Running 8gb memory in dell 9100

[spd07006]

Is there anyway to run 8gb memory in a Dell 9100, running Vista 64bit OS?

 

[Deleted member 217926]

I am finding several different Dell 9100s. A laptop with a Pentium 4 and a desktop with a Pentium 4 or Pentium D. The desktops I see support very early DDR2 533 and only 4gb of it.

 

[polligamoz]

My neighbor threw their Dimension 9100 out in the street the other day. They aren't worth much now, but seem nice.

It had a Core 2 Duo E4300 – 1.80 GHz (2 MB L2, 800 MHz FSB) 65W cpu, so the fan runs quietly and the machine is not a slug. Maybe this means it was one of the last ones made and/or it had a different mobo to other 9100s? It has an OEM WinXP MediaCentre 2005 license sticker, and the CT017/0CT017 RevA00 motherboard looks identical to all the Dimension 9200 i965 boards people are selling online- I just can't see any chipset as it is covered by a heatsink. No other differences are visible.

Once I blew out the dust and connected it, the CMOS screen reported BIOS v2.5.3 (11/22/07), Dell service tag 8P5RQ1S, System DXP061.

Armed with all that, I had a look online to see if I could buy some cheap old parts and make it a bit snappier: Found that a lot of people seem to have Pentium D versions, and worse, have trouble making them go with anything better, like Core 2 Duo or Quad CPUs. However this E4300 is factory fitted.

https://ark.intel.com/products/28024/Intel-Core2-Duo-Processor-E4300-2M-Cache-1_80-GHz-800-MHz-FSB

Installed were 2x1GB DDR2-667 Samsung UDIMMs.

Again, people in these forums and elsewhere online say expansion is severely limited. Apparently the 945 The chipset is limited to 4GB and seem to stop with 4x1GB sticks 2x2GB sticks of DDR2-667. Some said it reported more in the BIOS screen when they installed more, but the OS couldn't access more than 4GB. Many say you cannot use server type ECC and registered memory even though it reports ECC status in the BIOS Memory Info page, however when I tried some it didn't POST.

I've found however that the memory limitations people talk about are entirely wrong... and have verified the following:

Any paired combination with or without the 2x1GB factory Samsung sticks, but only @667Mhz speed. All in dual interleaved mode

Tested working:
DDR2 2GB PC2-6400U 800 MHz CL6 (Kingston KVR800D2N6 and Geil GX24GB6400DC)

So far, Linux reports 2, 4 and 6GB configurations. So I ordered another 2x2GB sticks of KVR800D2N6 as maybe 8GB will work too.

A quiet machine with 8GB, possibly a i965 chipset and a 9200 board from the factory. And it looks okay (from the side only), boots from anything, has two slide-in drive bays and runs 5 or 6 SATA devices and seems well made. All I need now is a low power CPU... or a faster one, then I can use it!

I had a Core 2 Quad Q6600 CPU, but it is a 105W CPU. Similar but perhaps the Quad CPUs/high power CPUs are not defined in the BIOS (It didn't post).

So now the question is just, what is the fastest CPU it will run? A Core2 Duo E4700?

 

[Deleted member 217926]

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