A cautionary tail for owners of Dell systems.

[eno]

I haven't been about on the forums much for ages .... there have been several reasons for my absence, the main one being yet more computer woes involving graphics cards and power supplies.

My woes began several years ago when I purchased 2 Dell Dimension 4700s for myself and my wife. Mine was to be used for FS and picture editing, my wife's for general day to day stuff. Little did I realise how much hassle was in store when it came to upgrading my computer to keep up with constant hardware upgrades.

The specs for both comps were as follows .... Intel P4 3Ghz with Hyperthreading, 512mb memory, 160Gb Hard drive and an X300 PCIe graphics card. DVD rewriter and a 305watt PSU all packed into the case below.


All worked fine for a couple of graphics card upgrades and added memory. The fun started when it came to upgrade from an X800 graphics card to the X1900 which would require a new PSU. I purchased an Hiper type R 580w PSU and squeezed it into the Dell case, little knowing the potential for trouble.

**** CAUTIONARY BIT ****
I was lucky as most Dimension 4700s' have a standard ATX setup so a standard ATX PSU will fit without causing any problems. MOST DELLS DONT USE STANDARD ATX SO UPGRADING A PSU CAN CAUSE FATAL DAMAGE TO MOTHERBOARD AND PSU. Dell to ATX converters can be purchased online. I in my hurry to upgrade didn't know this and wasn't warned by Dell's tech department that this could be the case ........ Once again I state I was lucky.
It became evident over the next few months that cooling and lack of power from the PSU was causing the X1900 to fail so drastic measures were needed to solve the ongoing problems.
It became evident that the current dell case was not going to be big

[Brett_Henderson]

Most of the OEMs (Dell, Gateway, etc.) have come a long way over the last few years as far as giving you decent performance for the dollar...  BUT (as you're learning) realistic upgrades beyond simply more RAM are a head-ache. The main-boards/chipsets are usually second rate, and existing RAM is cheap and slow... and PSUs are the bare minimum.

You're OK 'cause you're hardware literate enough to sort your way through it.. but the irony is for those who buy Dell because they're intimidated by self-building. To get your money's worth out of a Dell, you've got to dive into building skills anyway.

It might cost a little more up front to self-build.. but you save  BIG  time in the long run... and if you're up to it..  o-clocking puts you WAY ahead of the game; both in performance for the dollar, and time before a major upgrade or new purchaseis required..

[ozzy72]

Dell.... no comment!

[Fozzer]

...another cautionary Tale Tail....>>>

http://www.things2make.com/Things2make_ ... 20tail.htm

..... ...!

Paul....Bed-time stories... ....!

...sorry, eno!.... .... ...!

[Anxyous]

Cool! A flux capacitor!

[AMDDDA]

The only Dells that have quality parts are the XPS's, and the Alienwares.



Even then, it's still limited.



I have a similar story, but it's with a vostro 400 I got a month or two ago ;P... but it still goes from a dell dimension 4700.


If you don't mind, here's the short summary.

1. 512 MB RAM, P4 3.0 Ghz, integrated intel graphics, 4 years of dust inside the case.
2. graphics card goes to 7300 GS, I thrive for more.
3. Mom gets a Vostro 400, and then complains cause Outlook didn't work on it (Impatient).
4. Mom gets gateway that outlook works on.
5. I get Vostro parts, including a Q6600 and a 8600 GTS, and I get the mobo from it as well... along with the 3 gigs of DDR2.
6. FS9 and FSX suddenly become playable, now imagine that!.

[Jon H]

I upgraded the PSU in my Dell inspiron 531 only today. Works fine as I found out on Wikipedia that it has a standard 24 pin ATX motherboard.
All good so far...

[Mushroom_Farmer]

I have two Dell Dementeds, er, Deminsions, both were given to me. One is a 4100 and the other is a XPS T450, both are PIII machines. Ironically the T450 is spec'd out very low - 64MB RAM and 450MHz PIII if I recall correctly.
If I decide to play around with major upgrades and it goes badly, at least I'm not out much.

[expat]

eno,
I thought when I saw the title, it would be an overheating problem. You have a nice insulating layer of dust in that first picture

Matt

[eno]

eno,
I thought when I saw the title, it would be an overheating problem. You have a nice insulating layer of dust in that first picture

Matt

That's the wife's  ;D

[Fozzer]

eno,
I thought when I saw the title, it would be an overheating problem. You have a nice insulating layer of dust in that first picture

Matt

That's the wife's  ;D

The Wife's dust?.... .... .... ...!

.....does she know you've had her Cremated?... ...!

Paul....still having problems with that "Tale/Tail"... ...!

.... ...!

[eno]

Paul....still having problems with that "Tale/Tail"... ...!

.... ...!

So am I Paul ........ can't edit it now  

[Harold]

Mine is just fine. Never had any issues with it. The only issues I had were with the (non-stock Dell) hard drives ...

Though it is rather noisy

[Layne.]

Thats the same Dell i have... i am going to get 4GB of RAM, Vista 64Bit and a nVidia 8800GTS