the evil Dell

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glaucon

tending tangentially
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OK folks, here's a weird one...

I'm planning on doing some upgrades to my system, so I figured I had better know as much as possible about my system right? I've only been using computers for about a year and a half, but I'm doing OK so far. May of 2000 I bought my system from Dell. It's an XPS T700r, Pentium 3 that came with Win98 installed. Since then I've formatted and moved on to Win2000 Pro. I'm trying to find out the manufacturer, make, etc... of my BIOS, chipset, motherboard, and basically anything that has relevance to upgrading. So off I go and contact Dell... who proceed to tell me that they have an agreement with Microsoft and cannot release such information and furthermore, they tell me to format and reinstall Win98. ?*!!??%
What is wrong with these people??
Anyways, can anyone tell me how to go about discovering this information?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Jeez. Everything I've read and heard about dell has been good. Their machines are supposed to have the lowest failure rates and customer service is supposed to be tops. They even came in #1 in PC magazine for both.
Have you tried to contact them again, to speak with someone else? How about asking for a supervisor?
Another thing - what are trying to upgrade? If it's a better sound/graphics card, modem, adding memory/ USB ports, another CD(RW)/DVD drive, you don't need all the technical knowledge. 98 and 2K are pretty good with plug-n-play from my experience. If you're thinking of overclocking/upgrading the processor then you will need more detailed info. Try doing a search for your specific computer. That's helped me, though it has taken some time to wade through convoluted links.

Shadow
 
I think I may be of assistance!

Have you tried sisoft sandra? This thing tells you a lot of stuff for free with the shareware version that manufacturers don't want you knowing about.

Go to this site.

http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/sandra

It is a great program. Because a few days ago I downloaded 3DMark 2001, and found out my Athlon was running at 908MHz instead of 1200MHz. So I searched for a program to tell me what my Processor was running at kinda like a second opinion. It said 908MHz as well. So I went to my bios and put my fsb(front side bus) back up to 133MHz instead of the previous 100MHz it mysteriously changed to?
 
BASTARDS! ALL OF YOU!


does it ever make you wonder why people suck so bad with computers, i.e they are running AOL full time and yet.. they have pentium 4 1.4 ghz w/ 256 megs of ram????


does that make any sense at all??? and yet... here i am compiling huge programs, recompiling kernels on a celeron 550 w/ 128 megs of ram (my dad wont let me install my new 256 till i get my chores done :-/)



sooo.. anyone wanna send me a new motherboard and or processor.. that would be great!!!
 
Shadow: you are correct; up until this point I have had no problems whatsoever, everything works great but I am a tweaker at heart.

Deadwood: indeed, SiSoftSandra is a great tool that I have used. Alas, it did not help me with regard to my BIOS issue. I recently delved into my bios and removed the Dell splash screen. So now, during my boot there's a line that says: Phoenix Technologies bios version 4.0, release 6.0. A couple of lines down I get: Dell Dimension xpst700r, Intel bios version A09. You see, every diagnostic program I have run tells me that I have an Intel A09 bios. Except for when I use the Win2000 System Identification tool, or during the boot. Weird.
I'm just a stickler for finding out all the correct information before I mess around with stuff; you wouldn't think it would be such a bad thing. Mr.Dell thinks so apparently. Instead of simply answering my question when I e-mail them, they send me this bum link to some file that ends up not working. Ah well. By the way Deadwood, how did you change your fsb to 133? Mind you, my mainboard is a 440bx, so I don't think that's an option for me. Just asking.

dexter: I'm going to assume you're not saying I suck, even though I do have 256 megs of RAM. With respect to your inquiry; sorry, I only have so much $.
 
Dell, Compaq - they are all the same. They have special licenses that says for certain machine they are selling certain OS. IF you add a separate license and tried to upgrade anything, it sends information to Microsoft about your configuration. The creates problem for their database.

Better to buy your own motherboard and whitebox and build from scratch with good quality components. Then when you change something, you know what you have or get help for updated drivers.

I have recieved bios updates from both dell and compaq with no problem.
 
Ah well. By the way Deadwood, how did you change your fsb to 133? Mind you, my mainboard is a 440bx, so I don't think that's an option for me. Just asking.
Click to expand...

My motherboard is the Asus A7V 133-C and it can be set in jumperless mode using a jumper(hehe) which mine apparently is since thats the way I got it. So my FSB mysteriously went down to 100MHz with no explanation. It was 100MHz in the BIOS so Sisoft Sandra wan't lying, but now I have set it at 133MHz and Sandra is reporting 134MHz FSB which is dual pumped. So my AGP is running at 68MHz and my PCI is running at 34MHz. I don't get it? Does anyone know of any Jumperless FSB changing virus? I scanned my PC but there are no viruses.

