Old Dell XPS 720

[Orford]

Hi all,

I'm just about to pick up a Dell XPS720 H2C. It has the 8650 core 2 quad extreme (could be the 6850 he isn't sure) CPU, 4gb ram and 2x 8800GTX. It belonged to a family member. Some years old and showing signs of the motherboard being faulty. Will have a better idea when I get it home.

It will boots but blue screens after a while with RAM error. I've tried different RAM and still the same issue.

Any way my point, What options will I have? Would it be worth breathing new life into this machine? I'm expecting new case, PSU and motherboard.

Media player, Free NAS, Game server? Kids facebook machine. Looking at i'd say £100 to get it back to life.

Is it worth it or just bay the CPU to some one who likes retro kit.

Thanks for your time.

Orford.

 

[Orcvader]

How old is a Windows install? Could try a new install?

 

[Elrein]

I'm still running an old XPS 710, recently dropped a GRX560ti in it to replace the ageing 8800GTX and its still going strong... Plays pretty much everything flawlessly if your prepared to forgo a few bells n whistles.

I too have suffered from the BSOD from time to time and managed to nail the problem down to the PSU being overloaded by external HDDs, giving the psu a break from all the excessive power draw seemed to bring it back from the dead and havent had an issue since.

From what I remember the 720 came with a 1KW psu so I can't safely say that power is ur issue. 1st thing I'd do is a clean install and stay away from beta drivers.

Two 8800GTXs are hungry to say the least, maybe do what I did and see what a new gen card can do for it?

 

[Orford]

Windows install is fresh. I'm defiantly of the opinion its the mobo or PSU. Google confirms that a lot of these machines suffered from motherboard issues. £35 for a new motherboard and another £50 for a case and PSU (wont be quality but it will be able to test build) may be worth a shot or may not. That's what I'm trying to decide.

I'll look at the clocks CPU/RAM as it is the H2C water cooled pre-overclocked version. So yes it is a possibility the PSU has got tired. 2x HDD and 2 x 8800 GTX with an overclocked C2Q Extreme8650 would pull a lot of watts.

With the mobo and PSU being proprietary it will need to be a new case as well if things turn out to be knackered. Dell used BTX mobo and PSU set up. Viable to spend that money on such an old machine? if it needs a new graphics card as well, to do any thing modern.

Hopefully I can get some thing from it. If not I'll break it down and sell it on. Will be worth a couple of hours of nerding off, just to see.

 

[Kaapstad]

I had a XPS 720 H2C once when I bought it I got an extended warrenty which cost about £120.

After I think it was nearly 3 years near the end of the warrenty first both GTX 8800s packed up and had to be replaced. Then one of the Raptor 160gb hard drives packed up, then a couple of weeks later the other one packed up and was replaced. This all happened within the space of about 6 or 7 weeks.

If Dell had not had such a bad reputation I would never have spent the money on a an extended warrenty. Who says having a bad reputation is not good for something.

 

[Orford]

Well, took it to bits lost some skin, reseated the CPU (6850extreme) tested the RAM which was all good.

The Motherboard DIMM 1 and DIMM 3 are knackerd. I put 2 x 1GB sticks in DIMMs 2,4 wiped the HDDs turned of the Nvidia RAID. Installed Kubuntu and tested every thing, its all good.

Now to find a DDR2 socket 775 motherboard, (OCuK dont have any) small case, PSU, sell the 2x8800GTX buy a newer graphics card and make a small desktop for the kids bedroom.

Happy days.

 

[Kaapstad]

Well, took it to bits lost some skin, reseated the CPU (6850extreme) tested the RAM which was all good.

The Motherboard DIMM 1 and DIMM 3 are knackerd. I put 2 x 1GB sticks in DIMMs 2,4 wiped the HDDs turned of the Nvidia RAID. Installed Kubuntu and tested every thing, its all good.

Now to find a DDR2 socket 775 motherboard, (OCuK dont have any) small case, PSU, sell the 2x8800GTX buy a newer graphics card and make a small desktop for the kids bedroom.

Happy days.

Is yours a factory oced one like mine was. The reason I mention it is whenever I did something unexpected with it like moving it or there was a power cut, the cpu oc would default back to 2.66Ghz from the factory oc of 3.5Ghz. It was never any big deal, it only takes a few seconds in the bios to reapply. It just something that is easy to miss and would leave the pc running a bit slow.

I found my XPS 720 H2C to be very good performance wise even by todays standards. The only reason I no longer have it is I have 3 other PCs at home and it was not getting used. I gave it to a mate at work and his kids are well pleased with it.

 

[Orford]

Its running at 3.0ghz, just checked. I have found some sub £40 DDR 3 motherboards that support the CPU just means buying some DDR ram when I have 3 gb sat here of DDR 2.

The only problem leaving it how it is, is its just to dam big and noisey. Sounds like a Jump Jet hovering. Im sure its not that bad but compared to my PC its BAD.

I could weight it in at the scrap yard and get enough money to drive to france. Is funny how the marketing men change tack when the sales start to fall and now telling us small is best. Although I do agree never did like huge towers being used to prop up desks.

 

[foster grant]

It's a Dell....that says all you need to know really lol

Although my son is using a Dell Studio XPS 710 ? i think.....and its so slow its terrible

 

[Orford]

It is a Dell but the CPU is a Intel Quad core extreme. If I put the bits on a new Motherboard and in a new case load a none bloatware copy of windows. Its still a very capable machine.

Although it will end up on ebay in bits. Im looking at £200 to put it into a media PC. I can buy a Acer Revo rl70 for that. So sell it and use the money to buy a Revo.

 

[feck199]

Only quickly read though this, and I assume the memory is the original ram that came with the system.

Even though in some places it says ddr 800 is support, it isn't. 667 is the max. I ended up having to find some old 533 pieces and that made the system stable again. This is a dell motherboard limit, which they removed with an update but didn't get it quite right so it bsod.

just as a fyi!