Does Dell make its own motherboards?

Ralph Wade Phillips wrote:
Howdy!

"Rob Stow" wrote in message
news:xRmCd.683192$nl.106222@pd7tw3no...

Robert Hancock wrote:


They don't make their own boards, but they do have boards made for them
(usually by Intel)

Intel hasn't made a motherboard for about 6 years now !


*blink* Funny, this 3.2G Dell P4 with the Intel logo'ed board is a
bit newer than 6 years old. (Not the machine I'm on - the one with the
knackered 120G drive in it)


The logo says nothing about who manufactured it.
It is quite common for one company to rebadge a product
that they had contracted out to someone else.

See if you can find something on the board about where
it was made, then see if you can find an Intel plant
in that country.

On Wed, 05 Jan 2005 10:08:02 +0000, Rob Nicholson wrote:

20% for not being able to support them *properly* when the machine goes
down is worth it is it?

Dell kit is incredibly reliable mainly because you don't mess around with
it. The only Dell hardware we've had fail is a CD-ROM and video output from
one laptop. Compared to the Compaq iPAQ that litereraly blew up, the custom
built Gigabyte system that decided to stop working with WD hard disk and
won't run through the KVM, the 3 Toshiba laptops that have developed several
faults etc...

If one of the Dell base units failed, we wouldn't bother trying to fix it.
We'd simply buy a new base unit for ~£200. £200 doesn't buy you a lot of
"fixing" time and you'll have a nice new higher-spec box anyway.


Surely that would depend on what blew. If a hard drive, optical unit
etc. goes then you just order up random new hard disk and stick it in.
Fans might be more tricky as they use blowers on at least the small
desktop chassis, but the mini towers use normal fans. Generally speaking
motherboards are not something that go frequently.

You do have to be careful with the upgrades. Last time I checked (just
before Christmas) a dual layer DVD writer upgrade was something like
£99+VAT, and it only does +R disks, and a CDRW/DVD combo unit was
about £37+VAT. I always get my own separately and fit it myself, takes
about 5 minutes and saves a bundle.

JAB.

--
Jonathan A. Buzzard Email: jonathan (at) buzzard.me.uk
Northumberland, United Kingdom. Tel: +44 1661-832195

On Thu, 06 Jan 2005 21:25:40 +0000, Rob Nicholson wrote:

Any small time independent who goes out of business isn't going to have
the same impact on a business *if* they supplied 100% compliant ATX
systems.

I agree with this :-) I'm at a loss why they use propriatary parts. Unless
it's for cost saving.


Because they offer something different. Tell me how you propose to
build a system like a small desktop chassis Optiplex with standard
parts, in a screwless chassis? You are not.

Dell are sufficiently large that they can do their own case/form
factors which allows them to do things not possible (or easy/cheap)
if you are trying to conform to the ATX specification.

JAB.

--
Jonathan A. Buzzard Email: jonathan (at) buzzard.me.uk
Northumberland, United Kingdom. Tel: +44 1661-832195

On Thu, 06 Jan 2005 02:47:47 +1300, Mercury wrote:

2d graphics: The best PCI is up with average AGP.
3d graphics: AGP by leaps and bounds.

Good PCI graphics is hard to come by.
Gosh I remember the day of ISA graphics cards and you could watch windows
draw the drop list of a combo box so sloooowly.

Chances are the onboard graphic would be good for 2d and it would be
expensive to find a PCI card better at 2d. 3d dunno.


It is only now that these flash 3D graphics cards have the
performance of the old Matrox Millenium II on a PCI card
for 2D stuff. The performance of WRAM was still is amazing.
You also get a much better picture with those old Matrox
cards than you do with these modern 3D cards. The RAMDAC
quality is really outstanding. A really good 2D card is a
Millenium II in it's ultra rare AGP configuration.


JAB.

--
Jonathan A. Buzzard Email: jonathan (at) buzzard.me.uk
Northumberland, United Kingdom. Tel: +44 1661-832195

Jonathan Buzzard wrote:
On Thu, 06 Jan 2005 02:47:47 +1300, Mercury wrote:


2d graphics: The best PCI is up with average AGP.
3d graphics: AGP by leaps and bounds.

Good PCI graphics is hard to come by.
Gosh I remember the day of ISA graphics cards and you could watch windows
draw the drop list of a combo box so sloooowly.

Chances are the onboard graphic would be good for 2d and it would be
expensive to find a PCI card better at 2d. 3d dunno.



It is only now that these flash 3D graphics cards have the
performance of the old Matrox Millenium II on a PCI card
for 2D stuff. The performance of WRAM was still is amazing.
You also get a much better picture with those old Matrox
cards than you do with these modern 3D cards. The RAMDAC
quality is really outstanding. A really good 2D card is a
Millenium II in it's ultra rare AGP configuration.


I second that. I have solved headache and eye strain
problems for a lot of people by switching them over
from an nVidia or ATI card or integrated video to a
Matrox card. Even a PCI version is more than good
enough when you don't need 3D.

In addition to the Millenium II, I would also recommend
the G400, G450, G550, P650, P750, and Parhelia.

I find the quality improvement is impossible to see if
your current video card is providing DVI output to a
DVI LCD, but if your monitor needs an analog input then
Matrox is the only way to go when quality 2D is needed.