Upgrading a Dell

[Goose]

Hi all, just a quick question.

My friend needs to upgrade his graphics card, but he has a Dell. I don't know how true this is, but i remember someone mentioning that you can only put Dell hardware into a Dell PC, so buying a piece of hardware from a different manufacturer might not work in it.
Is this true?

[Colossous]

You can put other hardware in there - might cause warranty issues (allthough you could keep the original hardware and replace it if needed) if its still warrantied ?

[s_kinton]

You can put in hardware from any manufacturer.

You need to do the following:
- Take the side off the case and tell us what wattage and how many amps to PSU has.
- Determine whether the motherboard takes AGP or PCI-E grahpics cards
- Tell us his budget

[Goose]

Nope, the warranty has been used up i think. Thanks a lot for the help

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

You can put in hardware from any manufacturer.

You need to do the following:
- Take the side off the case and tell us what wattage and how many amps to PSU has.
- Determine whether the motherboard takes AGP or PCI-E grahpics cards
- Tell us his budget

Also if there is a problem remove any of the upgraded bits!

[charleski]

You should have no problems. Check the space available inside the case - many Dells won't take full-length cards, but only a few of the top-flight ones are full-length monster cards. Also check that the PSU has a connector for whatever power input the card needs (and make sure the PSU has enough oompf to drive the card as well as all the other stuff in your system).

[Goose]

Ah right,

I cant see the power supply wattage and how many amps, but ill try again in a sec.
It has an AGP slot (which is what the new graphics card will be, an x1950pro AGP)
The RAM upgrade is Crucial 2GB kit (1GBx2) DDR PC3200 CL=3 UNBUFFERED

He wanted to spend about £150 and the graphics card is £82 and the RAM is £70

[Goose]

Ah....the power supply is a 250W so we will need a better power supply too

would 400W be ok?

[charleski]

Here's the list of recommended PSUs for an X1950 (down the page). The lowest spec is 550W. Unless your friend's Dell is one of the higher-spec gaming models, I doubt it'll be able to power a card like that. It should be possible to swap out the PSU for a better model, but that's extra expense.
[Edit] I'm too slow . No, don't skimp on the PSU, or you get all sorts of problems.

[Pob255]

Umm that's for Crossfire not a single card

Hwever I very much doubt that the dell 250w psu can cope with an x1950pro
the x1950pro needs 30a on the +12v rail (or anything over 360w on the combined +12v rail)
Probably your best bet is the Corsair VX 450w at around £45

A quick note about dell cases/hardware, while it's all standard connectors, the motherboards are often layed out diffrently.
You can run into problems with cables on a PSU not being long enough.
Also Duoble height graphics cards can be a slight problem (you might have to cut a hole or trim the rear of the case to get it in, does depend on the case)

[g8ina]

and replacing the pSU in a Dell may be trickier than anticipated too....

[Guy]

my g/f well ex now . . . had a dell which she wanted to run faster, so I propsed a boost in ram, and actually giving it a graphics card, none of this onboard nonsense! there was enough space for the card, the power-supply looked like it could barely run the system before! On opening up the case it looked as if as some1 has mentioned sticking a differnt powersupply in might cause problems due to the lengths required in the wires.

Am I right in thinking that dell use B-ATX layouts in there pc's?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Why don't you get one of those 200-300w PSUs for graphics cards which slot into the 5.25" bay??

Then you can keep your existing PSU and use the additional PSU to power your graphics card!

More details are here:

http://www.***********.net/reviews.p...3_300w_12v_psu

The bit with the stars is: overclock 3d

Remove the space between the last two words.

Hexus seems to be blocking it for some reason?!

Scan has them in stock too:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...source=froogle