What NOT to do....

[pumptin]

Word to the wise....

Do NOT load a Dell Optiplex GX270 with,
2gig 2700 ram,
2x80gig WD HD
SBAudigy2 Gamer
Sapphire X800GTO 256 AGP

Creates a MARVELOUS FIRE with pretty red/blue/green colors.... (

Guess the PSU Dell claimed would handle it, FAILED!!)

 

[Jake_Barnes]

PC Power & Cooling makes compatible upgrade PSU's for many Dell models - the moderators at the Dell forums (reluctantly) admit that they're good. Many users there agree (my 1st PC was a Dell).

PCP&C units are expensive but the upgrades can handle newer, better GPU's etc. Worth a look (watch out for sticker shock).

Note: Dell will not sell you a better PSU for a system. They want you to buy a new PC :roll:

Power Supplies for Dell Computers

 

[dean7]

Good call on PCP&C.

Yeah, why sell $100 PSUs when you can sell new PCs to a bunch of helpless end users that don't know about upgrade paths? Less support for Dell, more profit. Everybody wins! (except the customers)

 

[ikjadoon]

You know, you could possibly run an 8800GTX on a Dell. Depends. Anyways, my point is: get one of those 5.25 GPU PSUs. Those should work in Dells magnificently. Depends, though. The GPU also draws power from the slot, which is powered by the crappy Dell PSU and the slot can take up to 75W..It might work.

I'm sorry about your computer, though...

~Ibrahim~

 

[dean7]

Actually the 5.25 drive bay PSUs don't draw power from the Dell PSU. They connect to external power. Here's an example:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817104019

So you might be able to power a demanding GPU w/ one of those. But, I imagine that would have to produce some extra heat in your PC case, so I'm not sure how a Dell would handle that.

 

[Jake_Barnes]

Dell systems have proprietary mobo's (plugs), PSU mounts, etc.
As I understand it, the PCP&C units are custom configured to fit Dell PC's. Standard ATX PSU's might not fit properly and have plug issues - but we'd need a Dell owner to try and confirm this.

Personally, if I had a Dell worth upgrading - I'd bite the bullet and get the PCP&C unit.

 

[sailer]

Creates a MARVELOUS FIRE with pretty red/blue/green colors..

And its not even the Forth of July. Sad. Years ago, Dell was considered one of the top PC builders. I bought one, way back in '98. It upgreaded easily and the instruction books with it even told how to make the upgrades. But now, how sad.

I only can hope that some of the components survived and can be used again. Otherwise you're pretty well stuck for building an all new computer whether you wanted to or not.

 

[ikjadoon]

Actually the 5.25 drive bay PSUs don't draw power from the Dell PSU. They connect to external power. Here's an example:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817104019

So you might be able to power a demanding GPU w/ one of those. But, I imagine that would have to produce some extra heat in your PC case, so I'm not sure how a Dell would handle that.

Yeah, I know that. OK, your 8800GTX can draw power from two sources. Your two PCI-e connectors AND the slot itself. The 5.25" PSU can only provide power to the PCI-e connectors. But what about the slot? It can ask the Dell PSU to provide up to 75W of power! That is why I think it may not work. The Dell PSU may not be able to handle that extra 75W.

And the heat, lol, too...

Maybe not feasible, but possible.

~Ibrahim~

 

[PixelPimP]

Dell told you it would handle the upgrade, but it didn't?
That's just wrong, bad dell! BAD!

 

[ikjadoon]

Dell told you it would handle the upgrade, but it didn't?
That's just wrong, bad dell! BAD!

Probably not, but I wouldn't be too surprised.

~Ibrahim~

 

[clue69less]

Note: Dell will not sell you a better PSU for a system. They want you to buy a new PC :roll:

That is a subset of the universal Dell solution:

Pay mo money to Dell!!!

 

[ikjadoon]

Aren't their UltraSharp monitors pretty nice, though? I'm liking their 22" E228WFP. Off-topic, but...

I had some some problems with Dell and their "BTX" form factor. I was trying to install a HiS IceQ X1300 Pro in there. They just could have moved the Ethernet port a few millimeters over, but no...Kind of my fault, though. Should've researched it.

~Ibrahim~

P.S. "Pay 'mo' money to Dell"?

