Dell Dimension 9200 (Intel E6700)

Jonnygrunge · 7 Mar 2007 at 13:23

Guys, We have just taken stock of a new Dell at work (I know!, but they are our preferred supplier as I work for a local authority!) It has an Intel E6700 and Intel P965 chipset. The mobo is a Dell modified Intel I think!
The PC will mainly be used for video editing, so we have installed a nVidia 7900GS, and looked to update the RAM with some OCZ 6400 Platinum dual channel 2GB Kit (4-4-4-15 @ 2.2V) The machine's BIOS is VERY limited have any of you guys any suggestions on how to get this RAM working and integrated into this system? It will recognize it in the BIOS but the PC will not POST or boot to Vista! Is there any 'modded' BIOS out there to open up the Dell (POS!) BIOS so FSB, CPU multipliers, voltages, etc can be modified.
Thanks in advance,
Jonnygrunge.

Yellowbeard · 7 Mar 2007 at 17:07

Most likely, that memory will not work in that machine. Unless Dell allows a bios option for raising the memory voltage, you are stuck at 1.8v Vdimm and that memory will need 2.1v. You will likely need to use OEM type memory as I hear that the Dell bios cannot be externally modded.

On a side note, Dell is selling OCZ memory now. They may have a bios for you.

Flanno · 8 Mar 2007 at 17:42

The answer to your question is a most definite no. The motherboard is a dell modified 965p made by FoxConn.

Crucial Ballistix DDR2 6400 is the only Dell qualified 6400 part I know of for the 9200. It is *supposed* to be recognised as DDR2 800mhz as it uses the DDR2 6400 Jedec spec which means booting at 800mhz but at a lower voltage of 1.8v or 1.9v (the crucial is specced for 2.2v). Crucial guarantee this memory on the 9200.

As for lesser memory generally any DDR2 667mhz or 533mhz will run as long as you guessed it - it boots at 1.8v or 1.9v. Your problem therefore seems voltage related.

As for timings the board generally will boot 533mhz memory at 4,4,4,12 and everything else at 5,5,5,15. This seems to be the way the bios was implemented and it always boots memory like this regardless of what is programmed into the SPD. So paying more for tight latencies is wasted on this board.

Hope this kind of helps.

Yellowbeard · 8 Mar 2007 at 17:50

Well, if the link works, check this out:

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/...~ck=anav&nf=1252~0~158945&navla=1252~0~158945

I can only imagine that Dell can set the memory voltage manually to more than 1.8v if they offer the memory upgrades listed here. But, I don't think that they would do it for the average person if you do not buy your upgrade from them. And, there is no way to know if it can be done thru any bios options available to an end user.

Flanno · 8 Mar 2007 at 23:48

Dell dont and wont adjust memory voltage - it is removed from the bios even before the boards are in house. There are no memory options available to the end user at all. This is definite.

But as I said in my post below 2.2v is what the crucial ballistix 6400c4 is rated for but works fine, and is in fact guaranteed to work fine in the 9200 by Crucial. However it will every only boot at whatever the Jedec timings are set for which on this memory is 800mhz - 5,5,5,15 or 18. You will never be able to tweak memory in a 410 to run at 4,4,4,12 timings unless you use DDR2 533mhz ram. And a lot of DDR2 800mhz memory - while it might boot, it could boot at 667mhz and you cannot tweak that either. The Crucial however will boot at 800mhz. So I would go down the crucial route if you were buying new memory and try to RMA the OCZ stuff. To be honest, the factory stuff is more then good enough as the CPU is not overclockable so to run in synch, DDR2 533mhz would have been good enough.