To Mod or not to Mod?

garthv

Ok,
I bought a Dell nearly 1 and a half years ago,
3 ghz p4
512mb RAM
9800 Pro
Nice machine but im getting a little bored. I was thinking of modding/ tweaking it soon except for the fact that its a Dell and Ive been told to stay as far away from the motherboards on them as possible!. Any ideas?

po0k

Don't waste your time, unless you plan on getting a new case, mobo and PSU.

Töpher

You generally don't get many options in the BIOS with a Dell for clocking/tweaking. For improved performance your best bet would be to get another 512MB RAM, or if you can afford it, buy two identical 512MB sticks. Maybe could upgrade the gfx card, but check whether or not the mobo runs at 4x or 8x, I've seen relatively new (about 18 months) Dell's running 4x AGP!

garthv

Yeh more RAM is definetly on the cards....
Graphics card is doing me fine tho,it runs everything it throw at it.

patriotIE

GaRtH_V wrote:

Yeh more RAM is definetly on the cards....
Graphics card is doing me fine tho,it runs everything it throw at it.

You won't be able to change the motherboard or cpu. if you do anything to them, you immedietly invalidate the warrenty of the machine. I'd go with more ram. Go to www.pc-memory-upgrade.co.uk free delivery and they'll tell you exactly what kind of ram you need.

4Xcut

I you don't already have one a sound card would be a good idea as it will take a lot of pressure off the cpu. You can pick this one fo less than 40 euro. Just make sure yoour psu can handle it. Check that here. It gives max possible power drain but remember that your psu is a dell.

garthv

4Xcut wrote:

I you don't already have one a sound card would be a good idea as it will take a lot of pressure off the cpu. You can pick this one fo less than 40 euro. Just make sure yoour psu can handle it. Check that here. It gives max possible power drain but remember that your psu is a dell.

Thanks but I already have a Sound Blaster Audigy 2!

SouperComputer

upgrading the CPU is a possibility. You can always pop in the old CPU if you are worried about warranty.

Somtimes you can get modified BIOS for these machines that allow you to overclock. Or you can manually change the clock crystal, but that's severe hardcore shizz. Even after that, you will have no PCI/AGP lock.

1Gb RAM is the 1st thing to do, assuming you are playing games.

A PCI SATA or SCSI card with the right drive is always a good move, makes things much more responsive.

garthv

I think i might just keep it and build a whole new machine,
Seems to be the way to go anyway

Mac daddy

I wouldn't waste to much time trying to update the mobo's and psu are non standard the bios won't let do any overclocking,

Keeps it as a fileserver or mp3 server build a new one would be your best bet

Gone West

heheh.
Cut side and top windows in itm and fit perspex in.
Add a bunch of neon pipes and fans.
Custom heatshrink piping inside it.
You'll have a revolutionary dell machine.