compaq 6515b memory

compaq 6515b memory

(note to self: this is here so I don't forget to add it - I need to get some memory - when I find it, put the best place to buy compaq 6515b memory here. )

HP Compaq 6515b Notebook

These are the specs on the hp compaq 6515b notebook, borrowed from the HP site. My laptop specs are bolded ...

System features

See detailed specs US QuickSpecs » html » pdf

Operating system

Genuine Windows Vista® Business
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Basic
Genuine Windows Vista® Business with downgrade to Windows® XP Professional custom installed
FreeDOS

Processors available

AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TL-64 (2.2 GHz, 2 x 512 KB L2 cache)
AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TL-60 (2.0 GHz, 2 x 512 KB L2 cache)
AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TL-58 (1.9 GHz, 2 x 512 KB L2 cache)
AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TL-56 (1.8 GHz, 2 x 512 KB L2 cache)
AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TL-52 (1.6 GHz, 2 x 512 KB L2 cache)
AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TL-50 (1.6 GHz, 2 x 256 KB L2 cache)
AMD Turion 64 Mobile Processor MK-38 (2.2 GHz, 512 KB L2 cache)
Mobile AMD Sempron Processor 3800+ (2.2 GHz, 256 KB L2 cache)
Mobile AMD Sempron Processor 3600+ (2.0 GHz, 256 KB L2 cache)
Mobile AMD Sempron Processor 3500+ (1.8 GHz, 512 KB L2 cache)

Chipset

AMD M690T

Memory

Memory 512 MB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
1 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

Memory slots

2 SODIMM slots

Storage

Hard drive

80 GB 5400 rpm SATA
120 GB 5400 rpm SATA
160 GB 5400 rpm SATA
250 GB 5400 rpm SATA
80 GB 7200 rpm SATA
120 GB 7200 rpm SATA

Optical Drives

DVD
DVD/CD-RW combo
DVD+/-RW SuperMulti with Double Layer
LightScribe DVD+/-RW SuperMulti with Double Layer

Graphics and Input/Output devices

Display size 14.1-inch diagonal WXGA anti-glare
14.1-inch diagonal WXGA BrightView

Graphics

ATI Radeon X1250
Microsoft DirectX 9 capable

Audio, Slots, and Ports

Ports Standard:
4 USB 2.0
1 1394a
1 RJ-11
1 headphone/line-out
1 microphone in
1 battery connector
1 docking connector
Rear:
1 external VGA monitor
1 RJ-45
1 AC power
1 S-video

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Slots

1 Type I/II PC card
1 6-in-1 media reader
(An optional Integrated Smart Card Reader is available and would replace the Type I/II PC card slot)

Audio

High Definition Audio support w/24-bit DAC; Integrated stereo speakers; Integrated microphone; Touch-sensitive controls for volume up, volume down, and mute; Stereo headphone/line out; Stereo microphone in

Communication features

Network interface Integrated Broadcom NetLink Gigabit Ethernet Controller (10/100/1000 NIC)
Modem 56K V.92 modem with digital line guard
Wireless Broadcom 802.11a/b/g draft n; Broadcom 802.11a/b/g; Broadcom 802.11b/g; Bluetooth 2.0
Broadband service provider AT&T Wireless BroadbandConnect; Verizon Wireless BroadbandAccess

Product specifications

Weight 5.0 lb (2.6 kg)
Dimensions (w x d x h) 13.03 x 9.57 x 1.33 in (330.9 x 243.1 x 33.7 mm)
Energy Efficiency
Energy Efficiency ENERGY STAR® qualified

Battery

6-cell (55 WHr) high capacity Lithium-Ion

Power supply

External 90-watt Smart AC adapter, 6-foot (1.8-meter) power cord included. Total length including external AC adapter is 12 feet (3.66 meter). HP Fast Charge

Manageability

Security management HP ProtectTools Security Manager; HP Fingerprint Sensor; Configuration Control Hardware; Memory Change Alert; Ownership Tag; Setup Password; Power-On Password; TPM Enhanced DriveLock (disabled where use is restricted by law); TPM 1.2 Embedded Security Chip (disabled where use is restricted by law); HP Disk Sanitizer; HP 3D DriveGuard; Kensington lock slot

Service and Support

hp compaq 6515b notebook Warranty Feature HP Services offers limited 3-year and 1-year standard parts and labor warranty, pick-up or carry-in, and toll-free 7 x 24 hardware technical phone support (depending on model); 1-year limited warranty on primary battery. On-site service and warranty upgrades are also available.

Where I find my compaq 6515b drivers

It seems these days that whenever I try to find drivers, in my case particularly, "drivers for compaq 6515b" , I just seem to find a lot of landing pages which tell me how to scan my computer for which drivers I need, then I end up with a report saying 'these are the drivers you need, and we have them!' , but it is really just a link to buy some driver management program. Not what I'm looking for, I just need the drivers.

I run Windows XP Pro, which is what came with my compaq 6515b. I've only had a few problems with drivers - so here is where I find the drivers ...

... update July 2010 ... I just had to rebuild everything, and had to go download pretty much all the drivers. This page has most HP compaq 6515b drivers .

After updating, I was left with a couple of 'unknown device' entries in the device manager list. Two drivers I didn't think I needed, but ended up getting rid of these annoying entries were the HP 3D drive guard, and the quick launch buttons drivers.

ow ow ow - failed to successfully scan disks for windows installations

This is quite ironic, that the first real post on my blog is a story about a near disaster ... ah well, that makes the most interesting reading, eh? And that's what I'm aiming to talk about in this pseudo-tech blog - how to fix problems with your compaq 6515b. Now, I know that this story isn't particularly specific to that exact notebook model - but that's the one I own, so that's how my story s will be written. If you own a 6515b laptop, then follow along ... maybe I can save you some headaches, answer some questions, or just give you some tips about some cool software.

