Hi!

Your question was, is, and will be actually a 2-part question. Dell
used/uses
a lot of Intel-designed motherboards.

I think that depends upon which Dell system you look at. Some of the boards
floating around are "distinctly Dell"...I'm thinking of ones where you see
the onboard Broadcom 4401 chipset for Ethernet for my example. On the other
hand, I could see an Intel design being used in the Dim8300--since the
Ethernet is integrated into the chipset.

Intel once had very nice monitoring software that ren only on
800-series chipsets and systems with an original generic Intel BIOS (not
an
OEM BIOS like Dell's or Gateway's). No longer does Intel provide
monitoring
software, and they apparently use for controlling fan RPMs a low-level
scheme
something that Speedfan et al cannot detect.

I've seen this monitoring software (or so I think), and have it on an Intel
board with 8 PCI slots. However, that board definitely has an LPCIO that is
capable of monitoring temperatures, RPMs and voltages. It does show up to
SpeedFan.

The other Intel board that I have is a OEM-for-Gateway D845HV board that
uses an Analog Devices fan controller and an SMSC LPCIO for temperature and
voltage monitoring.

I would be dumbfounded if Dell's "engineering" contribution to the design
and
manufacture of motherboards was much more than I have described above.

I dare say that the manufacturing happens elsewhere, but until recently, I
also had a feeling based on looking at the boards that Dell had at least
some engineers on hand or made significant input into the designs. There was
a common element to most of their motherboard designs that I hadn't seen
anywhere else.

The modern consumer level Dell systems definitely do have fairly generic
boards in them. I found a Foxconn board in an Inspiron desktop, and it does
respond to fan/temperature/voltage monitoring software.

William