 

[clue69less]

Aren't their UltraSharp monitors pretty nice, though? I'm liking their 22" E228WFP. Off-topic, but...

I do like their monitors. I just don't like some of their attitudes WRT upgrading, etc.

 

[JimSpaza]

Dell systems have proprietary mobo's (plugs), PSU mounts, etc.
As I understand it, the PCP&C units are custom configured to fit Dell PC's. Standard ATX PSU's might not fit properly and have plug issues - but we'd need a Dell owner to try and confirm this.

Personally, if I had a Dell worth upgrading - I'd bite the bullet and get the PCP&C unit.

I have a Dell 4600 and have upgraded the power supply and memory without any problems.

I replaced the 240W (?) power supply that came with the PC with a nice 430W Antec Truepower unit because I wanted to upgrade from the built-in Nvidia 5200 video card to an ATI X850XT PE card. Talk about an very nice upgrade in gaming quality!

I might have gotten away with the new video card with the old power supply; but, why take the chance, especially when the old power supply was only 240W or so?

I had absolutely no problem connecting the Antec power supply to the Dell case or any of the other components.

I added a 1GB stick of Crucial memory (I forget the specifics) also without any problem whatsoever.

I had heard about the Dell proprietary issues but saw none at all with my Dell 4600 PC. I even instant messaged Dell's tech support via their website and spoke to an intelligent rep about the power supply upgrade. The only consideration that the Dell rep mentioned was making sure that the new power supply was ATX-compatible, which it was.

 

[Jake_Barnes]

Good to hear you had such good luck. I had heard differently, but I stand corrected! Thanks.

 

[dean7]

Yeah, I know that. OK, your 8800GTX can draw power from two sources. Your two PCI-e connectors AND the slot itself. The 5.25" PSU can only provide power to the PCI-e connectors. But what about the slot? It can ask the Dell PSU to provide up to 75W of power! That is why I think it may not work. The Dell PSU may not be able to handle that extra 75W.

And the heat, lol, too...

Maybe not feasible, but possible.

~Ibrahim~

Oops... I misunderstood your point.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure most Dells can at least handle the 75W drawn from the slot itself. I have a Dell Precision w/ 7600GT running just fine (and 7600 comes close to pulling the full 75W I believe... it clocks in at like 65 as I recall and I have mine OC'd).

 

[ikjadoon]

Good point. The 7600GT doesn't require a power connector, so all the power is coming from the slot. Yeah, I'm sure it pulls close to the 75W max. Thanks for the info!

~Ibrahim~

P.S. What wattage PSU's are they putting in their current models? Better yet, how many amps on the 12V+?

 

[JimSpaza]

Good to hear you had such good luck. I had heard differently, but I stand corrected! Thanks.

Well, you are probably right about most other Dells, at least the ones older than my 4600. It seems that someone at Dell made a good command decision to move away from proprietary components.

My next step is to try to connect to my 4600 a new 320 GB Seagate 7200.10 SATA hard drive (Christmas present), keep the existing 120 GB SATA hard drive, and connect an old 40GB IDE hard drive...if I can. I think that the 430W Antec power supply will be able to handle it all. I hope that the Dell motherboard can handle it too.

If it blows up, I'll let you know. If it works just fine, I let you know even sooner.

So, the OS and programs will go on the 7200.10 320GB drive, my user files will go on the current 120 GB drive, and temp files such as temporary internet files and the OS swap file will go on the older 40 GB IDE drive.

Don't worry. I'll back up everything to an external hard drive before I begin. I've never slipstreamed Windows. So, I'll just reinstall the OS on the new drive and spend a few hours downloading the updates from Microsoft's website. I just hope that I know what I am doing. If you're a religious person, I'd appreciate some prayers.

 

[boogityboo04]

P.S. What wattage PSU's are they putting in their current models? Better yet, how many amps on the 12V+?[/quote]

305w, 18A

 

[djplanet]

Is it possible to customize a high-end Dell with a crappy graphics card, then replace it with a decent one later at a lower price? Would the high-end system retain the quality PSU necessary to run a high-end card, even if it was factory swapped out, or would they put in a lower PSU?

(Even I don't feel I communicated this clearly, don't be afraid to ask what the hell I'm talking about.)

