Q: Dimension XPS-T450

  • Thread starter Thread starter Uncle Vinnie
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Uncle Vinnie

When adding a second drive, is this unit capable of Ultra ATA/66? In other
words, when adding drive 2, using the special cable (Blue/Blk/grey
connectors), it seems I should use Cable Select settings on the 2 drives..
should I on this older unit? Normally, I would use the original Dell cable,
or even this new cable, and set the jumpers as master, then slave... as
opposed to CS. Comments on this unit?? Thanks!

(Upgrading to XP, 512meg mem, 1.2 Celeron using Powerleap)
 
Thanks Pen.....

Thanks for the link too, that goes back to the manual, which I have..
I must have missed it- or don't fully understand it under the specs.. I
finally found it on intro. page 1-2.

Thank you again! Do you think I will notice much of a difference between a
7200rpm 10 gig Maxtor drive.. I'm putting in larger drive I had sitting
around, 30gig Quantom... but it's only 5400 rpm.. I was surprised to find
the older 10gig drive to be a 7200.. dated 1999...
 
Uncle said:
Thanks Pen.....

Thanks for the link too, that goes back to the manual, which I have..
I must have missed it- or don't fully understand it under the specs..
I finally found it on intro. page 1-2.

Thank you again! Do you think I will notice much of a difference
between a 7200rpm 10 gig Maxtor drive.. I'm putting in larger drive I
had sitting around, 30gig Quantom... but it's only 5400 rpm.. I was
surprised to find the older 10gig drive to be a 7200.. dated 1999...
Click to expand...

Add the 30 gig as a data only drive on the second IDE channel. Back up your
system, primarily the data, to the new drive and then completely rebuild the
10 gig as you OS and App drive. Once you done move you My Documents folder
to the new 30 gig drive.
 
ouch.!. I wish I knew this earlier... I got about 99% done before I posted
the ATA question... How much of a difference will I see???? Going from 7200
to 5400??? Now that jsut about everything is installed... I hate to have to
start all over...
 
When adding a second drive, is this unit capable of Ultra ATA/66? In
other words, when adding drive 2, using the special cable (Blue/Blk/grey
connectors), it seems I should use Cable Select settings on the 2 drives..
should I on this older unit? Normally, I would use the original Dell
cable, or even this new cable, and set the jumpers as master, then
slave... as
opposed to CS. Comments on this unit?? Thanks!

(Upgrading to XP, 512meg mem, 1.2 Celeron using Powerleap)
Click to expand...

Wrong. You could run ATA66 _IF_ you add an ATA66 controller card. I am on an
XPS T600 and it has ATA33. You can add an ATA66 drive and cable, but it's
still operating at ATA33 unless you add a controller card. If you're not
running ATA66 or better, Cable Select will not work. Also, the power
requirements on these older machines were lower, and due to OEM cost
cutting, I'd be willing to bet your power supply is less than 200 watts.
That means if you have lots of stuff hooked up, you may start getting
stability problems.



--
Big Daddy Ruel Smith

My SuSE Linux machine uptime:
5:01pm up 8 days 17:33, 2 users, load average: 0.11, 0.30, 0.38

My Windows XP machine uptime:
Something less...
 
Thanks Ruel.. actually, when I wrote that original post, I was under the
impression I was ATA66, looking to confirm it, but I know know I've got ATA
33... I don't have the card either so I will stick to the Dell cable (non
ATA), and master/slave the 2 drives. I have most of the programs loaded
into the 30g/5400 drive... along the way it was suggested to load apps/OS
into the 10g/7200, all else into the 30g/5400 .... makes sense, wish I knew
that earleir.. dreading to start all over again! Between XP, Office 2K
business/ Pro upgrade..and all the updates, that's a whole day right
there....


 
The XPS T model has a 200 watt power supply. It is also known
that Dell conservatively rates their power supplies so that a 200
watt can actually handle a higher load. Here is what I have installed
on my XPS T for example:

XPS T 1000 - 384 RAM
Windows 98SE with Internet Explorer 6
Sound Blaster Live - GeForce FX5200
Promise ATA66 - 3 hard drives
DVD & CD-R/W - Modem
HP Scanner & Printer
3Com NIC & DSL modem
 
The XPS T model has a 200 watt power supply. It is also known
that Dell conservatively rates their power supplies so that a 200
watt can actually handle a higher load. Here is what I have installed
on my XPS T for example:

XPS T 1000 - 384 RAM
Windows 98SE with Internet Explorer 6
Sound Blaster Live - GeForce FX5200
Promise ATA66 - 3 hard drives
DVD & CD-R/W - Modem
HP Scanner & Printer
3Com NIC & DSL modem
Click to expand...

Maybe the XPS T1000 did, but maybe not the XPS T450. I'm pretty sure that
most power supplies available in OEM machines at the time of the 450 PII
and PIII machines were -at most- 200 watts. My brother's Compaq 450 PII
machine has a 167 watt PSU. I added a Promise ATA66 controller and a CD
burner and it wouldn't even boot.



--
Big Daddy Ruel Smith

My SuSE Linux machine uptime:
4:56pm up 21:41, 2 users, load average: 0.33, 0.31, 0.23

My Windows XP machine uptime:
Something less...
 
Dell conservatively rates their power supplies which means they can
handle more than what they are rated at. The XPS T has a 200 watt
power supply and on mine I have the following installed:

XPS T 1000 - 384 RAM
Windows 98SE with Internet Explorer 6
Sound Blaster Live - GeForce FX5200
Promise ATA66 - 3 hard drives
DVD & CD-R/W - Modem
HP Scanner & Printer
3Com NIC & DSL modem
 
Thanks again, all! BTW, this one does have a 200 watt. power supply..

BTW, I worked for days installing XP, and all app. software.. only to
realize afterwards that the 10g drive I replaced ran at 7200 and the 30g
runs at 5400...

No way do I want to start all over.. and in past, imaging a drive with XP
onto a new drive, using Western Digitals software was never successful- are
there other alternatives I have to speed things up? Seems now that the
upgrade was 1 step forward, 2 steps back...
 
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