Not being able to upgrade dells

[T2urtle]

I've heard a lot of things about upgrading dell's from my friends and i've skimed thru a couple of threads as well.

Whats so hard about the way dell does things? What are some things that you can't upgrade at all? I'm looking to pick up a E510 pretty soon because with all the promotions i can get a nicely done dual core with 19in LCD for 700-800$

I just wanted a list from personal experiences what you can and can't upgrade. I figure i could upgrade, RAM, HD and CD-ROM's real easy. I mean a SATA plug is an SATA plug dell cant customize that can they? THe board/case and PSU is something i know i wont be able to play with.


My intentions right now is get a decently computer up and running now and in about 2-3 years, i'll get a new case/ PSU for it and most likely get a board for it as well. So i don't have old dell BIOS on it. And well just upgrade what i need from there, which i'm assuming would be another 250gb+ hard-drive and another 1GB of ram. Call it a day after that.

 

[f1y]

Well i've personally tried to switch cases, and dell mobos have a convertor from the power button to the board and a special connection on the board so you can't switch cases. I've heard some have reversed AGP slots so only dell cards can be used. Propritary ram, so only dell ram works in it. Few things i've ran into.

Those were all around a year ago so they might do things differently now.

 

[T2urtle]

wow thats something. i never expected them to be trying to create a monoply. well i've seen a lot of ppl with 9300 laptops like myself add on newegg ram and it to be fully fuctional.

The case and board i'm expecting.

 

[cdmccool]

I'm using an E510 right now. I upgraded the video to a 7600GT and it runs great on the 305W Dell rated PSU. I also put in a 2x 1GB PQI memory kit that I found in the Hot Deals forum. =)

Several people on the Dell support forums and Notebookforums.com have upgraded the PSUs in their computers. I've read that the OCZ Modstream 450W works and you can also get PSU from pcpowerandcooling that will work.

Here are some links to other forums where you can find more information about upgrading your Dell computer.

http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board?board.id=dim_upghw

http://www.notebookforums.com/forumdisp...d587fd661ac0f093831359027d610c27&f=154

 

[T2urtle]

me thoughts would be to basicly swap cases/ PSU and board with the E510. my reasons for doing that is because the case will only allow 1 HD to be kept in the case. So swaping out cases would be the only means for me to add a 2nd hard-drive in. I'm swapping the board because i'm expected the dell board to only work with the dell case as stated by another user and well i just wanted to aviod any headaches later on. With the case does the PSU and with a non-dell board i dont see any problems with running any of the stuff i want to add on.

but its good to know aleast the PCI-E and the RAM slots are not propritary, thanks for the link to the forum i'll look up stuff there and if all is good. i'll be having an e510 pretty soon.

 

[pkme2]

I recommend if one plans to buy an assembly-line computer, buy all components at the beginning.
The better cpu, processor, video card, lcd screen. Memory, hdds, extra batteries (lappy) aftermarket.

Once you got it, changes may take more than you can handle. Extra costs worth it?

Otherwise, buy a used one, which will after a few months you can sell before buying that dream computer.
If you're experienced in these matters, you know what to do before, if not, I hope this helps.

 

[0roo0roo]

small upgrade like vid cards are easy. long term swapping of parts in and out to keep your system up to date? thats not possible.