need some advice pc or laptop

D-OLEARY

ok here gos i had a dell 9800 pc befor i had my xps m1710 the xps fall and smashed and the insurance is givin me money to replace it but i still have my dell 9800 was thinking of upgrading it instead of paying mad money for a good laptop


what do i upgrade
can it be upgraded wit normal parts or do they have to be dell
i want it to be fast
want h.d.m.i
graphics card not to important at the min
need to get a wireless card to

any help would be grate its eder this or ill get an other xps or alien on less there is better tryin to save as much money as i can coz me engine seized up :O

thepcgp

What is the model - Inspiron, Dimension, etc. Service tag would be great.

Please also post full specifications, or as much as you can i.e. RAM, hard drive, graphics card, etc. etc.

Will try to help as much as possible!

D-OLEARY

System Type: Dimension 8400
Ship Date: 01/02/2005
Dell IBU: Europe



Quantity Parts # Part Description

1 LIST D01845A DIMENSION 8400
1 DIMENSION 8400 P4 PROCESSOR 530 WITH HT
1 NO PROMOTION REQUIRED AS PER CUSTOMER RE
1 UK/IRELAND - DOCUMENTATION AND POWER COR
1 RESOURCE CD
1 512MB DUAL CHANNEL DDR2 400MHZ (2X256) M
1 FLOPPY NOT INCLUDED
1 160GB (7200RPM) SATA HARD DRIVE
1 48X DVD/CDRW COMBO DRIVE
1 SONIC SOFTWARE FOR CD/RW READ/WRITE AND
1 POWERDVD 5.1 SOFTWARE (NO RECOVERY CD)
1 FP/MG - UK/IRISH - 15IN (E153FP TCO99) V
1 128MB PCI EXPRESS ATI RADEONTM X300 SE
1 SPEAKER UK/IRE EXTERNAL DELL A215 STEREO
1 IRISH/SPANISH MODEM INTERNAL V.92 PCI (D
1 MOUSE PAD WITH DELL LOGO
1 DELL MG USB 2 BUTTON WHEEL OPTICAL (NOT
1 UK/IRISH (QWERTY) - DELL ENTRY MIDNIGHT
1 ENGLISH - WIN XP SP2 HOME
1 ENGLISH MICROSOFT WORKS 9.0 (WORD PROCES
1 IRELAND EIRCOM INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER
1 ENGLISH - PHOTO ALBUM SE BASIC (NO RECOV
1 PAINT SHOP PRO X STD - ENGLISH
1 ENGLISH ADOBE READER 8.1 (NO RECOVERY CD
1 ENGLISH MCAFEE SECURITY CENTRE 90 DAY TR
1 BASE WARRANTY
1 1Y CAR (COLLECT AND RETURN)
1 WARRANTY UPGRADE NOT INCLUDED
1 DIMENSION ORDER - IRELAND
1 ROAD FREIGHT CHARGE PER UNIT 1-10 UNIT

D-OLEARY

got the modAL wrong lol sorry but that it there

thepcgp

That's perfect. Your system takes good old-fashioned DDR2 - it's fairly inexpensive. You can max the RAM in this box to 4GB for about €74. If you want HDMI, you have to upgrade the graphics card. The good news is, you can get a PCI-e graphics card with HDMI for less than €65. It's a RADEON EAH3650, with HDMI, and 256MB DDR3 graphics memory, which is a far better graphics card than what you have, and it has a HDMI port.

All the above, and a Windows reinstall, will make it a lot faster. If you want to speed it up more, you could upgrade the processor. It has a Pentium 4 530 HT, socket 775, that runs at 3GHz. I see on Ebay.co.uk right now there's a Pentium 4 HT 3.4GHz, also socket 775, for £35 including vat, shipping to Ireland £7. You can get a wireless card for less than €40.

So all in there you're looking at about €229 in parts, and you would have a far superior machine, that would do everything you want, unless I missed something.

By the way, what's the fault with the XPS laptop? Is it just a cracked screen, or is the motherboard gone? Do you know whether it was it properly assessed?

