usb driver?

[kimsland]

That 3rd party link had me concerned for a bit

Dell never released Vista drivers for this model
Therefore the OEM Key must be XP

Unless someone has crazily thought who cares about the legal valid XP license, and purchase a retail Vista disc to put on a 5 year old laptop !
I think not

 

[KSoD]

I put Vista on a Dimension 8400. So please try not to judge what people may or may not do. Vista DOES support older PC's like the 8400 and 8600 as i have personally run it on such a old PC with no issues what so ever. So yes it is very likely that they got Vista and put it on a old machine like that.

It did NOT have to be a Retail version either. It could easily have been a Upgrade as well.

So yes I do think that they would put Vista on such a old laptop as i have put it on such a old PC myself. It is not beyond the relms of possibility.

 

[oldskool]

Exactly.

Even though kimsland is correct about that particular setup would not run 64-bit Vista, it MOST CERTAINLY could run VIsta 32-bit.

 

[kimsland]

I put Vista on a Dimension 8400. So please try not to judge what people may or may not do. Vista DOES support older PC's like the 8400 and 8600

Fine

But this "Laptop" is even older than the Dimension 8600
It is a Inspiron 8400, with low specs

 

[oldskool]

He's not, for the following reasons:

His signature specs refer to another computer
This laptop never (and still doesn't) have Vista support
This laptop is also too old for Vista support
I know

There you go

There you go. It can and has supported Vista.

 

[Spud5437]

Sorry for late reply, been away. Thanks very very much for all the help, installed sp2 but still no joy with the USB 2.0?
The laptop is running XP - its my sisters, its crap but useful for surfing and that kind of thing. Will install sp3 and see how that goes.

 

[kimsland]

Judging from the age of the laptop
I'd say the USB hardware may be faulty. USB tends to be the first hardware component that faults on older computers

It will be interesting to hear if SP3 does any better though (I cannot see how, but it just may reset a corrupt driver or something)