My Upgrade Nightmare Continues

[Darg]

This all started about a month ago. I had a Dell Dimension 8300, 3Ghz CPU, 9800Pro, 1GB PC400 DDR1 RAM. I decided to upgrade the graphics card and while I was at it I decided to get a new case for it that would have better cooling and a better PSU.

So I order the Titan 550W system and the 7600GT AGP gfx card along with a couple of additional system fans. They arrive in days from OCUK and I get to work dismantling my Dell box and getting my Titan ready. The first thing I noticed was that my Dell motherboard did not have the correct Power/USB plugs for the front of the titan case. Now this is bad but I can work it somehow. I decided that I can live with just taking the couple of PCBs out of the dell (smashy smashy) that was used for the power button and the two USB ports at the front. They had a special USB connection into the motherboard.

So after all this smashing and fixing I took the motherboard and finally placed it into the Titan case. The damn screw holes are in the wrong place and the ports at the back aren't in the ATX positions. wtf? Dell use some weird hybrid of mATX and ATX for their motherboards. I was screwed over. I was really really really ****** at this stage. I'd spent the last 2 or 3 hours trying to get it to work and then the goddamn motherboard wouldn't fit.

This was after I'd gone out the day before to buy a couple of cable converters for the two extra fans and a CPU cooler. (Akasa cooler for 775, probably not that great but will do). Now I had to resign myself to putting my dell box back together. The front is kind messed up at the moment but atleast I could attach that cooler. But of course the screw holes for that are in the wrong place too! So back to the ***** 305W PSU and ducted air supply to the CPU.

First thing I did was go on the net and find myself an ATX mobo that supports everything I need. I found it in the Asrock 775 DUAL-VSTA mobo. It also has 4 PCI slots and a PCI-E slot for when I upgrade to DX10 cards next year. And it supports my DDR1 memory so everything is great.

Until today.. I ran CPU-Z more out of boredom then anything else and noticed that for some reason it said my CPU was a 478 Prescott. Noo.. it must be wrong. The dell website told me that it was a 775 pin P4. Didn't it?? Handily enough CPU-Z froze my computer so I had to turn it off anyway. I opened the case, took out the CPU and counted the pins. God damn it to all the big bad words out there. I'm sad to say my cat bore the brunt of my anger when she nosed a bit too close to the inside of my computer for liking. I almost threw the damn CPU chip across the room. It looks like I'm stuck in the dell box for a while longer.

My motherboard is due to arrive on Tuesday and my damn CPU won't fit. I'm thinking that if I order a CPU first chance I get (tomorrow night) then it will be here by wednesday and then maybe, finally, I might get out of this god damn Dell piece of urgh..

The moral of this story is:

You get what you pay for. Dell will rip you off.

So instead of a nice new graphics card I will now have a nice new graphics card, motherboard and CPU. I was planning on leaving those until next year. Oh yes. I now have no money left either. Time to get another job.

Should I get a E6300 or is the extra L2 cache worth the money for the E6600?

EDIT: The tech specs for my dell. That's the most detailed specs I can find. Doesn't tell you what type of CPU it is. Don't know why I assumed it was 775.
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim8300/sm/specs.htm#1102139

No swearing! FF.

 

[Darg]

Well I could afford the extra €140 but is it worth it?

Also what kind of speed boost should I be looking at CPU wise between my current 478 Prescott 3Ghz and a (hopefully overclocked to 300mhz FSB) E6300?

 

[Darg]

No I didn't I just assumed that dell used standard boards.

Thanks for the help. I am going to buy the E6300. Pity though as if I knew that I would be buying a new board, CPU and gfx card at the same time I would probably have gotten a better quality PCI-e card then the 7600GT(AGP) for the same money. Ah well. Next time I will upgrade mobo/memory and gfx card at the same time. Hopefully the E6300 will be adequate for quite a while to come.

 

[Darg]

Lol bushy.. I was working as a programmer during the summer. Database and .NET, boring.

The Asrock board can take DDR1 or DDR2 memory. One of the reasons I picked it. That and the 4 PCI slots, 2 IDE slots, SATA for when I upgrade my harddrives and the AGP and PCI-e slots. It's gotten some nice reviews.

 

[Darg]

Well damn them. Atleast I get the RAM out of it and I might be able to sell the p4 and 9800Pro over the net. Don't think anybody will want a 305W PSU.

I had my DVD drive die after about a year and a half but luckily I still had the working DVD-RW drive. That is making one hell of a whiny racket now though since I have the case on its side as several things would fall out if I tried to stand it up right now

The MB basically has no useful headers. Only what was needed for the front board that comes with it and even they aren't spec.

