@@snowfoxcomputing right now, the power supply and fans work, but the power button doesn’t. Thinking some new thermal paste for the CPU, checking the front panel connectors, and some more maintenance! Should be a fun project 👍
Googling for nostalgias sake and found this gem. My first PC as a kid was a compaq with an integrated video card and then after coding on and upgrading that rude dude I was gifted a Gen 3 XPS and a copy of World of Warcrack for Christmas. Those were the best of times... Remember spending many a night working on reverse engineering Ragnarok Online servers and creating my own server emulator for my friends and I to play on.
I have the XPS 600 with the Pentium D 965 ee, 4 gigs of Ram and Nvidia 460. No issues and will play modern games ok at lower settings. Performs every day tasks perfectly fine. I have Win 7 on it and still use it alot of this day. It originally had 2 SLI 6800 Dell cards in it but I put a single 460GTX. You might be interested in the Dell Precision 650. It has dual socket motherboard and you can get dual Xeon (p4 ee equivalents) cheap and easy. Also has 600 mhz rambus memory. Only drawback is it is AGP. The 690 is essentially the same except it has PCIE slots but takes standard DDR2 ram. This is why the XPS case is much bigger over the 8400 case. It the XPS case is the same as the Precision case but the Precision mobo takes up more case room.
The XPS 600 is certainly on the list of things I am on the lookout for. I actually had a broken one many years ago given to me, but the processor socket was ripped off of the motherboard for some reason. The case wasn't in great shape either so it eventually went to recycling sadly. I have noticed many I've seen for sale suffer from capacitor plague, which of course is repairable, but still they command high prices as if they're not in need of repair! The Precision 650 also looks great and I'd certainly take one in if the opportunity presented itself. Even without the plastic 5.25" bay door they are quite pricey though!
Where did you get your music from!!? It's wonderful! Thanks for this! I had a Dimension when I was in college, 1gig Celeron and 512 Meg ram. Love the content!
Thanks for the support! The music comes from probably spending way too much time searching and listening for TH-cam-safe tracks that I approved of. It all comes from TH-cam, SoundCloud, random websites, so I am sorry I can't provide a simple answer. I do list information on each track in the description of every video though. Do you happen to remember the model of your old Dimension? I am sure it could have taken a 1 GHz Pentium 3 in place of the Celeron, but if that worked then that's great!
@@snowfoxcomputing I suppose id have to go back through some old pictures to see i can't remember!? I was tag teaming that PC with my Graduation gift custom build Pen3 866, swapping the monitor cable back and forth 😅. I'm going to try to resurrect that one but I'm a complete novice when it comes to soldiering. 😵💫
Interesting idea! Both boards are almost identical with a couple of minor differences for their respective cases. Off the top of my head, the XPS version has some different and/or extra front panel headers soldered on, as well as the BIOS that allows controlling of the color-changing LED on the case. There is also a second processor fan header since the XPS has those dual fans. I imagine this board wouldn't be too happy with only detecting one fan plugged in if it were installed in a 8400 case. If you have the components, it may be worth a try. Just make sure the power supply is up to the task and wired correctly!
I would say so if the price is right. For a local sale I'd not go above $100 for a complete, working unit. If you are going to check those four out, be sure to carefully look inside at all the capacitors. Take off the green heatsink shroud and look at all the VRM caps since those like to go more than the others. If they have bad caps but still power on and boot, then low-ball all the way! They will need the repairs to be worth it.
The blue first gen XPS was what I wanted back then, but this certainly would have been great as well. I managed to get a couple first gens last year before this one too for surprisingly cheap locally. The hoard grows!
Imagine how pissed off the buyer of a high end machine like this would have been when they realized their couple month old computer can't use the newly released dualcores because of an intentional cripple from Intel in the i915/925 chipset, but people with cheap AGP/DDR1 boards sporting i865/875, VIA and SIS chipsets can.
Working on repairing one of these big boys right now, so thank you for the great walkthrough of how the machine generally handles things!
Very nice, I hope it turns out well. What does yours need for repairs? I appreciate your support!
@@snowfoxcomputing right now, the power supply and fans work, but the power button doesn’t. Thinking some new thermal paste for the CPU, checking the front panel connectors, and some more maintenance! Should be a fun project 👍
Amazing !! Gained a subscriber
Googling for nostalgias sake and found this gem.
My first PC as a kid was a compaq with an integrated video card and then after coding on and upgrading that rude dude I was gifted a Gen 3 XPS and a copy of World of Warcrack for Christmas. Those were the best of times... Remember spending many a night working on reverse engineering Ragnarok Online servers and creating my own server emulator for my friends and I to play on.
what cables do you need to connect a monitor? will new monitors work? I'm trying to get old one booted up.
