Will DELL let me upgrade?

[Questi4110]

My friend said that DELL uses a special type of memory, i think he said something about proprietory memory.

If this is true, can i still upgrade my RAM from the two 128 meg sticks of PC3200 that they give to 512 meg (2 128 meg sticks and then i would buy a 256 meg stick) PC3200?

Also, can I replace their 30 gig hard drive with one that I want?


THANKS

 

[Budman]

yes you can upgrade the ram. hd too.

 

[TheBoyBlunder]

The only think that's proprietary, afaik, is the power supply and motherboard. Some say they aren't, I say try to change the motherboard and if it fries, don't come crying to me. You should be able to upgrade virtually everything else with no problem.

 

[edjam]

I can't comment on the latest Dell's, but all the past Dell systems that I have owned did not use proprietary memory, as long as the motherboard can take what you want to add, I see no problem. Same with the hard drive, it should be fine. I did however find their cases to be particularly irritating, in one of mine they used a little ribbon cable for the power button, non standard of course.

 

[David101]

i think u void dell's warranty if u do that stuff...then if something breaks they wont fix it.

i think...

 

[mechBgon]

If you do want to get some memory that's guaranteed to work, use Crucial.com's memory configurator. I don't know how Dell will view this, but Crucial will guarantee that their stuff works if you order it using their configurator. And upgrading from 256Mb seems very sensible unless you use the system for only light-duty stuff.

 

[John]

Originally posted by: David101
i think u void dell's warranty if u do that stuff...then if something breaks they wont fix it.

i think...

That is a big misconception for a lot of home users, and very inaccurate.

 

[dexvx]

Originally posted by: TheBoyBlunder
The only think that's proprietary, afaik, is the power supply and motherboard. Some say they aren't, I say try to change the motherboard and if it fries, don't come crying to me. You should be able to upgrade virtually everything else with no problem.

False, Dells all new dells within the past year use Standard ATX PSU and mobos.

i think u void dell's warranty if u do that stuff...then if something breaks they wont fix it.

False again, unless you own an Optiplex or something, it wont be voided.

 

[OverVolt]

Originally posted by: John

Originally posted by: David101
i think u void dell's warranty if u do that stuff...then if something breaks they wont fix it.

i think...

That is a big misconception for a lot of home users, and very inaccurate.

True, they'll warranty the system, just not the new part you installed which makes sense.

But i find it such a pain and like 10x the work to find out what the mobo/PSU will support. Like who knows if the Dell will be picky about ram/Vid card ect. And if you ask Dell they will try to talk you into their expensive RAM and some 1 to install it for you. But then it would be warrantied! your choice 😛!

GL with the upgrade

EDIT: i think they use normal ATX mobo's, but i think they use plastic stand-offs so they know if u ever un-installed the mobo. And make it hard to install a new mobo in the same case. Least in the dells i've seen

 

[Questi4110]

ok thanks for the info guys. I just upgraded the HD and it was fine. I will soon upgrade the RAM in the near future.



THANKS

 

[ChefJoe]

My father buys computer labs worth of dells with minimum memory and then bumps them up with Crucial modules when the price is right, for a few years now he's taken this approach. Dell's never complained or refused a warranty to him - but he may have some special dell "we allow him to do his own service" classification for the college... I'm really not sure about that.

Sometimes dell just wants 2X market value for standard memory. You should be fine with crucial.com's configurator.

 

[StraightPipe]

dell covers anything they put into the pc as long as you dont mess with the mobo. check to see if you've got enough ram slots though, my dell only has 2 (DDR)