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How to Upgrade your Inspiron!! (All Aspects) - Page 4

post #61 of 142
6/23/04 at 10:01am
I am thinking of upgrading or selling my Dell Insipron 8200
currently it is a P4 1.8 with 768 megs of ram PC2100
64 meg ATI Raedon 9000
60 gig 7200 Hitachi drive (main drive)
40 gig 5400 rpm ibm (modular bay)
orinoco gold b/g client card
15" uxga screen
I am looking for a Dell Machine that will give me better performance as I do not have a regular desktop.
does it make sense to upgrade to a 2.5 GHZ CPU and add a gig of ram for a total of 1.5 gig of PC 2700 (333 mhz)
this upgrade costs approx. $650 (the ram can be migrated to a new system later)

Or is better to just invest in a new machine ??
in reality how much of a performance gain am I going to see by upgrading to the 2.5GHZ CPU ???

Or should I go to a 3.0 GHZ or higher CPU or the new Centrino Dothan CPU's in a new machine ????
I use the machine for everything but I do not play games,
I do alot of digital photography,converting RAW files to jpegs which currently take about 40 sec. per image
thanks in advance for your help.....Stu


















or the Inspiron 8600
which has better performance ??? in reality how much of a gain should I expect with a new laptop
I use the laptop for everything but I do not play any games
thanks for your help in advance.......Stu
shkj2@comcast.net
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post #62 of 142
6/23/04 at 10:48am
First off, a couple of things i seems you were unaware about for you i8200:
-> The CPU is limited to the Mobile Pentium 4 -M (400FSB) line, which means it tops out at 2.6GHz, not up to 3.0GHz, etc (thats the mobile P4 line).
-> Next, the i8200 can only utilise RAM at a maximum PC2100 (266MHz) as a limitation of the chipset. Therefore it would be a waste to upgrade to PC2700 (333MHz) as it would clock-down anyway..

An upgrade to the 2.5GHz P4 will give you a nice speed boost and should solve a lot of you problems with speed in conversion. It is not necessary for you needs to upgrade past 1GB, so I would say just get another stick of 512MB (PC2100!!) to replace the 256MB one in currently. This should speed you up considerably in concert with the new CPU, and again for you needs should be fine.... it would cost too much money for too little gain for you to get a new machine at this point, the CPU is your inly real limitation there.

The i8600 would offer a great boost, but because you don't game most of it will go unnoticed. Save your cash, the i8200 is a fantastic machine and with those two upgrades should serve you well for a while yet.

stu
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post #63 of 142
6/23/04 at 11:25am
If shkj already has one stick of 512MB RAM PC2700, he could add another stick of 1024MB PC2700, as he says he might migrate the RAM to a new system later. On the other hand, if he waits long enough, PC2700 could become too slow for his new system. Yet another aspect is that PC2700 needn't be much more expensive than PC2100 now, depending on the vendor of course.
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post #64 of 142
7/2/04 at 3:19am
does anyone know whether it is possible to install the dell 1450 wireless card on an Ispiron 9100 AFTER they have sent it? is it possible to buy the part and then putting it in yourself.
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post #65 of 142
7/2/04 at 3:25am
Quote:
Originally Posted by shadowground
does anyone know whether it is possible to install the dell 1450 wireless card on an Ispiron 9100 AFTER they have sent it? is it possible to buy the part and then putting it in yourself.


Wireless 1450 802.11a/b/g WLAN Mini PCI
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post #66 of 142
7/3/04 at 9:42am
So... where does the 8500 top out in cpu upgrades?
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post #67 of 142
7/6/04 at 1:08pm
yeah good question,
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post #68 of 142
7/6/04 at 1:28pm
depends on what cpu and chipset it uses. if it's the mobile p4 (not p4-m as mentioned above) then you can get a 533mhz bus 3.2 ghz cpu max AFAIK.
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post #69 of 142
7/6/04 at 2:15pm
No it can`t use that. Going from a previous post from DELL-sakor1 (where is he anyway?..... haven`t seen a post from him for like 2 weeks), the i8200 uses the Intel 845PM chipset... and as he mentioned in the first reply in this topic that max`s out the Mobile P4-M range at 2.6GHz.... it cannot use normal Mobile P4`s (on a 533MHz FSB), only the Mobile P4-M 400FSB. So 2.6GHz is the max on the Inspiron 8200.
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post #70 of 142
7/6/04 at 5:24pm
no, i was talking about the 8500 since someone asked what the max was for that. i was responding to post #66 if you don't believe me.
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post #71 of 142
7/6/04 at 11:38pm
I don't see why the 1450 would not work in the I8200. I had a dual band wireless mini-pci in my 8200 when I sold it. As I recall though, there is only one antenna in the 8200. I've been told in the past that you can use either antenna post on the card. I believe the 8200 antenna will not reach one of the antenna connectors.

The statement regarding the I8500 cpu max speed of 2.6ghz is correct. It will not accept the 533 mhz fsb cpu's, only the earlier Pentium 4M with the 400mhz fsb.
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post #72 of 142
7/7/04 at 5:55am
Whoops . But yeah, replace everywhere I mentioned the i8200 with i8500 and its still exactly the same (that`s what I meant anyway). They both use the same chipset therefore same CPU limitation, can only use Mobile P4-M which the last model stops at 2.6GHz.
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post #73 of 142
7/7/04 at 11:19pm
oh oops! i'm ignorant.
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post #74 of 142
7/10/04 at 9:58pm
Can I find out what kind of memory I need to buy from my Dell manual or Dell Support (either online or that program)?
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post #75 of 142
7/10/04 at 10:02pm
For your i8600? (isn't 1GB enough?...). The i8600 uses 2 x PC2700 (333MHz) 200-pin SODIMMs with a maximum of 2GB (2 x 1GB) capability.
stu
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post #76 of 142
7/10/04 at 10:13pm
Uh... *cough*

I was thinking (I think a lot) of returning the thing, buying a D800 or M60, then upgrading to 1 gig...

Maybe I shouldn't do that.

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post #77 of 142
7/10/04 at 10:19pm
Why specifically would you want the D800 or M60 anyway? I'm just curious, don't get me wrong... They do have a few extra features (and a slightly different chassis) but for most peoples uses (and for gaming) the i8600 is the better choice...
stu
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post #78 of 142
7/10/04 at 10:24pm
Especially NOT for gaming... I am about as far from a gamer as humanly possible. Well.. maybe not quite.

CAD work. I'm afraid from what some have said that the ATi I have might not be stable enough. (I think I emailed that story to you.)

And that's about it.
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post #79 of 142
7/10/04 at 10:26pm
I didn't get an e-mail I'm afraid..... but for CAD work then the M60 w/ QFX700 or QFX1000 is actually the best bet. So in that case perhaps a return is in your best interests...
stu
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post #80 of 142
7/10/04 at 10:28pm
Ouch. Darn. Is the 8600 good enough?

I dunno OH! That's what I was emailing you about. I'll PM you a short one.
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