 

[JimSpaza]

Is it possible to customize a high-end Dell with a crappy graphics card, then replace it with a decent one later at a lower price? Would the high-end system retain the quality PSU necessary to run a high-end card, even if it was factory swapped out, or would they put in a lower PSU?

(Even I don't feel I communicated this clearly, don't be afraid to ask what the hell I'm talking about.)

From what I can tell on Dell's website, no. Now, you may be able to finagle (ancient Latin word meaning make things happen the way you want them through ingenious verbalization techniques) the exact configuration that you want if you speak to a customer rep.

From my experience, when you use Dell's website to select a high-end system and customize it, you are restricted to two or three (or so) high-end video card options. I know what you are wanting. You want to select a high-end basic system (relatively good motherboard, memory, CPU, and power supply) but then select an imbedded Nvidia 5200-level video card to save $$$. Later, you would buy an x1900 or something equivalent and have the Dell-supplied power supply ready to handle it. I doubt that Dell will let you configure one of their products that way.

Maybe it's time to take the plunge and put together your own system from scratch.

P.S. Hmmm...Maybe try buying one of Dell's servers which can come with a lot of power but might have a wimpy video card option since servers tend to be used for processor-intensive or file/mail/internet serving operations and not graphics capabilities. You may get more hard drive storage, speed, and expandability functions than you need (and will pay for it); but, you might make up the difference in some savings on the lower quality video end of things. Doubtful, but you never know.

 

[dean7]

P.S. What wattage PSU's are they putting in their current models? Better yet, how many amps on the 12V+?

My PC is older, but it has 350w PSU. Dell doesn't really say what the amperage of the 12V+ is. I tried looking at my PSU, but I can't really see and I would have to take HS off CPU (it has a massive HSF setup that's actually quite impressive looking for Dell). Here's the specs good ol' Dell provides:

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ws370/en/ug/findinfo.htm#1054387

Anyway, I only got it because I got an OK deal on it, it's a Precision workstation, and I was using it for work stuff and didn't want to deal with slapping components together at the time. Oh, and I have 10K SCSI in it, which is pretty cool.

 

[dean7]

Hmm... I'm a little confused about what you are asking. But, you can always use something like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817104019

It's just that right now the cost is pretty hefty so you might as well get a new PSU from PCP&C.

 

[PixelPimP]

Oh, I thought the last line of his post meant that they claimed it would
handle it. my bad

 

[JimSpaza]

Good to hear you had such good luck. I had heard differently, but I stand corrected! Thanks.

Well, you are probably right about most other Dells, at least the ones older than my 4600. It seems that someone at Dell made a good command decision to move away from proprietary components.

My next step is to try to connect to my 4600 a new 320 GB Seagate 7200.10 SATA hard drive (Christmas present), keep the existing 120 GB SATA hard drive, and connect an old 40GB IDE hard drive...if I can. I think that the 430W Antec power supply will be able to handle it all. I hope that the Dell motherboard can handle it too.

If it blows up, I'll let you know. If it works just fine, I let you know even sooner.

So, the OS and programs will go on the 7200.10 320GB drive, my user files will go on the current 120 GB drive, and temp files such as temporary internet files and the OS swap file will go on the older 40 GB IDE drive.

Don't worry. I'll back up everything to an external hard drive before I begin. I've never slipstreamed Windows. So, I'll just reinstall the OS on the new drive and spend a few hours downloading the updates from Microsoft's website. I just hope that I know what I am doing. If you're a religious person, I'd appreciate some prayers.

OK. Everything worked. The Dell 4600 is now working fine with three internal hard drives (2 SATA, 1 IDE). The new Seagate 7200.10 320GB is nice, quiet, and faster than the 120 GB Western Digital originally supplied with the Dell 4600. The IDE hard drive is an old, noisy 10 GB Seagate which is now being used only for OS swap and temporary internet files.

The Antec 430W power supply, which replaced the one (240W ?) that came with the 4600, seems to be more than sufficient.

So far, then, I have successfully upgraded a Dell 4600 with an Antec power supply, additional 1GB stick of Crucial memory, and added a SATA and an IDE hard drive.

This is just to let people know that it is possible to upgrade some Dell PCs with non-proprietary hardware.