Replacement board for Dell XPS Gen 3

[jsmp]

I've got an old Gen 3 XPS that's in perfect shape other than a dead RAM slot, knocking my 4 GB of RAM down to 1, making it basically worthless. I'm assuming the easiest/cheapest fix is a new mobo, but I have no idea what I could possibly buy to replace it. All the other components work fine and I'd prefer not to replace any of them, despite being ancient (Pentium 4 processor and an Nvidia/BFG 9800 GT that replaced the original X800 XT).

Currently I'm playing games on a 4-year-old Lenovo T400 laptop that overheats playing Dota 2 on bare minimum graphics, so anything would be an improvement.

Would this system even be an improvement? Does anyone even make a motherboard that would fit?

edit: I just contacted Dell and apparently they sell replacement boards for an insane $260. Sketchy refurbs on eBay run ~$100. Is there a possibility that a local shop or a big-box tech store like Best Buy might be able to fix the board?

 

[Kisianik]

There is no fix, only motherboard replacement, I will look around, after all, I have the same Gen3 still running strong with gt8800 - this my main PC, for all home work movies etc, except games.

 

[jsmp]

Great, thanks. I found a refurbished board that matches the part number on eBay for $65 but any help is appreciated since I haven't bought it yet.

That said, would this thing actually be an improvement over my laptop? How bad of a bottleneck is a Pentium 4?

 

[Kisianik]

$65 is not that bad. Your Lenovo has which processor, how much memory and which operating system, including 32 bit or 64 bit.

 

[jsmp]

4 year old laptop vs. 9 year old gaming rig

Windows 7 Pro 64 vs. Windows XP Pro
Core 2 Duo vs. Pentium 4 Prescott
3 GB DDR3 vs. 4 GB DDR2
Mobility Radeon HD 3400 vs. Geforce 9800 GT (BFG)

 

[Kisianik]

Don't be so sarcastic and don't hurt my feelings - I played on my Gen3 Battlefield 2, FarCry 2, Crysis and Crysis Warhead. I asked you question about your specific processor model I know general info - http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/product-and-parts/detail.page?DocID=PD005598 so I can compare two CPUs.

 

[jsmp]

I wasn't being sarcastic. Those were the specs I knew off-hand.

Lenovo: Core 2 Duo T9600 (2.8 GHz / 6 MB L2 / 1066 MHz)
Dell: Pentium 4 HT 550 (3.4 GHz / 1 MB L2 / 800 MHz)

Not sure about RAM speed. Also, fwiw the Dell has 2x250 GB HDDs @5600 in Raid 0, and the Lenovo has 1x160 @ 7200.

 

[Kisianik]

Thanks, I have the same CPU, no raid and 2x2GB RAM, so only 2 slots occupied! So it maybe cheaper to get 2 RAM sticks then getting new MOBO and GTX 650, our XPS has 460 watt PSU, just a thought. However, new games require at least dual core - this is the problem.