Dell v400c !!

[davemar14]

Hi, I am running a Dell v400c desktop as a "beater" machine on my KVM switch. I use it to play music, AIM, and the Internet. I currently have a 20 GB Seagate 5400 RPM drive in it. I have a Western Digital 40 GB 7200 RPM drive I would like to put in it. My question is, I can't for the life of me, find the maximum ATA bus of the board. The chipset is an Intel 82371AB. Also, will the comp even support a 40 GB drive? Thinking of getting the slot1 to socket upgrade. The card is $23 and the Celeron 1.3 GHz is $28. So for $50 I can go from 400 Mhz to 1.3 GHz.

 

[Black_Cat]

You have a PII with the BX440 chipset. I believe those are ATA-66. You shouldn't have a problem with your WD harddrive. Just be sure your slotket you're looking at is compatible with that board.



You've tried and failed. The lesson here is, never try again. -- Homer Simpson.

 

[davemar14]

Well, its a Celeron 400. According to upgradeware's website, the card is compatible with the Dell v400c. I was just wondering if it was ATA 33 or 66. Cause that will make a big difference considering the drive is a 40 GB 8MB cache drive. It will hit higher than the 33 MB ATA bus. But if its 66, I'll be ok. Wonder if the BIOS will detect it? I'll try tommorrow. Thanks.

 

[Black_Cat]

With Dells you never know. The only way to find out is to install it. Are you planning on putting a Tully in there? What slotket are you getting?



You've tried and failed. The lesson here is, never try again. -- Homer Simpson.

 

[davemar14]

The P3's are pretty expensive right now. They are over $100. I found where I can get a 1.3 Ghz Celeron for just $28. That should be a good upgrade from the 400 Mhz. I am not going to game with it. I have my AMD XP system for that.

My System:
<A HREF="http://www26.brinkster.com/amdgamer1/main.html" target="_new">http://www26.brinkster.com/amdgamer1/main.html</A>

 

[davemar14]

Ok. Just cloned the drive over using Norton Ghost. Worked fine. Windows loads much faster. I ran HD Tach and only got an average read of 22 MB a second on the 40GB. That seems kind of low. The 20 GB was getting around 18 MB a second read. I gained 4 MB a sec going from 5400 RPM to 7200 RPM, and a cache different from 2 MB to 8 MB. Is there anyway I can check my ATA bus speed? The device manager was no help. LOL, just doesn't compare to my 2x74GB Raptors in RAID 0.

Update: Found where the board is only ATA33 maybe that explains why its so slow

 

[cruddypuppy]

Hi,
I had a slew of those Bx440's, including a Dell Dimension xps r450. I never saw an 80 lead IDE cable on any of them so you can assume if it doen't say it's probably a 33. Also you can get a Powerleap Plip-3 for those boards. it includes a celeron 1.4 @ 100mhz FSB, takes the worry out of voltage compatibility, and replaces all those tired worn out capacitors that surround the socket. Those old caps don't like being suddenly kicked up 2 or 3 times the freq. The PliP -3 lets them retire gracefully. The machine will perform like a PIII ~ 933mhz. Be careful though they don't work with all chipsets but do usually work with Dell.

<font color=blue>worry is worse than trouble; the worst never happens.

 

[davemar14]

Ok, I did some research between the two products. That is a very good point. I confirmed that the Upgradeware uses existing capacitors while the Powerleap has the capacitors on the upgrade board. I read a review that states that this could be a potential problem. Also many of the older boards can't proivde the necessary voltages and power requirements. I found the Powerleap board for $50. Not too bad. I have one question though. Can I use my Athlon XP 2400+ cooler on the board? Its the stock AMD cooler. It wasn't good enough for a 2400+ but should have no problem with the 1.3 GHz Celeron. From what I remember the Socket 462 and Socket 370 uses the same coolers.

 

[cruddypuppy]

It shouldn't be a problem. But why not get the whole package together. Power leap has the adapter, celeron and cooler all together for about the same as the cost of the cpu and board.

<font color=blue>worry is worse than trouble; the worst never happens.