Still in a toss up between a 6300 or something better seeing as I won't be able to clock it very well with the Asrock board. Might get 2.1 out of it at best. Hopefully Asrock will release a BIOS that will let you change the multipliers.

 

[Darg]

you can use DDR 1 memory with an e6300?

You damn well better be able to!

 

[Darg]

Yea I'm going to try and flog the graphics card, the PSU and the P4 478. I hope to sell atleast the CPU and GPU. Both are in fantastic shape and the 9800Pro can still run almost all games on medium settings. The case is pretty badly damaged though and the motherboard is obviously a no go. Everything else I'm taking over to the new case.

 

[Darg]

Taken straight from my new thread.

Ok so I bought this board a week or two back and have just recieved my conroe E6300 from OCUK so i was finally ready to put everything together and amazingly (for anyone that's seen my upgrade nightmare thread you'll know what I'm talking about) everything fit.

I turn it on to bath in the radiance of the conroe processor and 7600GT combined.. when suddenly windows starts asking to be activated. ****in dell in their infinite wisdom must have limited the installation to just their motherboard or processor and as soon as you change it needs to be activated. So I tried calling up with the number given to me and it doesn't work. I go to change the number by putting in the product key that came with the dell. Low and behold the product key is incorrect. Those ****tards screwed me over AGAIN!

Ok so it's not the end of the world. Luckily my dad was able to get a spankin new copy of XP Professional from his workplace along with a PID. I throw the CD in the drive and set the CD to be the primary boot option. I even hit F11 and tell it to boot from the CD drive. Blinking underscore and the green light at the CD comes on for a couple of seconds then nothing. It boots up into the old XP and asks to be activated. So I decide to try using the new PID. Then I discover that 9 of the character keys and 3 of the number keys aren't working on my PS/2 keyboard. I was just ready to boil over at this stage. Me and my dad, both of us knowing a lot about computers and how to fix them tried for a couple of hours of various different ways to get it to boot but it just won't read from either of my CD drives even though it recognises them perfectly in the BIOS and I have the "non-RAID" option set that I was supposed to set in the BIOS.

Here is the email I sent to Asrock support:

"I bought the 775DUAL-VSTA board and have set up all the basic components that it needs to run. The main harddrive has an old version of windows XP that came with my Dell computer that it comes from which is asking for an activation key which I cannot give it as the dell windows package only works on a dell motherboard. I got a new copy of windows XP professional edition today and have been trying to boot to it on startup.

I have set the SATA option to "non-RAID" as instructed in the manual and the BIOS is recognising the CD drives and the harddrive but when it tries to boot from the CD it just shows a blinking underscore for a few seconds and then goes on to the old windows XP already installed on the drive.

I have plugged out all unneccasary components such as the sound card and network cards, I have tried both the CD drives one at a time in both the secondary master slot and the primary slave slot and none of that works.

Also when I do go into the old windows XP that is already installed on the drive and try to type on the keyboard I noticed that 9 of the character keys and 3 of the numerical keys do not register.

The keys are as follows:
E,U,I,O,A,S,L,Z,N
1,5,0

Any help that you can give me would be appreciated thankyou."


After I get something to eat I'm going to go put my old dell back together and try installing the new copy of windows onto the drive and then putting it into the new computer and see if that works.

Any ideas or help from you guys would be great.

 

[Darg]

Well finally it seems to be working. We got the OS installed off the netowrk in my dads work and it all is working apparently. I'm down in limerick so I won't be able to see it until friday.

Finally though I'll be able to see the power of a conroe. In the bios it's running at 31 at idle so the Akasa cooler seems to be working along with the fantastic airflow of the titan case.

 

[Darg]

I have no brief to defend Dell but your post makes you look quite silly. Most people know that Dell makes systems to a price and uses its own proprietry components. You ordered new non Dell parts to upgrade your system without checking that they were compatible. Dell cannot be held responsible for your stupidity. Your nightmare is of your own making and will continue for just as long as you continue to rely on your own technical expertise.

My only "stupidity" was thinking that dell sold standard spec components. Now that I know that I won't go near their machines again. I now have a very nice system running at the best speed it can on the mobo I have. We've all made screwups before and seeing as this was my first upgrade I'm happy with how it eventually turned out despite it all. The only waste of money I made was possibly buying the AGP card when I could have spent the same on a slightly better PCI-E card. Why you decided you needed to revive an old thread just to bitch at me I don't know. You obviously have some other issues in your life that your own "Technical Expertise" can't handle.