Ancient System. What do I do for this guy?

[Mattd46612]

Dell Dimension 8100, has a 1.3 P4 williamette, 128mb PC600 RDRAM, Geforce2 MX400. It appears there is no way im going to get this thing to play Brothers in Arms. Should I tell him to junk this thing or what? Or is there a upgrade path that can be had for 200 or less. Im ready to call him and tell him theres no chance in hell and to just buy a new comp.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Time to ditch it and start over.

There probably isn't anything in there you can salvage.

Maybe soundcard and optical drives.

 

[jimbob200521]

sounds like it MIGHT be a power supply issue, but since its a dell, like yoyo said, its time to start over.

 

[unfalliblekrutch]

does it have an AGP slot? Maybe you can OC the CPU, then add a 6600gt or 6800gs or something

EDIT: overlooked the ram... um, maybe a 9800pro @ $100, and find rdram somewhere and get as much as you can for the other $100

 

[Mattd46612]

Well it runs fine, just check out the specs and you'll see it isnt up for really any DX9 game. And this kid wants to use it as a Gaming rig. I know I can get a 4x AGP card but what use is that when you cant find this PC600 RDRAM anymore and even so I wouldnt be able to get more than 256 in his system if Im right. I hate intel, I hate dell and i have little knowledge of old rigs. Does anyone have any upgrade Ideas like where I could get ram or what vid card? Will this motherboard support 512 or 1gb of ram? it has only 2 slots.

 

[AMDnewbie2006]

re-build

 

[Arcanedeath]

Start over that rig is not worth throwing money away into to try and make it work

 

[imported_Stew]

Originally posted by: Arcanedeath
Start over that rig is not worth throwing money away into to try and make it work

You can get SFFs now with much better specs than that machine.

 

[Mattd46612]

Ill tell this fool and see what he says about it, Ill tell him its good for solitaire and some internet surfing. Wiped the drive clean did a fresh xp install and put aol 8.0 instead of the horrendous 9.0 on there for him. Hes very dumb though so im sure he will want to go through with the upgrade. There is alot of RDRAM PC600 on ebay I can get. But for the video card its a AGP 4x slot. Now does that mean I could use a vanilla 6600 or something in there or only cards that do 2x/4x AGP?

 

[Loki726]

Originally posted by: Mattd46612
Ill tell this fool and see what he says about it, Ill tell him its good for solitaire and some internet surfing. Wiped the drive clean did a fresh xp install and put aol 8.0 instead of the horrendous 9.0 on there for him. Hes very dumb though so im sure he will want to go through with the upgrade. There is alot of RDRAM PC600 on ebay I can get. But for the video card its a AGP 4x slot. Now does that mean I could use a vanilla 6600 or something in there or only cards that do 2x/4x AGP?

Pretty much every agp card I have seen is 8x/4x compatible. My brother was running a 9800pro in a 4x slot for several months with no problems.

Just make sure the powersupply can handle it. I've seen old dells with 130/150W supplies.

 

[Mattd46612]

Well the PSU is a 250W, so Im thinking 6600gt or 6600vanilla? And why the heck do they have weird fake ram chips in the extra slots?

I figure 1.3ghz, 756-1gb ram and a 6600 should play most games atleast for a lil while. Not at any fps Id play it at though.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Yeah, if you want to upgrade for gaming then videocard and ram are the way to go.

Too bad you'll be buying ram that's going to be worthless when he does decide to get a new computer.

 

[Mattd46612]

Well i have no idea since hes my stepfathers worker. But his family just got a new comp and they are turning this into their gaming rig. I got suckered into helping. Told him it was a weak setup right away, Gonna tell him tommorow about a 6600 and some ram off ebay but 200 bucks to upgrade to something that will play stuf on low settings.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Do you have the recommended hardware for the game you want to play on it?

 

[xgsound]

It sounds like every element you mentioned is a limiting element.

The P4 didn't have much guts until the Northwood 1.6, and then only when overclocked past 2 Ghz (not on a Dell Mobo though). 128 Mb isn't enough ram for gaming well even on win98se ... and it's Rdram. Dells around that era (correct me if I'm wrong) had proprietary connectors between the Mobo and PSU so you replace both or none. Some mobos of that era couldn't be upgraded to a northwood.

If you give it a try, keep in mind that decent (not great) new AMD64s go for around $550 retail everywhere with 512 MB and Xpress 200 or 6100 graphics.


Jim

 

[jjsbasmt]

I'm confused! You ask about "fake RAM sticks". Those continuity sticks are required to be in the empty slots on a RDRAM board. I thought you said that it only had 2 slots, is that correct? And is the 128 RAM spread between 2 slots (64 x 2)? In most cases RDRAM must be installed in pairs, but I've heard of single stick RDRAM configurations, but have never personally seen such a setup. I have a P4 2.66 w/512 RDRAM (128 x 4). And when I built it over 3 years ago, it was very fast for it's time. I still use it as my backup system.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

there is an adapter for the 423 socket that allows you to use a 478 socket northwood. but make sure the 478 is for the RDR ram cause the voltages are different on the other ones.

 

[Swedish Avenger]

Save the case, psu, optical drives, hdd, floppy
Get a mobo for $60 (I think in GBP so sorry if my prices are off, just think cheap)
Get him a cheap low end sempron
Get an X700 / 600
Corsair Value RAM 1GB

shouldn't cost more than $300 if my american price sense is right

far better than upgrading that thing. Dell mobos bottleneck everything, so even if you had a 6600GT in it, it would run like a 4600Ti.

Long as you stay away from Intel and some Nvidia you shouldn't need more than 250W on such a cheap system.

 

[rstrohkirch]

a 8100 picture for your pleasure

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f149/wstroh/dell8100.jpg

 

[Viditor]

Motherboard with onboard 6100 = $60.99
512MB DDR PC3200 (Corsair) = $38.75
Sempron 2800+ 64 bit = $75.50

Total = $175.24...better graphics, speed, memory

 

[Jhhnn]

Better add a case/psu combo to that, Viditor- That's the infamous Dell proprietary psu pinout/plugs

These are entirely decent for budget matx systems- the perf plastic intake restrictor pops right out, and the rear fan grille is easy to mod for a wire grille- Power Q is fortron made...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811190022

 

[Mattd46612]

Well he says Brothers in Arms is recommended 1.0ghz cpu, and 512mb minimum ram 1gb recommended and a DX8 vid card. If it was mine id do a mobo overhaul. Since its him and I didnt want to do this to begin with Ill have him get some ram to get him to atleast 756 and a 6600 or something.