PSA: Dell Optiplex 280 is not a game machine.

[Pepsei]

So I got a Dell G280 from work for working from home via vpn. I have some free time so I decided to load the following games:

Vampire : Bloodlines
Gothic II
Sacred

They all failed to work, I figure it was a problem with Direct X 9.0c, so I spent another hour down-grading it to dx8.

turns out it is the lame intergrated video card.

so I spent another hour pulling out a Radeon 9500 AGP card from another machine at home.

big mistake, no AGP slot. I feel like the helpdesk, I should've known better.

 

[Epic Fail]

you can still play solitaire.

 

[ngvepforever2]

At my work we can only run Call of Duty at medium settings and it looks ok. However, it is not a gaming machine, it's just a workstation.

Regards

ng

 

[brunswickite]

i am pretty sure the optiplex's have PCI-Express slots, so they can be a gaming machine

 

[venk]

Originally posted by: Pepsei
Dell is not a game machine.

fixed

 

[Pepsei]

yeah, I think it'll make a great MAME machine, I think I'll stick it in the cabinet that I've purchased a few weeks ago.

er, I guess I can keep it as long as I still work at the same place.

 

[Leper Messiah]

? The 280's I support all have 9000 AIWs in them because the stupid teachers need to be able to hook up their PC's to a TV.

 

[kalster]

why are you trying to modify your work pc, be a man and buy your own

 

[venk]

Originally posted by: kalster
why are you trying to modify your work pc, be a man and build your own

fixed again

 

[Pepsei]

Originally posted by: Leper Messiah
? The 280's I support all have 9000 AIWs in them because the stupid teachers need to be able to hook up their PC's to a TV.

the bundle we have comes with intergrated IBM graphics card.

 

[Leper Messiah]

Originally posted by: Pepsei

Originally posted by: Leper Messiah
? The 280's I support all have 9000 AIWs in them because the stupid teachers need to be able to hook up their PC's to a TV.

the bundle we have comes with intergrated IBM graphics card.

IBM? IIRC if its intergrated its the GMA 900 or whatever. Should be a foxconn mobo inside.

 

[Pepsei]

Originally posted by: kalster
why are you trying to modify your work pc, be a man and buy your own

I do have a few good machines, but they're at my other house. the new house have my wife's pc which ironicly can run all those games, but the hard drive is dead right now.

Luckily I still have my dell latitude d600 so that I can nef away here.

 

[Pepsei]

Originally posted by: Leper Messiah

Originally posted by: Pepsei

Originally posted by: Leper Messiah
? The 280's I support all have 9000 AIWs in them because the stupid teachers need to be able to hook up their PC's to a TV.

the bundle we have comes with intergrated IBM graphics card.

IBM? IIRC if its intergrated its the GMA 900 or whatever. Should be a foxconn mobo inside.

okay, not IBM, I just looked it up, it could either be

ATI 128MB PCI-Express x16 (Dual VGA or DVI) Radeon X300
ATI 64MB PCI-Express x16 (DVI/TV-out) Radeon X300 SE
Intel 915G Graphics Controller

and the ones we have uses the Intel 915G.

 

[Leper Messiah]

yeah, the 915G sh1t sucks. Are you sure there's no expanision slot in there for graphics though?

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Revoke your geek card immediately for trying to game like a dumb kid on Daddy's Dell.

- M4H

 

[Pepsei]

Originally posted by: Leper Messiah
yeah, the 915G sh1t sucks. Are you sure there's no expanision slot in there for graphics though?

yeah, there are expansion slots, too bad all the spare ones that I have are AGP's.

give me incentive to fix the wife's pc hard drive, too bad I can't use the Dell's harddrive. it's using some sort of serial ATA cable , correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Mrvile]

Can I have it then?

 

[EyeMWing]

My GX280's had AGP I think. At least one of the early ones did... I think that was a 280. Fvckall if I can remember. I don't care. I don't have to care again until next week when I start at my godawful helpdesk job.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: EyeMWing
My GX280's had AGP I think. At least one of the early ones did... I think that was a 280. Fvckall if I can remember. I don't care. I don't have to care again until next week when I start at my godawful helpdesk job.

That'd be a 260 or 270, IIRC.

- M4H

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire

Originally posted by: EyeMWing
My GX280's had AGP I think. At least one of the early ones did... I think that was a 280. Fvckall if I can remember. I don't care. I don't have to care again until next week when I start at my godawful helpdesk job.

That'd be a 260 or 270, IIRC.

- M4H

Probably a 270. I don't seem to recall it running hotter than hell itself, and I know damn well the 280's did.

 

[Pepsei]

270 are crap too, our company have 1000's bad 270's. There is a known problem with capacitors on the GX270 motherboard bulging and corroding... That's why we moved to 280's.

Dell came out with newer 270's which I call the midget 270's as they're 2/3 the size with NO expansion slots.

edit: found the article below

Recently Dell recently discovered potential problems with a capacitor on the system board of GX270 systems with medium and small form factor motherboards. The problem is isolated to a specific capacitor supplier which was used in system boards manufactured from April 2003 to March 2004. The defective Nichon capacitors were placed on two manufacturers' GX270 motherboards between 04/01/2003 to 03/20/2004.

However we have discovered that the Nichon capacitors were not all produced outside control specifications. Rather the affected capacitors were limited to certain batches made during specific shifts during the manufacturing process. This means that not all GX270 motherboards are affected. Unfortunately, there is not specific way to determine which motherboards are affected and which are not.

Specifically the capacitors were filled with more liquid than required. After an approximate service life of 300 days and when the CPU reaches a core temperature of 64 degrees C they will begin to bulge and eventually overflow onto the motherboard causing a system crash and a "No Post" failure on boot. There is usually no data loss associated with this issue.

Dell became aware of the problem in the last several weeks based on high numbers of customer tech support calls related to the GX270 motherboard failures. Because of the extremely long time lag between system install and the beginning of the failure rate spike it was impossible to anticipate the problem we now face. In response to our engineering research regarding the suspect capacitors and motherboards, we have decided to proactively replace GX-270 motherboards at specific customer locations.

The GX270 motherboards have not been made in the past year and our on hand reserves required for normal fix on fail warranty repairs have been strained. We have arranged for these motherboards to be remanufactured however that process takes time to ramp up. Delivery of sufficient numbers of boards to move forward with proactive field replacement is not anticipated for some weeks