Mother oh Mother

OK...I have a Dell xps 400..w/ Pentium D, running XP (SP3)..built around 2004-5, I think...I am wanting to upgrade my mother board, but I am not sure where to start..Not sure what to buy, and what would be compatible. Also, I dont want a piece of crap either! And should I make the jump to Win7 if I do this? Any advice/help would be greatful.

Thanks Geeks...

 

First thing you've got to research is the size and mounting of your current motherboard. Is it ATX or mini-ATX standard size and mounting, or is it proprietary? Next thing is the heatsink and CPU fan arrangement. Dell very often uses a proprietary CPU cooling system that won't allow for fitting of aftermarket coolers, or motherboards where the CPU is in a different place on the board, which would definitely be the case if you got a different MB. You've got some homework to do.

 

Ahh man..yes i got home work..Point me in the right direction, how to figure all that out?

 

Search the Dell site for a service manual and any other documentation you can find about your system and read away.

 

This is what i came up with....

Processor, 80551, Pentium D Smithfield For Desktops, 820 2.8GHz, BO, Server

Any help?

 

Try this as a starting point
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/xps400/sm/index.htm

I can tell just by looking at the picture of the processor arrangement that it's proprietary. You'll never get an aftermarket MB in that case. You'll need to get a new case, and use your old system to scanvenge parts from as you can.

 

Ahhh...10-4

Thanks for your time...

 

Yeah...Dell says there is no upgrade for this motherboard, but they will sale me the same one...scheeww...guess I will consider a new complete build.