I recently got a used Dell Insprion 8000 and I've installed SuSe 9.1 and I'm quite happy with it. But suspend and standby modes don't work. I did some googling and found a site that said after bios version A17 (my bios currently is A21) the kernel started issuing an error message about bad dell latitude C800 bios being detected and refusing to enable standby/suspend. Another site mentioned that after upgrading to certain versions it's impossible to downgrade!

Now, when I look at the changelogs for the latest inspiron 8000 bioses, they have stuff I want -- optimizations to battery use and fans. But will not being able to suspend/standby be worth it in terms of battery life? Or was that site out of date and some much later version than A17 fixed the problem? Or perhaps the newer kernels fixed it?

There's so much info I can't tell what's up to date and what's not, and some sites downright contradict each other. So, anyone have any experience with flashing the inspiron 8000? Or perhaps somebody knows of a good authoratative site that can explain the best bios to get?