Ok, here's my very sad, but happy ending story. It takes place over 24 hours.

So, yesterday the power was out most of the day, which is not unusual. I am a Canadian, currently living in a beach town on the Pacific Coast of Nicaragua. (it's the best home office I've ever had, by the way). Although it's a lovely country, if you live here you need to accept that the infrastructure is still third world quality. By now, we are quite used to the frequent power outages, so I have a ups which will last ~6hrs. This will power my wireless internet radio, router, and laptop. So everything was working fine, and I was being productive.

Then the ups died ... at which point I continued to work without internet until my laptop died ... which was fine. This just meant I would get go wander around town and visit people earlier rather than later. Although I wasn't happy my laptop, because lately it's only been lasting on battery for about a ½ hour. The battery seems to be getting worse and worse - this might warrant another post another day.

Anyway, it powered down, but I didn’t close the laptop right away. And then I noticed that it actually did a reboot, so now it is back on, and is running with the battery level showing zero. I've been having some problems with hibernate lately - as far as I can tell, I may be too low on disc space, so the laptop hibernates, then crashes, because the next thing I know it's rebooted itself and stays powered on.

In any event, my laptop is back on - albeit operating on zero battery power. "Well great!!" I think. Maybe my battery is fine, I just have to try and reset the alarms, or battery level detector or something, and I’ll get normal battery life again. Anyway, I continued to work for almost another hour. Sadly, I forgot that it wasn’t going to be able to do a software shutdown – "ker-clunk" - now it's powered down for real.

But that's ok, because it's supper time anyway, so I put on my flip-flops and headed out. Part-way through the baseball game - oh, 2 things about San Juan Del Sur - 1) generators, and 2) Nicaraguans *love* baseball - the power came back on, and everyone cheered. (Seriously, the whole town does an ‘awww’ when the power goes out, and a cheer when it comes back on).

So I finished supper, and came back to get a few more hours of work in. I turned everything back on – and my poor little compaq 6515b says 'ow, that last power down hurt', and it shows me the black screen with a bunch of start up options : ‘reboot to safe mode’, ‘last known good configuration’ etc. So I try every option, and the thing is not going to reboot. We're in an infinite loop.

Ok, I try my XP cd - oh right, it's not bootable. Damn, I have to make a boot disk. And the only spare machine I have is a vista machine. That whole process took a little while - but again, perhaps that can be another post another day. So I pretty much have it figured out by the time I go to bed. First thing the next morning I get up, get everything ready, download some freeware to create the bootable install cd, and I burn it. Great. I put it in – the compaq boots up - yay!

But now I’m on the ‘repair or reinstall Windows’ screen. Decision time. I try repair – it goes back to the infinite loop screen from last night. I try the repair console – oh, it only sees my recovery drive D:, it doesn’t give me the option to choose C:. I go into the recovery console anyway. So it seems that I can 'cd C:' and get to the C: drive. But I try to do a 'dir' ... ooooh - bad. It won’t list files, says there’s an error. This is very sad news.
Let's try bootcfg – OH DRAG - this message looks really quite bad. ‘failed to successfully scan disks for windows installations’. By the way, I had already done hours of bios disk and memory checks the night before, both checked out ok at that point.

So, my options now are to reformat and reinstall, because it can’t find an installation to repair, or wait until I can find someone to try and recover the data from my drive. The thing is, I really need to get this going today, because I have a deadline that I'm late on. So getting a working laptop was priority.

So by all means we're not going to format. But I still do some searching on how to get my compaq 6515b booting up again. At the same time, I'm now trying to figure out if installing xp on my external backup drive will let me run with that as my boot/working disc. It should, but that would be painful. And I’d have to setup my dev environment all over again, and then I’d have to go find someone to recover my data, and getting xdebug working was really quite tricky, and oh ya, what to do about the public/private keys for my ssh accounts ... I'm going to be locked out. Super drag. Ow ow ow.

Ok, I've gone back to the recovery console, and I'm sitting at the C: promt, which seems to run programs, but just won't list any files. I finally try chkdsk /r (although I thought my bios disk check had already done this) – this takes 2 hours. BUT!!! aaaa ... YAY! It says it fixed (some) things!! … and now 'dir' gives me a listing!!!! I think there is hope!

So I continue on, and do a chkdsk /p (which is another ½ hour). Then I do a fixboot (success). Then I take out the boot cd, and reboot. The reboot took like 15 mins, so it still wasn’t a sure thing yet … but yay!!! Windows rebooted! Files all still there! Ow. That was scary. And annoying. I do have all my website work svn’ed, but I’ve got a bunch of stuff that is not recently backed up ... well, it is now.

Ok, everyone is happy, my little compaq 6515b is happy, I haven't lost a months worth of stats, ideas and screenshots. All is good in sunny vacation town.

The last of the non-glossy screen laptops

This laptop - the compaq 6515b - took me quite a while to find ... but once I did, it only took about 20 minutes for me to decide that it was by far the best laptop available (at the time). The biggest determining factor was the matte finish screen - an increasingly rare find in laptops over the course of 2007.

Many factors come into play when I buy a laptop ... speed, resources, price, battery life ... I tend to do an exhaustive review of all mid to cheap laptops, and find the one with the best set of features built in.

So this is where I will start posting my reviews, compaq 6515b drivers, add-ons, best configurations etc etc. If you own a compaq 6515b laptop you may want to bookmark this site so you can come back to check out new information or solve problems that crop up.