OK I've seen two views so far on this subject. One says that Dell motherboards and power supplies need to be replaced with industry standard parts at the same time, or you risk cooking one or both. The other says that Dell motherboards are a different shape to ATX(or whatever) ones and just CANNOT be replaced.
Which should I believe? The lineup of ports on the back is EXACTLY the same on the Dimension 2400 as on the Acer Aspire T310, this to me suggests at least some kind of industry standard design...
Some Dell machines use standard ATX power supplies, like the Dimension 4500. Others use proprietary PSUs, but adapters exist that let you use a normal ATX power supply. Not sure about the Dimension 2400--I'll have to take a look at my gf's and see if it's standard or not.
FYI, PC Power & Cooling sells power supplies specifically designed to work with Dell systems.
*Some* pre-2000 units used an atx connector with difrent pinnouts. Connecting a dell psu to an atx bord (or vice versa) will likely fry both.
Im Looking at my Optiplex GX1 PIII 800 right now, the power supply has an ATX PSU with an additional 4 Pin connector
The extra 4 pin connector might be 12v for the cpu (or was that only for pentium 4s?).
its not like the new p4 mogtherboards which use that extra motherboard power connector. Like someone else said, some dell atx were semi priorperty.
here is an auction showing some good pictures:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3493577374&category=44949
It looks like a standard atx but its not.
The Dell Dimension 2400 has onboard Intel Graphics. but the motherboard has a AGP area without the socket. If one was to get an AGP socket and solder it in would it be functional? Has anyone out there has tried this?