[SOLVED] Dell Inspiron 530 Retrofit Project

[mjwhelan10]

Hi everyone.

I guess some background might be useful - we had a Dell Inspiron 530 (the "mini tower" version, not the slim) as our main family PC for a good few years, until we all moved onto laptops. I wanted to save this relic of a machine from being thrown out, so as a project last summer, I gutted its internals and repurposed the case for my first gaming PC build, with the intention of saving the original parts for a future project. I think the time for that project is now upon me, and I was wondering if there was anyone here who might be familiar with the Inspiron 530 who could address my queries.

My main intention is this: move my gaming rig into a new case for itself and bring the old Dell parts back to their original home, while at the same time carrying out some hardware upgrades (with period-correct parts if possible, as I want to keep the motherboard), with the hope of using this setup for older games, CAD software and general everyday tasks.

My main concerns revolve around my impression that a lot of pre-builts can potentially be a bit sticky, so to speak, when attempting upgrades with "foreign" parts, i.e, parts different to those Dell would have installed in this system. My biggest worry would be the PSU. I'm anxious that the Inspiron 530 may be from the era when Dell used proprietary PSUs, and that using an aftermarket PSU with a Dell motherboard, or vice-versa, could do harm. I'm still amazed that the stock Dell PSU endured over a decade of almost daily operation, so I think it has earned its retirement. I have a mothbolled EVGA 500W unit that was in my gaming setup until I upgraded to a 650W unit. It's still almost brand new so I'd like to use it if I could, it would be great if I could get an all-clear with that.

I'm worried RAM might be another sticking point. The system came with 2GB of DDR2 (two 1GB modules) and four slots, but I was hoping to increase this to 4GB (1GB per slot, which, unless I'm mistaken, is the maximum). Some searching online leads me to believe that the stock DIMMs are hard to come by, so if I wanted to match the existing RAM it might prove difficult. Therefore I was hoping I could get confirmation that the motherboard will accept any/all DIMMs, I could buy a different RAM bundle.

Adding a discrete graphics card would be another signifcant change. I'm looking at getting a mid- to high-end gaming card from the late 2000s on the used market. If anyone knows if there's just a specific list of Dell-approved cards that the motherboard will accept, please let me know.

Other than that, there isn't really much else I'm unsure about. I've tracked down a list of compatible CPUs for the motherboard, and I was hoping to acquire a higher-end Core2 Duo if I could get my hands on one 2nd hand, along with an aftermarket CPU cooler. Plus I'm fairly confident any SATA hard drive should work, and I have a few lying around so I'm sorted there.

So once again, if there's anyone here who knows a thing or two about the Inspiron 530 and would be willing to share what you know, I'd be much obliged (I'll list the specs below). If I have forgotten any significant information please do let me know.

TLDR:
Does anyone know if the Foxconn G33M02 motherboard will accept "foreign" components, that is, components other than those Dell would have paired with it?

Thanks.

SPECS:
Motherboard: Foxconn G33M02
CPU: Intel Pentium Dual Core E2140, 1.6GHz [looking to upgrade to a Core2 Duo)
RAM: Samsung M378T2863DZS-CE6, 2GB DDR2, 667MHz, two 1GB DIMMs [looking to upgrade to 4GB DDR2]
Hard drive: originally a 320GB SATA, looking to replace
Discrete GPU: none currently, candidates include a 9800 GTX or a HD 4870
[Proposed] PSU: EVGA 500 W1

 

[SamirD]

I've worked extensively on Dells from this era saving many of them that I still use to this day. While some parts are proprietary, Dell did a pretty decent job of keeping a lot of stuff pretty standard like the power supply. I haven't checked your exact motherboard to confirm, but if it has the standard connector, it will definitely work. The only potential issue will be the routing of cables as the Dell power supplies were made with 'exact length cabling' so there wasn't any extra to worry about.

You are lucky that you have one of the boards that takes ddr2 and has 4 slots--you can most likely upgrade to 4x2gb modules for a total of 8gb, bringing this machine into the modern world. You will need to check your motherboard and bios versions though according to this thread:
https://www.dell.com/community/Desktops-General-Read-Only/Inspiron-530-RAM-limit/td-p/3345626

And in my experience, the Dells are very forgiving on the exact specs of the memory as long as it is ddr2 non-ecc unbuffered/not registered pc2-5300u or pc2-6400u. I have mine maxed out with their 2x slots to 4gb.

I wouldn't stop with just Dell gpus that were period correct for this machine. You can bring its performance way up with something as simple as a gtx750ti or even gtx770. You will need to upgrade the power supply on something like the gtx770, but between the 8gb of ram and the 770, it would propel this system to heights of performance the original designers never imagined.

