that it was in a different computer and showed the specifications for that computer and that laptop is currently working well. So to conclude, it's not just you who runs into problems with old computers, in my opinion, it's satisfying when the problems are solved and it's healthy to have interests.

I'm so old school. I whip out a regular voltmeter and stick the probes in the connectors. Collect every modem you find and make a modem lamp 😆. Good attempt at running Linux. Did you try any other versions? Stick a newer micro-atx mb in it and make a sleeper build out of it. 🤣