Does Dell make its own motherboards?

[Leythos]

(e-mail address removed), a.k.a Gama Chameleon
says...


Of course, again, you forget that a self-build PC is usually built from
off-the-shelf parts, and as such is very easily maintained.

And neither are the majority of the parts in most of the large vendor
systems. Most of the parts are the same off-the-shelf parts you would
get anywhere. Vaio, E-Machines, Dell, Compaq, HP, etc... The only hard
thing about getting parts on those it getting a power-supply, their
cases support standard hard-drives, cd-rom drives, even standard
floppies.

Tiny were a PC manufacturer who went bust and left a lot of people in
the lurch due to the use of proprietary parts.

Any small time independent who goes out of business isn't going to have
the same impact on a business *if* they supplied 100% compliant ATX
systems.

But the point was the small business user or the home user - so a small
shop going out of business is going to have an impact on 100% of the
customers that purchased from them that are looking for Warranty
replacement of that compliant ATX power supply.

 

[Mercury]

do a google. it is commonly (sort of) known. I read it a few weeks ago
somewhere out there ===>

 

[Leythos]

Firstly, i don't recall every calling anyone who buys Dell an "idiot",
so please quote me correctly.

The "Idiot" comment was presented to all of us by:

Anybody that buys a brand name computer is an idiot.
Build it yourself using good brand name hardware and build it the way you
want it. You will be very pleased with the results.

Notice - it was not tx2 that posted the above

 

[jas0n]

What complete replacement? I said swapping some of the components into a

standard case was an option - did I type that a complete replacement was
as well?

nah, just me skimming and not taking it all in - im in holiday mode and
have been relaxing for almost my whole 2 weeks now - brain is almost out
of function

 

[Mercury]

yes and your seagate drive from your local builder has a 5 year warrantee,
but the dell non seagate drive won't.

Big Names provide post warrantee / contract support for a [big] fee.

 

[Mercury]

a short run vendor specific board for a sony or dell (asus has supplied
mobos for both) are not as good as "retail" boards. 100,000 mobos is a short
run for a company that makes over 30,000,000 p/a. No offemce to asus - they
make under contract.

 

[Leythos]

yes and your seagate drive from your local builder has a 5 year warrantee,
but the dell non seagate drive won't.

I get three years (as is common in the US on many retail products) for
all the parts in the Dell's we purchased.

Big Names provide post warrantee / contract support for a [big] fee.

Not as big a cost as you might "Think", when you consider the cost of
not having a support contract, even for home users.

 

[Leythos]

a short run vendor specific board for a sony or dell (asus has supplied
mobos for both) are not as good as "retail" boards. 100,000 mobos is a short
run for a company that makes over 30,000,000 p/a. No offemce to asus - they
make under contract.

Do you honestly think that ASUS compromised it's quality for Dell? No,
more likely that Dell looked at a specific production board and asked
ASUS to maintain a certain level of compliance for a specific time
period.

 

[Tx2]

Sorry about mixing you up with Venom

S'okay - thanks for actually bothering to acknowledge it, some would
have just ignored such.

 

[Tx2]

nah, just me skimming and not taking it all in - im in holiday mode and
have been relaxing for almost my whole 2 weeks now - brain is almost out
of function

LOL ... enjoy

 

[Courseyauto]

Firstly, i don't recall every calling anyone who buys Dell an "idiot",
so please quote me correctly.

The "Idiot" comment was presented to all of us by:

Anybody that buys a brand name computer is an idiot.
Build it yourself using good brand name hardware and build it the way you
want it. You will be very pleased with the results.

Notice - it was not tx2 that posted the above

last time i looked Dell had brand name parts inside, Intel motherboard (by
Asus),Intel CPU by Intel, samsung memory,ATI video,WD hard drives,samsung DVD
Rom, turtle beach sound card. Same stuff you buy at NEW EGG. DOUG

 

[Nick Zentena]

last time i looked Dell had brand name parts inside, Intel motherboard (by
Asus),Intel CPU by Intel, samsung memory,ATI video,WD hard drives,samsung DVD
Rom, turtle beach sound card. Same stuff you buy at NEW EGG. DOUG

Are you sure of that? Or do they have custom OEM versions? If Dell wants a
product that costs a couple of dollars less but leaves out some minor
features they've got the volume.

Nick

 

[Mercury]

Short answer "Yes". They are made to contract - specs are frozen at a point
in time while the base design gets improved across revisions or there is no
cost cutting on mounted components for retail as they are competing on specs
/ facilities in the retail sector. Just take a look at the bios (also under
contract) and update availability for oem mobo's. There is a much shorter
bios life time. Take a look at the P2B variants produced for Dell and Sony
as examples. P2B had many rev's - how many did Dell implement?

The fact that many asus supplied dell mobos that had the psu cludge proves
the point... how many of these mobo's got blown up by plugging in standard
psu's when the dell psu failed? where was the warning sticker? who owns the
product when it is paid for? I hear it is happening again...

Personally, out of all the supplier they have supplied better consistncy
than many others and in a large environment they would be on my shopping
list. For small / medium, it would depend on many factors. As soon as you
get out of a large city, the Big Names cease to have meaning as either they
(or reps) are not where you are and time to get on site > 4 hours may be
unacceptable (servers). HP / Compaq / Digital has always failed on this
front. IBM was always yes - for a very large fee.

 

[Rob Nicholson]

I'd much rather just phone up dell, tell them what I need, and two days

later have them all.

We've just taken delivery of 7 budget home PC Dell systems for home working.
Every single one worked perfectly out of the box. Took more than two days
but it has been Christmas

getting a lot better now they are moving it back to Ireland (IIRC)...