For processors the e8600 would be the top dog. That is if your motherboard supports a 1333 front side bus. Otherwise the e5800 pentium should work well since it is only 800 front side bus. Either of these will be a solid kick in the panks from the e2140:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compar...-E5800-vs-Intel-Pentium-E2140/957vs1102vs1133

As far as a cooler, the Dell stock coolers are usually overkill, so as long as you get the one for the quad processor model motherboard, I'm sure you'll be fine. I actually just set my fans to 100% by pulling out the pwm pin from the fans and I run 95w processors on the stock 65w heatsinks--they're that good.

Any sata drive will work, but keep in mind that they might be limited in terms of speed. So an ultra-fast modern ssd wouldn't be worth it, but an ssd most certainly would be.

With the power supply upgrade, a gtx770, processor and memory upgrade, you will have something that will be usable as a modern computer, and absolutely fly on something like xp, which was probably period correct for the system.

 

[mjwhelan10]

I've worked extensively on Dells from this era saving many of them that I still use to this day. While some parts are proprietary, Dell did a pretty decent job of keeping a lot of stuff pretty standard like the power supply. I haven't checked your exact motherboard to confirm, but if it has the standard connector, it will definitely work. The only potential issue will be the routing of cables as the Dell power supplies were made with 'exact length cabling' so there wasn't any extra to worry about.

You are lucky that you have one of the boards that takes ddr2 and has 4 slots--you can most likely upgrade to 4x2gb modules for a total of 8gb, bringing this machine into the modern world. You will need to check your motherboard and bios versions though according to this thread:
https://www.dell.com/community/Desktops-General-Read-Only/Inspiron-530-RAM-limit/td-p/3345626

And in my experience, the Dells are very forgiving on the exact specs of the memory as long as it is ddr2 non-ecc unbuffered/not registered pc2-5300u or pc2-6400u. I have mine maxed out with their 2x slots to 4gb.

I wouldn't stop with just Dell gpus that were period correct for this machine. You can bring its performance way up with something as simple as a gtx750ti or even gtx770. You will need to upgrade the power supply on something like the gtx770, but between the 8gb of ram and the 770, it would propel this system to heights of performance the original designers never imagined.

For processors the e8600 would be the top dog. That is if your motherboard supports a 1333 front side bus. Otherwise the e5800 pentium should work well since it is only 800 front side bus. Either of these will be a solid kick in the panks from the e2140:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compar...-E5800-vs-Intel-Pentium-E2140/957vs1102vs1133

As far as a cooler, the Dell stock coolers are usually overkill, so as long as you get the one for the quad processor model motherboard, I'm sure you'll be fine. I actually just set my fans to 100% by pulling out the pwm pin from the fans and I run 95w processors on the stock 65w heatsinks--they're that good.

Any sata drive will work, but keep in mind that they might be limited in terms of speed. So an ultra-fast modern ssd wouldn't be worth it, but an ssd most certainly would be.

With the power supply upgrade, a gtx770, processor and memory upgrade, you will have something that will be usable as a modern computer, and absolutely fly on something like xp, which was probably period correct for the system.

Thanks a bunch for your insight, really gives me the confidence to go all-in I'm aiming for this build to be an experiment more than anything else really - I was definitely considering flashing the BIOS to the most recent version, which is something I've never done before. So if something were to go wrong, I wouldn't be at any real loss. It'd be worth a try in any case (for the 8GB RAM support).

You're right about the stock PSU cable lengths, from what I recall they were tailored to fit stock motherboard. If anything, the cables on my EVGA unit are too long, so I wouldn't really expect any issues with regard to that. Also the board had the standard 20 pin connector, which the EVGA unit supports, so they should marry together quite nicely I'm hoping.

The E8600 looks reasonably priced locally, so I guess that'll go in the bag. And to be perfectly honest, I'd be pleasantly surprised if I could get any decent DX10 or even DX11 graphics card to work with this setup, although I'd be inclined toward the Nvidia offerings (I'm a bit frustrated with my AMD cards lately).

Thanks very much once again for the pointers, it looks like this will prove to be an interesting build to tinker around with.

 

[mjwhelan10]

Apologies for the follow up, but I just had a "light bulb" moment.

In my aforementioned gaming setup, I currently have a HD 7850 installed. I was meaning to retire this card and upgrade quite soon, but instead I was wondering, would it be unrealistic to expect this card to be compatible with a mobo as old as the G33M02?

The particular variant is the ASUS HD7850 DCU2 2GD5. Sorry once again for bumping.

 

[SamirD]

I think you've got a solid plan ahead of you and can't wait to hear about the results. I love hearing about old systems still running well.

Apologies for the follow up, but I just had a "light bulb" moment.

In my aforementioned gaming setup, I currently have a HD 7850 installed. I was meaning to retire this card and upgrade quite soon, but instead I was wondering, would it be unrealistic to expect this card to be compatible with a mobo as old as the G33M02?

The particular variant is the ASUS HD7850 DCU2 2GD5. Sorry once again for bumping.

That is an awesome idea. And you can even consider faster cards so long as they fit, you have enough power and drivers.

That system should really fly with the 7850 and the e8600!