Switching Dell XPS 8700 to new case

Adaman123,

The Dell XPS 8700 motherboard is indeed micro atx. Your problem of replacing the case is not the motherboard's size. It's the front panel power button. Dell insidiously rigged it by way of pin 9 to pin 5 jumper, that the generic PC cases on the market do not power on the Dell motherboard: everything powers on, only the PC does NOT boot. See my link.

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2940332/dell-inspiron-3847-replacing-case-run-front-panel-pinout-problem.html

However, there's still a hope by BIOS setting. I'm working on it.

Comments and suggestions are welcome, people!

There is a MUCH easier solution to all of this power button problem stuff. The idea is to simply use the original connector from the original case in the new case, by simply splicing, or striping the wires, and then soldering and heat shrinking for max protection.

Unplug the original front panel wiring, and install it into the new case. Then, find the original power button wires from the original case (mine are Blue and Brown), and splice these wires into the new case's power button wiring (mine are Black and White). The darker color wires (i.e. Black or Brown) will be your grounds, and the lighter color wires (i.e. White or Blue) will be the power. The same can then be done for the other connections that don't match the new case's wiring. Voila! Problem solved!

You might think splicing is dangerous, but it's just wire connections. If you heat shrink the wires instead of splicing into them, highly recommended, you really shouldn't have any problems.

Thanks for your suggestion. I'm using the original power button (connector) from the original Dell's case. Only I just let it sit in the new case. No additional work is done to anything. I use the power switch from a power station. You can use the switch on the back of the power supply unit as alternative. It works beautifully. See the above link for my solution.

The IO shield on your old Dell case will not detach so your MB will have an open section in the back. Not a functional issue, but does not look nice and makes attaching USB connectors a bit harder.

Hopefully I can do the reverse, install an mATX ASRock MB, into the XPS 8700 case.

The wiring is there, just have to find & reuse the right ones, other than for USB, only 5-6 wires are needed, am sure that somewhere I can find out which wire serves which purpose to perform the install. The single 4 CPU power pin ought to be enough to power a AMD FX-6300 & the original AMD 7570 GPU that shipped with the PC, which is powered from the MB only.

Cat

I am moving the guts of my Dell 8700 XPS into a new computer case, Fractal Design Define R5 (White). I have yet to figure out the front panel, wiring sequence. But i will figure it out and post what i find in here & other forum post referring to the Dell 8700 XPS. I will probably just use the old power switch, led's wiring plug in, and cut the wires then wire in the new led's, power switch, etc. with the factory plug. I am unsure if this will work but it makes sense that it should. We will just have to wait and see, I will record videos and post them to VID.ME ( https://vid.me/SomethingNewNow ) wish me LUCK!

SomethingNewNow, I wish you all the luck in the World!

Many stated it won't be done 'w/out major case mods' on many Tech Forums, including the Dell Hardware one, just upgraded a Dell Dimension 2400 to a modern MD & FX-6300 CPU, also installed a new PSU in a small designed EVGA 550W B3 Series PSU. Installed a similar sized 'G3' series 550W Gold PSU in my XPS 8700 (where the ASRock Extreme6 is headed after RMA & repair of a socket with bent pins. Expensive yes, yet far less costly than getting a new one from a now mainly 3rd party market at inflated pricing.

Anyway, here's my makeover of the Dimension 2400, done right, only the front headphone/speaker jack doesn't work, although the USB ports does. Just plugged the main connector 'as is' in the Panel socket, fired right up.

http://speccy.piriform.com/results/FIjAXwK2yOwMKVpQjzkFnLJ

Had I been on the Dell engineering team at the time, would had been granted a promotion, on the other hand, although a long run for the model, Dell wasn't using their best components available, to include DDR2 RAM nor SATA-1 HDD's, this was an entry level model aimed at the many first time PC buyers that was widespread during those years.

You should have that hard of a time with the Dell wiring, considering that the Dimension 2400 was a lot more proprietary than the XPS 8700, had no issues with any upgrades to date, not having to resort to installing adapters to accomplish a task such as installing a CPU cooler or other simple upgrade that's painless on the XPS 8700. Which for the most part, uses standard Intel components, to include the MB itself. although a low cost model.

One issue that you may run across & may not like, unless the case has 3 pin fans built in, is that that's all the MB supports, unless using a PWM cable from the CPU for a controlled exhaust fan. If your case has more than two fans, will need to do this anyway, or have some type of Molex to 3 pin adaptors handy. The only other option I know of, and don't want to get too carried away with, is a PWM adapter that'll take 3-4 fans, while looks like a great solution, may be more show than practical, as some brands/models (even the good brands) has low ratings in the reviews. One can take daisy-chaining only so far w/out hitting bumps in the road & why I only use the PWM extension for only one extra fan.

Heck, I didn't use the supplied Noctua PWM splitter to push both fans on my NH-D15 cooler with twin towers (one fan for each), used the regular CPU MB fan header for the first & the CPU_OPT for the other. This gave me precise control over each, running the one sandwiched between the two towers in Turbo Mode, the one on the outer edge at Full Speed, forcing more hot air towards the exhaust. While that's not the way everyone runs the NH-D15, it's how I do, used the PWM splitter to combine the two intakes to the closest fan header, needed the last for the exhaust.
By moving your XPS 8700 MB into a larger case, you should be able to install a Hyper 212 EVO with ease, the Noctua NH-D15 coolers won't fit because of the small MB holes that Dell has for the native one. However, you can add a Noctua NF-F12 PWM 120mm to the Hyper 212 EVO, of which it's native & cheaply made fan will be the loudest & most annoying part of the build after complete, if you go with that cooler.

Sadly, if you're looking for what appears to be a x4 slot to be that, you're out of luck, it's a faux one, while it appears as such, electrically a x1 (PCIe 3.0) only. Which was a huge letdown for me, as I had planned on installing a 512GB Samsung 950 PRO M.2 NVMe SSD there, with an adaptor for the purpose, glad I checked, although accomplished what I desired on another build from the ground up. So you won't be eliminating any bottlenecks that's present, although will be able to have a cooler running PC, as well as a larger GPU, if desired. Those would be the two most compelling reasons to go through the work. a third one would be more room to work inside, and with a larger PSU, be able to add more drives easily.

The mSATA port could had been a great addition, if only the SSD OEM's got heat under control, which continues to dog M.2 SSD's, and why I installed mine off the MB. Note that while the XPS 8900, it's short lived successor, has a M.2 header, it's of the 2nd gen & once again a fumble of the ball on Dell's end, the 3rd gen was in the ASRock Extreme6 back in 2014 (nearly three years earlier), so why MB OEM continues to push Gen 2 M.2 sockets is like still pushing SATA-2 drives or DDR3 RAM, neither of which are no longer 'current tech'. I mean, ASRock introduced a this port (plus a 2nd gen one on the same MB) & today many OEM's are still featuring this long outdated technology.

So while you'll have a nicer looking PC, can add a larger (single) GPU, better CPU cooling option, more drives & have a larger exhaust to expel the hot air from all, that's the end of the road as far as the XPS 8700 MB move goes. Oh, and you may gain a few more years of usage because of any cooling upgrades, of which the intake & exhaust alone may do, adding a CPU cooler is icing on the cake, and with a nice GPU upgrade, a home theater system that anyone could proudly display.

Cat