Ahh, I hoped they do that.

Rob.

 

[Rob Nicholson]

How many mom and pop shops offer 24/7/365 phone support?

I feel I do sometimes!

 

[Rob Nicholson]

Any small time independent who goes out of business isn't going to have

the same impact on a business *if* they supplied 100% compliant ATX
systems.

I agree with this I'm at a loss why they use propriatary parts. Unless
it's for cost saving.

Rob.

 

[Leythos]

The fact that many asus supplied dell mobos that had the psu cludge proves
the point... how many of these mobo's got blown up by plugging in standard
psu's when the dell psu failed? where was the warning sticker? who owns the
product when it is paid for? I hear it is happening again...

I have a number of Dell's that have the non-standard ATX power
connector. I tried several times to replace the PSU with a standard ATX
unit and noticed that it didn't work. No damage to the motherboard or
the PSU. I called Dell about it and was told it's a non-standard PSU. I
ordered a Dell replacement for $65 and was done with it.

A quick search on google shows at least 20 companies that many a large
number of ATX to non-standard ATX (for more than just Dell) PSU cable
adapters.

There is still a large value to customers, home users, purchasing
computers from Volume Retail outlets, even if you don't accept it
yourself.

Would I purchase a Retail system for my own use - yes and no. About 2
years ago I needed a P4 for some .Net development work and my other
systems were tied up (this was for my home), so I bought a Sony VAIO at
Best Buy (retail outlet), it was cheaper and quicker than getting time
to spec/order/deliver/assy a system by my normal self-build means. I use
the same system to this day - they have a non-standard PSU size, but 5
minutes with a dremal tool and I installed a 480W standard ATX PSU in
it. I also replaced the video card with a dual-port video card, replaced
the DVD-RW drive (which has a custom bezel) with a standard DVD+/-RW
drive (the case had removable parts that made a standard drive work
fine. I even installed an IDE RAID controller card in the system and
dual 250GB SATA drives.

So, while it's still a 1.8g P4 without Hyper-Threading, it still works
quite well and has been expanded to meet all my home needs.

The same is true with several of those Dell units. With the exception of
the PSU connector, they all take normal drives (Hard, CD, etc...), new
video cards, new sound cards, more memory (unless you maxed it out when
you bought it) and even faster CPU's.

 

[Andy]

I agree with Mr Bronson - build your own and the you know exactly what is in
it.

Dell used to make decent quality machines but there was still a lot of Dell
customisation which left few options for upgrading. But now they are turning
out cheap junk.

As my Dad always used to say "You only get what you pay for"....

 

[Mercury]

Hey I am not diagreeing with you entirely. Perhaps some of my experiences
will help you see my point of view. If I were in a big city with only local
customers also in big cities then I have no doubt it may be different.

Not once has a big name brand (BNB) been able to come up with a competitive
solution!!!! Servers are usually twice the price for a properly configured
system with no benefits [here] in getting the system off a BNB. When I
specify servers, WHQL componentry is always a requirement, ECC usually, RAID
10 always...

I issue many RFQ's for customers for systems after analysing their
requirements. I act impartially and make recommendations from shortlists as
most sane people do. The customers read the recommendations and make
decisions of their own. We are in a small city with many semi-rural
customers - some quite large by local standards - think small by US
standards, some require 24 x 7 HA systems as far as feasible IE they cannot
afford clustered systems currently. Onsite service kills the BNB's
particularly for servers.

The BNB's tend to put far too little effort into adhering to specs for
server systems offering packaged systems that fall a long way short of the
stated requirements. IE they tend to read 'Needs x Window Servers' and
respond with some crap (EG single P4 with 256mb then some dick on the phone
argues with me telling me I don't need ECC, don't need RAID10 or RAID 5 is
better always etc. when the spec may say 'Need WHQL'd Windows 2003 server
system with xGB ECC RAM, ... raid 10 minimum 2 channels... etc etc.". Yes
when drawing up specs I am actually conservative, but at the same time
mindful of system lifetime requirements.

Dell puts me off with their advertising: add $99 delivery, or $99 specials,
or $x,000 for configuring SBS2003 onsite for max 5 users (labour only
charge) for a "Server" that uses a single P4 chip, no ecc ram, 256MB at
$700! (not US dollars) Adverts like that read like so much bullshit that
they may as well shoot themselves in the foot. I pray I never get a call
from anyone that has bought sbs2003 on such a system.

Thinking about it, a Dell system would never do if there is a chance that
PSU's cannot be replaced quickly. On some sites we do stock spares (HDD's,
PSU's, Fans, backplanes, mobos, and 1U servers complete).

 

[Joe Nord]

That is certainly my understanding, but I have never actually checked
myself. The wires are in a different order. Out of interest, how difficult
would it be to disassemble the ATX connector of a standard PSU and put the
wires into the order required by Dell?

I've got a cheapo PSU here that I've been fiddling with. I can't get the
little connector pins out of the ATX connector block. Is there a knack to
this, or are they intended to stay in forever?

Do you remember how many of the wires are different? My understanding was
that it was just a couple of wires that were swapped over. If it's only two,
I guess that it would be possible to cut the wires and splice them back
together in the right order.

Geoff

Geoff

This tool will remove them, some plugs are more difficult than others.
http://www.action2k.com/molex.htm
Extractor Tool #MO-11030044 For Mini-Fit Connectors


Dell power connector: http://premiersupport.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim8200/techov.htm#1101897

Good luck,
Joe