Anyway, sorry but I can't really help anymore than that. I'm only 1/4 through the first semester of my Dip. I.T.(Systems Administration), perhaps wait a year till third and I can help you. ;)
 
how to change the speed of your front side bus

Get a program called SoftFSB....changes the speed right out of windows..no need to reboot...its an overclockers dream program.



My motherboard is the Asus A7V 133-C and it can be set in jumperless mode using a jumper(hehe) which mine apparently is since thats the way I got it. So my FSB mysteriously went down to 100MHz with no explanation. It was 100MHz in the BIOS so Sisoft Sandra wan't lying, but now I have set it at 133MHz and Sandra is reporting 134MHz FSB which is dual pumped. So my AGP is running at 68MHz and my PCI is running at 34MHz. I don't get it? Does anyone know of any Jumperless FSB changing virus? I scanned my PC but there are no viruses.
Click to expand...
]

Might be because of your Athlon chip, might be bad mobo drivers in windows, might have been a power outage..probably NOT a virus lol....neat virus if it was/is....get a virus scanner, scan for viruses....if u dont find one....then thats not it

as for the agp/pci
sounds like your running at 2x agp to me. AGP is a form of PCI bus, and at 2X .....it should be running at twice the speed of the PCI bus.

and Steve..CALL DELL!! ffs lol
 
Ya, go to www.download.com and search for "system info" -- you will find nagware/crippleware programs that will give you everything you need to know about your system.

Or, if you have win2k, you could go to ADMIN tools (under "programs" from the start menu) and then go to "windows diagnostics"

Or if you have norton system utils 2001, there's a sysinfo type of program you could run.
 
Bosspacman:

I am glad you made it here. We have members from 11 year old to old geezers. You will find the place interesting. I see, you have already posted.

WELCOME & ENJOY
 
I would like to echo kmguru's thoughts and welcome you to the Sciforums, bosspacman. I hope you find that which you seek.
 
well - this is your lucky day glaucon - I also own a Dell XPS T700r and have successfully upgraded to Windows 2000 Pro and again to Windows XP Pro without any problems. Actually...only ONE problem I still haven't sorted out which is that my MS Natural Elite Keyboard seems to be in conflict with Dell's motherboard but it's manageable and didn't become a problem until I replaced the maxtor hard drive that came with the Dell with an 80 GB WD800... :eek:

Here's the deal...Windows 2000 and Windows XP are so stuffed to the gills with systems drivers that you will very probably find that you don't have to manually load anything at all. Run Windows Update when you are Internet capable and you should pick up the latest Video and Sound Card drivers without having to hunt them down.

A word to the wise regarding Win XP though...you need a minimum of 256 mb RAM. XP has a nasty habit of getting 90% through the installation and freezing if you don't have enough RAM. It won't tell you what the problem is in advance, so be advised...

as far as hardware upgrades are concerned...it's definitely limited. Dell's are not good at upgrade options...they didn't get to be the biggest peddler of computers in the world by accident...I will absolutely NEVER buy another one. I miss my little AMD so bad it hurts but the Dell was given to me as a present so I'm living with it...You can upgrade the CPU (a little) and hard drive and you can run a maximum of 768 mb RAM. You can add accessories like a CD Burner or a Zip drive (I've done both). You can upgrade Video & Sound as long as they don't conflict with your Modem and Ethernet card which are fairly standard US Robotics and 3M respectively. Other than that I'm not sure. Dell's customer service sucks enormous pickles in my opinion so you'll want to network with other Dell victims to find anything out.

By the way - I have found Everest's diagnostic tool to be much better than any other I've tried...very fast and clean and accurate...it should give you a lot of information on your system...

R Voss
 
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Holy Crap! this thread was revived from Aug. 2001. Glaucon, are you still tryingto fix your Dell?
 
Does glaucon even post on SciForums anymore? DOES HE STILL LIVE?!?
Another SF n00b (or member attempting to annoy us by resurrecting old threads under a different username.) resurrects a thread.
 
hmm.. Maybe rvoss did a search on Dell XPS T700r and landed him here. Then joined to post.
I think glaucon is still alive. his last activity was "today".
Anyway, I'm surprised they keep posts from 3+ years ago.
 
LOL
How the hell did this thread get going again?
I'm still alive.
I've since maxed out the Dell in all possible ways, not that I use it for much anymore.
I put my own new system together.
Antec Sonata case w. 380W PS.
ASUS P4P800-E DLX s478 SATA
Intel P4 2.4AE GHz
1024MB DDR PC400
WesternDigital 120Gb HD
LG 12x SuperMulti Optical Drive

:)
 
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