I need a bit of advice

[MrArachnid]

I have a Dell Dimension 2350 that has a P4 processor and am no "guru:" by any standard. I bought the Comp from a friend back in '03 and have used it ever since. Recently, I went to turn it on and it began cycling (on for a second and then off, back on for a second and then off and so on). I opened it up and disconnected the power supply to the mother and the power supply came on without cycling. If the mother is reconnected it will repeat its cycling. I assume this means the mother has gone rotten.

I am considering putting in a new mother and found some deals on Ebay. my main question is can I put in a newer mother into this old case. I am aware that Dell has many proprietary parts and I would think that any ATX Dell Mother should bolt up, am I correct in this assumption?

The board I want to upgrade to is a DELL DIMENSION 8250 MOTHERBOARD P4 2.66Ghz.

If this will install what can I expect to go wrong and/or right?


thanks for any advice in advance

 

[SNGX1275]

I don't have any experience with Dells, but I imagine the board will fit. I'm more concerned though that your power supply died rather than your motherboard. Often 'dead' power supplies will still appear to give the right voltages (or in your case appear to power on) but under any load they die. Attaching it to your board puts a load on it.

It is also more likely that the power supply died than the motherboard.

 

[MrArachnid]

I don't have any experience with Dells, but I imagine the board will fit. I'm more concerned though that your power supply died rather than your motherboard. Often 'dead' power supplies will still appear to give the right voltages (or in your case appear to power on) but under any load they die. Attaching it to your board puts a load on it.

It is also more likely that the power supply died than the motherboard.

I wasn't sure if that would have been the problem. I had a power supply go bad once before and it just died. The cycling under load would make sense. A power supply is cheaper than a motherboard. I guess it couldn't hurt to try that first then only thing that would happen is I would have a new power supply.

If I did upgrade the mother board, imo, it should be plug and play being a Dell product or am I making an assumption that would have to be hard tested? I would rather not have to go into BIOS since I have extremely limited experience but the good 'ole internet has gotten me through other problems.

 

[SNGX1275]

Swapping motherboards while keeping the hard drive untouched is probably going to be a bit messy. They are different chipsets and other things are different too:
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim2350/specs.htm
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim8250/specs.htm

If you were intent on doing that I would recommend the first boot being in safe mode, and then uninstalling through device manager pretty much everything, then rebooting and hoping you can get things back installed.

 

[MrArachnid]

I ordered a used tested and working power supply that is an exact match to mine. Once it gets here I will try it and hopefully not have to go through the pain staking rework of the Comp. Thanks for the heads up about the first boot in Safe mode. I wouldn't have thought about that. Looking at the spec sheets it would seem that I could find a better board to try.

I found a match to the mother I have, on Ebay, and it is a "buy it now' for $92 or make offer for a used tested and working board. I made him an offer of $50 orignally which he countered with a price of $72. I tried to reason with the seller using Depreciation calculations based on IRS Section 179 and my System has depreciated to a value of $32.77. So with this information in hand I made another offer of $40. The seller wouldn't hear it and said he had other offers that were higher but no takers. They are asking way too much for the board. I guess there is a sucker born every minute...I'm just not that sucker.

 

[MrArachnid]

Well I would like to thank, SNGX1275, for mentioning the power supply issue. I ordered one installed it and am up and running again. I am glad it was a $20 fix instead of a $70 fix.

Thanks again for the advice.