Results 1 to 3 of 3

Thread: A quick introduction to the Dell Optiplex GX280

  1. #1
    Senior Member joshwa's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    Sheffield, UK
    Posts
    4,856
    Thanks
    132
    Thanked
    67 times in 62 posts
    • joshwa's system
      • Motherboard:
      • PC Chips M577 AT/ATX
      • CPU:
      • AMD K6-2 500Mhz
      • Memory:
      • 128mb PC100 SDRAM
      • Storage:
      • 8GB Fujitsu
      • Graphics card(s):
      • 3dfx Voodoo 3 3000 AGP (16mb)
      • PSU:
      • ATX 500watt
      • Case:
      • Midi Tower AT
      • Operating System:
      • Windows 98 SE
      • Monitor(s):
      • 22" TFT Widescreen

    A quick introduction to the Dell Optiplex GX280 (pics added)



    Intro: The Dell Optiplex GX280 is one of the most recent Dell computers designed for the corporate environment - it's got all the latest features, such as DDR2, SATA drives (just the HD), PCI Express etc.



    They've even added new air vents along the right hand side (shown above)





    and a new exhaust fan / copper piped heatsink design (shown above) to cope with the heat the new Pentium 4 processors generate. They've got a clever looking metal clip that holds the pin-less processor in place under the heatsink. (See next post for pics)

    The fans in the system are heat controlled so they speed up when the system gets hotter - the majority of the time the computer is very quiet, as you would expect for a corporate system.



    You can quickly get access to the insides of the case by pressing the two side buttons and lifting the case up - security consious people will be please to know that this can be padlocked shut.

    The top of the case has 4 "innie" dimples that mean it's very easy to stack the computers on top of each other as the feet on the bottom of the case fit perfectly into these dimples.



    Inside the case, attached to the top half of the case are the drives - Slimline/laptop CD/DVD drive, slimline/laptop style floppy disk drive, and the SATA hard drive - these all quickly clip release due to dell's drive runners.



    Above: DDR2 Memory

    Quick facts: (based on the SFF version)
    It's a pentium 4 system, (Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 560 - 2.8ghz ht - 3.6ghz ht)
    It uses an SATA hard drive,
    It doesn't have any PS2 ports - so keyboard / mouse must be USB.
    It's got 6 USB ports on the back and 2 on the front.
    However it still has a parallel printer port (useful for older printers/dongles?) and a serial port (useful for older label printers/older palms etc)
    It uses Dual Channel DDR2 - this has the notch/slot in a different place on the memory stick compared to normal DDR ram, plus it has more pins. (There are 2 memory slots in the SFF and 4 in the other chassis dells)
    It has a PCI-Express, and a normal PCI slot - no AGP.
    It's got an ' Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 900'
    and integrated 10/100/1000 lan
    It has a new updated bios compared to the traditional dell bios.

    Back of the computer:



    Some specifics / problems:
    You may need to set 'SATA Operation' to 'combination' in the bios in order to get Ghost to work.
    It doesn't have any spare power connectors - so you can't put in another hard drive to ghost disk to disk (there's no space anyway)
    You can't buy it with Windows 2000 already on it - only Windows XP

    Dell's site:
    http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/pr...dt1&l=en&s=bsd
    Last edited by joshwa; 23-12-2004 at 08:23 PM. Reason: pics

  2. #2
    Senior Member joshwa's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    Sheffield, UK
    Posts
    4,856
    Thanks
    132
    Thanked
    67 times in 62 posts
    • joshwa's system
      • Motherboard:
      • PC Chips M577 AT/ATX
      • CPU:
      • AMD K6-2 500Mhz
      • Memory:
      • 128mb PC100 SDRAM
      • Storage:
      • 8GB Fujitsu
      • Graphics card(s):
      • 3dfx Voodoo 3 3000 AGP (16mb)
      • PSU:
      • ATX 500watt
      • Case:
      • Midi Tower AT
      • Operating System:
      • Windows 98 SE
      • Monitor(s):
      • 22" TFT Widescreen
    The CPU and CPU holding mechanism:

    Closed:



    Open and CPU out:


  3. #3
    Chaos Monkey Apex's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    Huddersfield
    Posts
    4,709
    Thanks
    1,143
    Thanked
    285 times in 204 posts
    • Apex's system
      • Motherboard:
      • Asus Z87M-PLUS
      • CPU:
      • Intel i5-4670K
      • Memory:
      • 32 GiB
      • Storage:
      • 20 TiB
      • Graphics card(s):
      • PowerColor Radeon RX 6700 Fighter 10GB OC
      • PSU:
      • 750
      • Case:
      • Core View 21
      • Operating System:
      • Windows 10 pro
      • Monitor(s):
      • Dell S2721DGFA
      • Internet:
      • 200Mb nTL Cable
    Not bad at all, but why ddr 2 ?

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •