Bad weekend, my Gaming rig Dell XPS 700 died

[Jim43]

Have for the last 48 hrs trying to figure out what happened and after

numerous diagnostics checks I find I have lost my main WinXP HD fried.

Which in turn cascaded into my Motherboard, I tried to switch my newer

newer HD into the place of the dead one to install a fresh copy of WinXP

only to find that it won`t read the disk, it spins up and all but goes

no further then that. Just hangs.

Have a lot money invested into the old XPS 700. Bought it from the Dell

Outlet store back in Nov. 2006 Refurbished. So it had a guarantee like a

new one. The old video Nvidia 7950 GX2 died a couple years ago so I bought

a BFG GTX280. Then a couple extra 1tb Samsung HD`s and a LG Blu ray burner.

Guess its time to look over the Outlet store again.

Just bit the bullet and bought another XPS.

XPS 730x Desktop: Intel Core i7-920 (2.66GHz, 8MB cache) M414J

Certified Refurbished 3E476

Label D455M

640 GB SATA II Hard Drive (7200 RPM) D469F

USB Keyboard DJ332

Power DVD Software F382D

Documentation F6403

No Raid F6405

Operating System Label GM493

Audio Jacks For X-Fi Sound Card GP061

500 GB SATA II Hard Drive (7200 RPM) 2nd Drive GW275

6 GB DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz (3 DIMMs) H288J

Shipping Material H547M

Software J019D

NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GX2 1024MB J084C

Dell USB 6-Button Logitech Mouse J662D

Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer (D) Sound Card K236J

64BIT Operating System DVD K423J

Aluminum with Clearcoat Chassis M408J

Software CD M433H

Software N270H

Copper base Heat Sink with aluminum fins P004K

Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium P166F

Microsoft Works 9.0 T013C

Resource DVD U732K

16X DVD +/- RW w/dbl layer write capability W574D

Windows Live W871N

19 in 1 Media Reader with Bluetooth XX658

Roxio Creator 10 Y573C

XPS 730x: 1Yr Ltd Hardware Warranty, In-Home Service after Remote Diagnosis, 24x7 Phone Support (Included In Price) Qty 1

Unit Price $0.00

TOTAL: $1,479.00

Additional Discounts and Coupons

Free 3-5 day ground shipping with Any refurbished desktop system!

Expires Friday, January 28, 2011

View Details

Total Price

Sub-total $1,479.00

Shipping & Handling $29.99

Shipping & Handling Discount -$29.99

Tax* $109.08

*Exemptions reflected in final checkout page only

Total Price2 $1,588.08

So I will be taking my Bluray burner and GTX280 and 2/1TB hd and installing them into the new 730X.

http://www.dell.com/us/en/dfh/desktops/d...s=dfh&cs=22

[upnorth]

Did you check the settings on the disk, most of the time you will need to swap it from Slave to Master to get it to be read direct from the motherboard if that is the secondary hard drive.

[Jim43]

Yep, went through all the motions and as it turns out the mobo

refuses to interpret the info between the HD`s and optical drives. Was rather maddening to go back and forth all weekend

only to find the problem getting worse as I go testing the

diagnostics. It will make for a great paper weight since the

XPS case weighs in around 70lbs. Plan on keeping it in case I

decide to build another computer some day.

[CJH]

Good luck! I have a 6 year old Dell desktop right now and just starting to look at a big laptop to replace it. I'll have to check out the Outlet store and see what they have.

I was going to reccommend throwing in your other components in the new one. Will the two different video cards play nice via SLI? I have no experience using it, guess I just always thought they had to be duplicate cards.

[Jim43]

Video cards must be identical to run SLI. Driver settings are

different and would not sync properly. Was looking around

online to find a SATA 2 to USB connector to retrieve lost data

into my new computer that will have Vista Premium installed

instead of XP pro. Going to be a long week waiting for the new

rig to show up. The XPS case is easiest case to install any

kind new hardware, no tools required for installing HD`s or

optical drives or videos cards.

[Nick Kuhn]

Could have built that yourself and saved about $500. Check if the new system has an eSATA port, then you won't need the SATA to USB connector. otherwise just put the drives in the system if there are enough ports/power cables for the drives.

The problem with the old system is a south bridge problem. Very tough to fix, but sometimes reflashing the BIOS works. It's doubtful Dell would use a MoBo with a 3rd party SATA/IDE controller, but sometimes you can switch to the 3rd party controller and get it to work. If possible (and with a Dell system I'm almost certain it isn't) you could try bumping the appropriate BUS and bridge voltages up and see if that gets it stable again.

[Jim43]

Found a SATA2 to USB2 docking port on closeout at Walmart.com for only $29.89. Sold. its on the way and I can retrieve all the lost data from

my 4 Hard drives in the old XPS 700. The cases and cooling systems on the

Dell XPS 700 series is awesome. Would not even attempt to build anything

like it since they are custom built for the components installed.

[JollyT]

Make sure you have enough power supply for the extra disks and GPU. More PCs are killed by bad power supplies than anything else (except maybe user error). Almost all builders scrimp on power supplies too, using as small a one as possible. When the PSU can't keep up voltages drop, current goes up and things fry.

[Jim43]

the old XPS 700 had a 750 watt PSU, the new has a 1Kw. power no issue.

electric meter sure spins fast.

[spearchucker]

the old XPS 700 had a 750 watt PSU, the new has a 1Kw. power no issue.

electric meter sure spins fast.

No matter how many total watts it can supply, they power has to be available at the correct voltage rails. You are probably OK with what you have, but just because you have a 1000W power supply doesn't mean that it is better than a high quality 750W supply.

There isn't anything magical about that system that only Dell can build. You could build that system yourself for $750, but instead Dell charge $1500 for a refurbished system.

[Jim43]

Cool, just received the FedEx tracking numbers and it will be here Friday. Going to need

my cart to haul it up though. Box weight indicated by FedEx was 97lbs.

[Nick Kuhn]

It can't honestly be that heavy unless it has liquid cooling (and liquid cooling is entirely unnecessary as components run pretty cool these days, except GPUs). I'd say my system weighs 30lb and it has quite a bit of copper, and an all aluminum chassis.

[upnorth]

PC/Monitor/keyboard could start approaching 97 lbs .

[Jim43]

Empty XPS case alone weighs in close to 50lbs. Some of the heaviest Aluminum cases made anywhere. I had no monitor

shipped. Keyboard came and mouse. That was it. Empty box was

close to 20lbs with packing material foam.