Intel D925XCV board in Dell 8400

[imported_thomase]

I took advantage of the $500 deal last week. I had been planning on building my own but the deal with the 19" LCD was too good to pass up. I am a little confused about what motherboard is used. I'm pretty sure its the Intel D925XCV or some flavor thereof. Two things I don't get. The board is supposed to have Intel High Definition Audio which supports 8 (7.1) channels. Dell says that the integrated sound solution provides 5.1. Also, Dell doesn't say anything about integrated Firewire but the BOXD925XCVLK at newegg says up to 3 Firewire ports are available. Are there two different versions of this board? Has Dell disabled some features in order to have an excuse to sell you a high end soundcard and/or Firewire adapter?

 

[LTC8K6]

Dell's board is probably proprietary. I don't think you can compare it with a retail Intel board.

 

[mmcdonalataocdotgov]

Go to the Intel web site and get their Chip ID Utility.

It is small and id's the chip in a second.

 

[jbh129]

I thought that all Dell mobos are proprietary.

 

[DJFury]

I have the Dell8400 too w/ the 925x. I currently have 2x512 DDR2 PC4200 533mhz installed, and was thinking about upgrading. I heard there may be some "timing" issues with having 4x512. Will this motherboard be able to handle it? How do you adjust timing on memory, and what are the optimal settings? Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[o1die]

Your dell bios has few adjustments for anything, so I would leave the settings alone. Using more than 1 gig of memory can actually slow down some windows programs, so you may want to hold off on any more memory.

 

[DJFury]

More memory can actually slow down apps because of the timing? That really sucks =( How or why would we ever upgrade memory then?

 

[smoothmove]

if you want to sell your 8400 mobo, please let me know

Thanks,
Stan