For that graphics card, it has DVI ports, so you would need a DVI cable or a DVI adapter to whichever plug your monitor uses (VGA, HDMI, DisplayPort).
I use to have this identical mdel but mine was the Gen 5, I can totally relate when it comes to this beast of a tower. Nice tower!
I have the XPS 600 with the Pentium D 965 ee, 4 gigs of Ram and Nvidia 460. No issues and will play modern games ok at lower settings. Performs every day tasks perfectly fine. I have Win 7 on it and still use it alot of this day. It originally had 2 SLI 6800 Dell cards in it but I put a single 460GTX. You might be interested in the Dell Precision 650. It has dual socket motherboard and you can get dual Xeon (p4 ee equivalents) cheap and easy. Also has 600 mhz rambus memory. Only drawback is it is AGP. The 690 is essentially the same except it has PCIE slots but takes standard DDR2 ram. This is why the XPS case is much bigger over the 8400 case. It the XPS case is the same as the Precision case but the Precision mobo takes up more case room.
The XPS 600 is certainly on the list of things I am on the lookout for. I actually had a broken one many years ago given to me, but the processor socket was ripped off of the motherboard for some reason. The case wasn't in great shape either so it eventually went to recycling sadly. I have noticed many I've seen for sale suffer from capacitor plague, which of course is repairable, but still they command high prices as if they're not in need of repair! The Precision 650 also looks great and I'd certainly take one in if the opportunity presented itself. Even without the plastic 5.25" bay door they are quite pricey though!
@@snowfoxcomputing Like the channel. Vids are well made.
Woah can't believe there's someone out there still daily driving a pentium D, respect I guess!
@@rtmclean484 why wouldnt if it continues to do what I ask of it? No reason to really stop.
I not too sure but I think those pentium 4 boards use socket 775, double check if so there are plenty core quad processors you can upgrade to..
This is a follow up to the previous video on the Dimension 8400, so please check that one out too!
Where did you get your music from!!? It's wonderful! Thanks for this! I had a Dimension when I was in college, 1gig Celeron and 512 Meg ram. Love the content!
Thanks for the support! The music comes from probably spending way too much time searching and listening for TH-cam-safe tracks that I approved of. It all comes from TH-cam, SoundCloud, random websites, so I am sorry I can't provide a simple answer. I do list information on each track in the description of every video though.
Do you happen to remember the model of your old Dimension? I am sure it could have taken a 1 GHz Pentium 3 in place of the Celeron, but if that worked then that's great!
@@snowfoxcomputing I suppose id have to go back through some old pictures to see i can't remember!? I was tag teaming that PC with my Graduation gift custom build Pen3 866, swapping the monitor cable back and forth 😅. I'm going to try to resurrect that one but I'm a complete novice when it comes to soldiering. 😵💫
Would the xps motherboard work in 8400 case?
Interesting idea! Both boards are almost identical with a couple of minor differences for their respective cases. Off the top of my head, the XPS version has some different and/or extra front panel headers soldered on, as well as the BIOS that allows controlling of the color-changing LED on the case. There is also a second processor fan header since the XPS has those dual fans. I imagine this board wouldn't be too happy with only detecting one fan plugged in if it were installed in a 8400 case. If you have the components, it may be worth a try. Just make sure the power supply is up to the task and wired correctly!
@@snowfoxcomputing The XPS will work. I did that to an Dimension 8400 years ago so I could use a Pentium D 840 ee.
Just seen 4 of these come up for sale locally. Would it be worth getting one?
I would say so if the price is right. For a local sale I'd not go above $100 for a complete, working unit. If you are going to check those four out, be sure to carefully look inside at all the capacitors. Take off the green heatsink shroud and look at all the VRM caps since those like to go more than the others. If they have bad caps but still power on and boot, then low-ball all the way! They will need the repairs to be worth it.
You really didn’t get the memory up to 4 GB, right? That’s where I’d look for more performance.
Always wanted one as a kid 😂
The blue first gen XPS was what I wanted back then, but this certainly would have been great as well. I managed to get a couple first gens last year before this one too for surprisingly cheap locally. The hoard grows!
Imagine how pissed off the buyer of a high end machine like this would have been when they realized their couple month old computer can't use the newly released dualcores because of an intentional cripple from Intel in the i915/925 chipset, but people with cheap AGP/DDR1 boards sporting i865/875, VIA and SIS chipsets can.
You should put that 7900 gtx in an oven, sounds like cold soldier joints to me. Especially given its age
Epic