Upgrading a Dell motherboard...

[Youhou]

Yeah, I know, bad move on my part going for Dell but I didn't know any better back then.

I can order a Dell motherboard from Dell themselves but I'm curious if it would work I'm not even sure if it'll be compatible with their power supply which I also hear is customized.

I know I'm going to have to format the hard drive for the change, but I'd like to know if its possible.

I want to upgrade the motherboard from the Dimension 8250 to the Dimension 8300's motherboard.

Thanks.

 

[o1die]

Chances are your dell power supply will work with other motherboards. End pc noise has an adapter available if needed, and a chart with the extra dell adapter shown for dell only power supplies. There's nothing listed on ebay for dimension 8300 motherboards. Your best bet is to leave the dell intact and try selling it. You can use the money to build your own. Using a different motherboard would require you to drill holes in the chasis, and possibly the backplate area. Not worth the trouble.

 

[Youhou]

Hmm, maybe I misunderstood, but are you sure it'd be difficult to take the motherboard from a Dell Dimension 8300 and place it inside a Dell Dimension 8250? The cases are the same. I'm not sure anyone will want to buy a desktop that uses RDRAM though

 

[Iron Woode]

Originally posted by: Youhou
Hmm, maybe I misunderstood, but are you sure it'd be difficult to take the motherboard from a Dell Dimension 8300 and place it inside a Dell Dimension 8250? The cases are the same. I'm not sure anyone will want to buy a desktop that uses RDRAM though

He wants you to sell the Dell and build your own PC.

 

[o1die]

You can always purchase a new dimension 8300 board, but they're pretty expensive, and the performance gain would be minimal. If your current board works ok, I would wait until you are ready to upgrade the cpu and or memory. For that price, you can buy a whole new dell.

 

[Youhou]

The motherboard is $159 plus $8 shipping and I think its comparable to an Asus P4C800 which is about $160 as well since both contain 4 slots for RAM, but I'm not sure.

My desire for a new motherboard is because I only have 256 mb of RAM and its RDRAM. Even if I buy the motherboard from Dell I'd still save a bit compared to buying 512 mb or 1 gb of RDRAM.

But thanks for the input anyway.

 

[jkresh]

what processor are you running (obviosuly a p4 but what speed what generation?). As to weather your power supply will work you can ask dell, they should know if its compatable since it is there product. What you might want to do, is get a new case and a new motherboard, then move your processor/drives graphics... over, this will leave you with a better future upgrade path, though it will completely void your warranty. Also compariing boards based on the number of ram slots is quite silly, if its a dual channel p4 board of any quality it will have 4 slots as ram comes in pairs, so whether the board is comparable to the p4c800 cannot be determined by ram slots alone. Though it is probably an intel made board and thus probably made by asus, it certianly wont have the overclockng/tweaking features available in the p4c800. Depending on your processor and upgrade plans you would probalby be fine iwth going with an i865 board instead of 875 which you should be able to find for about $100, another $100-$200 will get you a solid case and power supply (unless you want a top aluminum case, so cost differential between upgrading the mobo on the dell and going with a new mobo/case/powersupply shouldnt be that much, and will leave you with more options down the line. If you want a case that will last you a long time then i would recomend teh coolermaster stacker, a bit expensive but its btx compatibility means it will definitely last through another motherboard upgrade or more.

 

[Youhou]

The processor I'm running is 2.4 Ghz but I'm not sure how to check the other aspects of it. I've asked Dell about the power supply and the guy didn't seem to know anything about the machines as he was just reading some information off of the papers.

I'm trying to avoid moving everything over to a new case because I want to salvage as much as I can with as little money as possible and would rather buy a nice case for future upgrade. But doing this would cost me too much compared to just buying the rdram and if I were to switch over I'd also rather switch to an Athlon motherboard.

Anyhow, thanks for the replies, I guess no one seems to know for sure so I'll just browse the Net a bit more before I decide on what to do.