Dell Vostro 420 upgrade to GF9800 GT

[jfinet]

Just recently bought Vostro 420 ... with ATI Radeon HD3450 ... big mistake with the graphics card ... I spend time on Second Life ... and this just doesn't work well at all ... question ... if I pick up a GF9800 GT 512 ... will I need to upgrade the power supply also ... and will the cooling requirements exceed the stock fans? Dell listed the 9800 as an upgrade at time of purchase ... but it was +$300 ... so I am wondering what they provided ... thanks ... Jo

 

[principe]

hi,
if this is your pc (click), the power supply is insufficient... by a corsair (or other of good brand) 450W is perfect...

bye

 

[delluser1]

hi,
if this is your pc (click), the power supply is insufficient

hi,
if that were the case, they wouldn't sell it.

 

[principe]

excuse me, but i don't understand you 😗

do you intend that the power supply will not enter in the pc?
or maybe, can't you change power supply?

 

[josherrr]

i have the same pc and i upgraded to a hd4830 and the stock 350watt psu stayed at 11.80 i then put a bfg 550 ls psu in and now it stays at 12.10 and only drops to 11.97 for a second then kicks back up to 12.22 under load you may want to purchase a vga slot cooler and upgrade the 120mm fan the stock fan spins at a pathetic 800 rpm my dell vostro now scores 12200-12400 points on 3dmark06

 

[jfinet]

Thanks Josh ... I don't know how to compare the gf 9800 gt to your HD4830 .. but I assume they are similar power consumers ... so then you would recommend both a new power supply and an upgrade to the case fan system ... any issues installing the bfg 550 or was it similar to stock unit ... and what fan did you find that fit the case well ... thanks for the help ... Jo

 

[josherrr]

Thanks Josh ... I don't know how to compare the gf 9800 gt to your HD4830 .. but I assume they are similar power consumers ... so then you would recommend both a new power supply and an upgrade to the case fan system ... any issues installing the bfg 550 or was it similar to stock unit ... and what fan did you find that fit the case well ... thanks for the help ... Jo

the new psu was ez same size as stock i only recomend getting a psu that has a 24 pin connector not one that has a 20+4 pin...you will need to unscrew the other side of the case to hide the unused wires.. if you can find a psu that has only sata conectors that would be nice (molex connectors will do you no good and in the event you ever need molex the adapter cost 3 dollars)
and the ati 4830 and the gf9800gt use about the same power and they perform about the same i just wanted the ati 4830 because ati cards have built in 7.1 audio hdmi and nvidia has some crap 2 wire connector for the spdif the vostro 420 is a nice starting point for a cheap gaming pc its like a poor mans XPS once a new video card is installed

 

[jfinet]

Still studying the options ... in your picture Josh ... you have two fans in the cd/hd frame ... I assume that is in addition to the stock rear fan ... what make and model are they ... and what power source connector did they connect to ... assumming they are just to add more cooling because of the GF 9800 GT ... or related to PSU upgrade? Really helps to see another system similar to mine ... thanks ... Jo

 

[josherrr]

Still studying the options ... in your picture Josh ... you have two fans in the cd/hd frame ... I assume that is in addition to the stock rear fan ... what make and model are they ... and what power source connector did they connect to ... assumming they are just to add more cooling because of the GF 9800 GT ... or related to PSU upgrade? Really helps to see another system similar to mine ... thanks ... Jo

they are just no name 80mm fans ... i replaced them with 92mm fans just cause they fit nicer they are zip tied in and work good and to power just used a sata2molex adapter...

i returned the bfg psu and replaced with a 650 watt corsair


on the bad side i have been having problems with the pc randomly rebooting every few hours that is why i replaced the psu again...that was not the problem so i think i may reinstall windows xp 32bit and see if that fixes the problem i am using vista 64 right now and dell does not support a 64 bits os on this machine (vista 64 runs great other than the random reboots but i hope vista 64 is not the problem) anyway if i can not fix this soon i am going to put the stock parts on and send back to dell for a new one