Dell dimension 3000 nightmare heh

C

Ceen

Guest
Hey all,

My parents bought me a dell dimension 3000 for xmas/birthday, and I want to play half life.

I checked the sticky topic and did see the card I may purchase up there, but wanted some feedback.

I am thinking about getting this: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...Sku=P262-1010&SRCCODE=GOOPROD&CMP=OTC-FROOGLE

Is there a better pci card out there for the price? How bad will the graphics look with this card? Can I still expect to be impressed by hl2?

Thanks! :D
 
Killing2Live, thoes arn't for pci, just pci express ;)
 
O my bad, its late and didnt really read it very carefully :p
Sorry about that, please disregard my last post.
 
My advice is to send the PC back to dell, get a refund, visit http://www.buildyourown.org.uk and use the refund money to buy yourself the bits and build your own PC.

Bizzarly, dell still do not usually include an AGP slot in thier machines, meaning that you have no choise but to either get a new motherboard, or, stick with PCI gfx cards. Bear in mind that you will never run HL2 comfortably with a PCI gfx card (If at all). You will be looking at minimum settings with low fps.

Not what you wanted to hear, I know, but unfortunatly, thats the way of it.
 
Yup the dimension 3000 uses the Intel 865GV chipset which only has 3 PCI slots and no AGP slot. Dell are basically bottom of the range PC's only really suited to office work and internet browsing...
 
I disagree, although they arnt the best for the common computer enthusiast who likes to tweek everything on his or her comp. They still work great. I have had a dell 4550 for 2 years, got it for $750. 2.0Ghz pentium 4, 512Mb ddr 266 ram, 60gb hard drive, 4 pci slots and an agp slot. It just depends on the model you get. It only came with a geforce4 mx420 card, but I was planning on upgrading anyways. Now I have a geforce 6600gt and half-life runs smooth on all settings high with 2xaa and 8xaf.
 
[Matt] said:
Yup the dimension 3000 uses the Intel 865GV chipset which only has 3 PCI slots and no AGP slot. Dell are basically bottom of the range PC's only really suited to office work and internet browsing...
Click to expand...

Entirely untrue and ignorant.
 
JoeMan05 said:
I disagree, although they arnt the best for the common computer enthusiast who likes to tweek everything on his or her comp. They still work great. I have had a dell 4550 for 2 years, got it for $750. 2.0Ghz pentium 4, 512Mb ddr 266 ram, 60gb hard drive, 4 pci slots and an agp slot. It just depends on the model you get. It only came with a geforce4 mx420 card, but I was planning on upgrading anyways. Now I have a geforce 6600gt and half-life runs smooth on all settings high with 2xaa and 8xaf.
Click to expand...

That is exactly the same rig I got 2 years ago. Except mine came with a 9700 Pro.
 
yea i got a 8250 about 2 years ago it came with 4pci slots and an agp with a 9700-non pro which i think is still good, they don't have the greatest cooling, but you don't need it since there was no hl2, you have to upgrade after 2 years anyway.
 
I am using one now, have a couple of old ones at home I aquired for parts and have also used them in other places. And I can *unequivocally say that dells are great for running things as you might in an office, desktop applications basically, but chuck anything complicated at them and they tend to fall over. Mine dies if I make it do overly complicated excel calculations. I have to do them on a spare compaq :p

*Big word for the day
 
StainlessJ-FPGA said:
Entirely untrue and ignorant.
Click to expand...

I've worked on more Dell's than you can shake a stick at. You name one part of a computer, and I can recall an instance of having a Dell propreitery part.

I never recommend Dell, never. Between all the corners they cut and they lack of consideration for standards just irks me to no end. I'm honestly surprised Dell hasn't sodered stand alone graphics cards to their motherboards so people can't upgrade their system.
 
Well im sorry to hear that! All the dells I have worked with have been great, 3 in our home, and then another 4 at my dads office. Never had a problem with any of them! Not one piece on any machine has failed yet and we have had some for over 3 years.
 
JoeMan05 said:
Well im sorry to hear that! All the dells I have worked with have been great, 3 in our home, and then another 4 at my dads office. Never had a problem with any of them! Not one piece on any machine has failed yet and we have had some for over 3 years.
Click to expand...

No one said that they fail, they just charge you insane amounts of money for plastic boxes of shit.
 
I have a Dell Dimension 8400, couple of months old but there is nothing wrong wiv it....maybe coz it got a PCX motherboard?? Had a GX150 before, which was gd, but it got old (5 yrs or somin)

$0.02 :)
 
Insane amounts of money! Now that is Bulls***. Dell has some of the best prices around. They ALWAYS have some sort of special going, like a free cd burner, free shipping, free hard drive upgrade, free ram upgrade. All kinds of stuff. I got my comp for 750 over 2 years ago and that was a steal, figuring it also has windows xp professional on it.
 
I'd used nothing but Dells until I got my computer (custom) this summer. I can honestly say that, if I had a nickel for every bit of trouble I've had with a Dell and not with my new box, I'd be a rich man. My dad was amazed when we set up my new one, because it's the only time a new PC hasn't had any trouble starting up. If you have to, keep the Dell and try to upgrade some parts, but get a refund if you can. (sorry man)
 
I don't see why i need a refund. I have installed a new graphics card and dvd burner without a hitch and I get 60 fps with all settings maxed out on half-life 2. Good enough for me.
 
JoeMan05 said:
I don't see why i need a refund. I have installed a new graphics card and dvd burner without a hitch and I get 60 fps with all settings maxed out on half-life 2. Good enough for me.
Click to expand...

Here are some of the problems I've had with Dell's.

- Motherboards don't conform to the ATX standard
- Power supplies don't conform to the ATX standard
- Lack of AGP slots
- Proprietary floppy drive (in terms of size) (if you can explain that one away, I'll be amazed)
- Proprietary case
- Certain Dell Keyboards have USB ports. However, the slots are positioned so you cannot attach a USB device due to odd angles.
- Lack of a proper Windows XP disk
- Bundles a bunch of unwanted/useless software
- Horrific customer service

Don't forget other problems that are routinely publicized on hardware sites. I seem to remember several months back on Dell's skimping on the hsf solution on Prescotts. By cutting back on the heat sinks, it makes the CPU more likely of overheating (face it the P4 Prescott is already a hot CPU). However, P4's don't overheat, they merely scale back in clockspeed. So when you need your CPU the most, it is most likely not performing at its intended speed.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=19647

I have no doubt that Dell has fixed the problem right now, but do you want to take a chance that they skimped on something else in your computer? I don't hate Dell because they are good, I hate Dell because of their problems.
 
I have a Dell Dimension 4600, and I haven't had any problems with it. I got it for 900 2 years ago and it came with a 9800 PRO, a 2.4 GHz Pentium 4, 80 GB Harddrive, 512 MB 333 DDR-RAM and 8 USB-Slots. The only complaint I have is that Dell doesn't allow me to overclock my processor. Oh well, it's still a good PC for the price.
 
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