Do you have the original CDs? If so, you should be able to reinstall Windows and drivers. After that your machine would be faster and more powerful than ever.

gamer

go to www.crucial.com system scan.IT scans the pc and tells you what type of memory you have.EG DDR2 PC2-3500 200pin memory speed 800mhz.You can buy memory in mapins or online.IF YOU GET 2 2gig ddr2 modules then you have 4gig ram,windows xp can ony use 3gig ram.Because a 32bit operating system can ony see 3gig ram max.
You need to buy ddr2 chips the same type and memory speed as the one,s you have in the pc .

Get 1 onegig module and 1 2gig module,
or 2 2gig modules.

D-OLEARY

thepcgp wrote: »

That's perfect. Your system takes good old-fashioned DDR2 - it's fairly inexpensive. You can max the RAM in this box to 4GB for about €74. If you want HDMI, you have to upgrade the graphics card. The good news is, you can get a PCI-e graphics card with HDMI for less than €65. It's a RADEON EAH3650, with HDMI, and 256MB DDR3 graphics memory, which is a far better graphics card than what you have, and it has a HDMI port.

All the above, and a Windows reinstall, will make it a lot faster. If you want to speed it up more, you could upgrade the processor. It has a Pentium 4 530 HT, socket 775, that runs at 3GHz. I see on Ebay.co.uk right now there's a Pentium 4 HT 3.4GHz, also socket 775, for £35 including vat, shipping to Ireland £7. You can get a wireless card for less than €40.

So all in there you're looking at about €229 in parts, and you would have a far superior machine, that would do everything you want, unless I missed something.

By the way, what's the fault with the XPS laptop? Is it just a cracked screen, or is the motherboard gone? Do you know whether it was it properly assessed?

Do you have the original CDs? If so, you should be able to reinstall Windows and drivers. After that your machine would be faster and more powerful than ever.

thats grate advice thanks alot em the xps fell and was send of to a place in galway by the insurance and they said its scrap and said they would send a check bit pissed off but ah need the money for me car now any way

thepcgp

From Microsoft:

The maximum amount of memory that can be supported on Windows XP Professional and Windows Server 2003 is also 4 GB.

You'd be flying it with 4GB of RAM in there. So D, they are supposed to send you a check for scrapping the laptop? Who are these guys, did you say they're based in Galway?

Solitaire

The maximum amount of memory that can be supported on Windows XP Professional and Windows Server 2003 is also 4 GB.

Although seeing as RAM isn't the only memory in your PC the real amount of RAM that a 32bit OS can "see" would more likely be 3.25GB.

Your ability to upgrade the 8400 is limited to say the least due to the case and mobo's proprietary form factor (not even BTX AFAIK) and the mobo is archaic. If you bin the mobo you'd need a new case to boot So depending on what you want to do with the "upgraded" machine you might be stuck with a new build (and maybe salvaging just a couple of non-unique, not-quite-obsolete bits) anyway.

And there's no good reason to blow money on a new CPU. The one you have is almost as fast as its gets on that ancient 925X chipset - I don't even know if you'd be able to drop in a Pentium D, and Core2 is out of the question. Which means most things aside from browsing the web and listening to the odd MP3 is also out of the question :eek: If you want "fast" (what for exactly?) then Core2 is the way to go and that would mean putting the bulk of your Dell in the bin.

Ironically, you could upgrade the graphics card but it's pretty pointless as the CPU is limited as it is. If you want HDMI for some reason (why?) then just get a Sapphire HD4350 for €30 from Komplett. If you wanted to play games... then you'd be very limited by the CPU, and getting a modern one in there is out of the question so it'd be New PC Time before you could think about a better graphics card anyway

And that chipset can only manage PC4200 DDR2 - ouch. At least you can get 2x2GB sticks of PC5300 and the machine would automatically run it at the slower speed. But 4GB RAM borders on overkill anyway given how limited the machine is so I doubt spending just €22 on getting 2x1GB would limit you much - if it did it'd be New PC Time again :rolleyes:

At least wireless is easy. Internal wifi cards are still oddly pricey but a very basic USB wifi adaptor can be had for under €15 on Komplett, and the fastest 802.11n USB adaptor is only €25.