Dell Precision 9100 upgrade ?

[johns]

Has anyone done this? I have a bunch of them with 375 watt
psupply which has a weird size, so something like an Antec
won't fit the case. Then I have 1 gig ddr2 ram. And, an
nVidia GS6800 pci-e card. Seems like a nice machine, but
I need to run Vista and modern CAD apps for Vista .. like
AutoCAD 2008 and Solidworks.

Problems I know about .. or at least suspect:

The 6800 won't run the latest shaders at all.

Power supply is weird size ( thanks a lot, Dell ), and
at 375 watts is a bit small for an upgrade video card like
an nVidia GF 8600 GT.

1 gig ram is too little for Vista running CAD apps. 2 gigs
would work fine.

My goal is to upgrade to a Vista box with a dx10 card
and 2 gigs ram ... and try to do that for around $200, but
not buy in to a bunch of cheap crap. these boxes need
to be stable and fairly long lasting ... 3 years maybe.

johns

 

[Dave]

Has anyone done this? I have a bunch of them with 375 watt
psupply which has a weird size, so something like an Antec
won't fit the case. Then I have 1 gig ddr2 ram. And, an
nVidia GS6800 pci-e card. Seems like a nice machine, but
I need to run Vista and modern CAD apps for Vista .. like
AutoCAD 2008 and Solidworks.

Problems I know about .. or at least suspect:

The 6800 won't run the latest shaders at all.

Power supply is weird size ( thanks a lot, Dell ), and
at 375 watts is a bit small for an upgrade video card like
an nVidia GF 8600 GT.

1 gig ram is too little for Vista running CAD apps. 2 gigs
would work fine.

My goal is to upgrade to a Vista box with a dx10 card
and 2 gigs ram ... and try to do that for around $200, but
not buy in to a bunch of cheap crap. these boxes need
to be stable and fairly long lasting ... 3 years maybe.

johns

So what's the problem? Get a cheap case, a good power supply, a good video
card and some RAM. My suggestions follow:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817189005
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811116010
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220142 (you
have 1GB already, right?)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814141072

There, that's about $200 -including shipping-. Should be very stable and
long-lasting. If anything fails on you it will likely be one of the
recycled components. But first check the dimensions of the Dell mainboard
to see if the mainboard will fit a standard ATX format case, including the
mounting holes! -Dave

 

[Paul]

Has anyone done this? I have a bunch of them with 375 watt
psupply which has a weird size, so something like an Antec
won't fit the case. Then I have 1 gig ddr2 ram. And, an
nVidia GS6800 pci-e card. Seems like a nice machine, but
I need to run Vista and modern CAD apps for Vista .. like
AutoCAD 2008 and Solidworks.

Problems I know about .. or at least suspect:

The 6800 won't run the latest shaders at all.

Power supply is weird size ( thanks a lot, Dell ), and
at 375 watts is a bit small for an upgrade video card like
an nVidia GF 8600 GT.

1 gig ram is too little for Vista running CAD apps. 2 gigs
would work fine.

My goal is to upgrade to a Vista box with a dx10 card
and 2 gigs ram ... and try to do that for around $200, but
not buy in to a bunch of cheap crap. these boxes need
to be stable and fairly long lasting ... 3 years maybe.

johns

6800GS is 54.7W as measured here.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/geforce-6800gs_3.html

I don't have a figure from Xbitlabs for 8600GT, but it should be less
power than a 8600GTS, which is 47W.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/geforce8600gts_7.html

If so, you can do the card swap, and keep the supply as is.

In the example, 47W would be mainly from +12V, and would be 12V at 4 amps.
So probably not a big power draw.

On this page, they estimate the 8600GT as 43W.

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=513&card2=

Paul

 

[johns]

Yep. You are right. They are Dell Dimension 9100s.
I tried an Antec psupply, and the Dell psupply is
nearly an inch thicker, so the mount holes don't
match. Would work, but looks bad. Image is a
whole lot here. It is not the CAD apps moving to
Vista so much as it is the license agreement we
purchase from Microsoft. Plus, almost everything
new coming in runs Vista. I just discovered that
on the Dell site, there is a PNY GF8600 GT that
Dell says only needs their stock psupply. If the
price is right, I'll get those, and another gig of
ram.

I'm beginning to feel comfortable with Vista. I've
been testing it for over a year, and I've learned
the necessary hacks to drop Vista back to XP,
and run XP apps with no problems. I'll turn those
hacks back on as needed, when the XP apps
catch up. The 9100s were a $$$ machine when
we bought them. We would like to maintain
them out of warranty for a few more years .. if
the price is right, and the quality is high.

johns

 

[johns]

Thanks. I just assumed the 8600 would be more powerful
than the 6800. Logical but wrong. Looks like we are in luck
because the price of the 8600s is coming down fast. With
rebates I can get them on the web for about $75 .. and
the extra ram for $35. Geeze that is a steal for the level
of these boxes.

johns