Today, we’re going to take a look at another OEM Dell from the mid-90s, this time from the venerable Optiplex series of home computers. The computer we are looking at is the Dell OptiPlex GXL 5133. As you can see in the image above, this PC comes in the desktop format and, in my opinion, looks pretty stylish. In the center of the case, we have a large round power button with a power LED fixed in the center and immediately below that, a HDD activity LED, followed by a reset button. The case is pretty slim and only offers two 5 1/4 bays, which I have taken up by a CD-ROM drive and a 1.44MB 3 1/2 inch floppy drive in a 5 1/4 adaptor.
As we can see from the back, the GXL 5133 has a lot built in. On the far left, we have a standard power supply. Starting at about the center of the case, we have three 1/8 audio jacks for line in, line out, and mic. Also in the center of the case, we have a 10BaseT Ethernet port followed by two PS/2 ports for keyboard and mouse. After the PS/2 ports are dual serial ports, a parallel port, and finally a VGA port for the built-in video.
Due to the slim style of the case, we only get three slots for adding any expansion, which should cover any basic upgrades like adding a sound or video card, but may feel a bit restrictive to the power user who is looking for dual Voodoo 2s, a USB add-on card, and an ATA133 HDD card.
Taking the top off and looking inside, we can see it’s a little cramped.
The hard drive is a 850MB Quantum Trailblazer 850AT. It has a Dell parts label, so I believe it may be this PC’s original hard drive.
The motherboard uses the Intel 430FX chipset, and mine has 512KB of L2 cache soldered onto the motherboard itself next to the CPU socket. I believe there are versions with a lesser 256KB of L2 cache.
The GXL 5133 uses a riser card for its expansion slots, and with it, we get 2 PCI and two 16-bit ISA slots, one slot being shared PCI/ISA. As I mentioned earlier, there are not a lot of slots for the power user, but considering what’s built into the motherboard, you may not need to fill them with a sound or video card, depending on what you want to do with the PC.
1) CPU – The GXL 5133, as the name suggests, has a 133MHz Pentium CPU installed. The board does allow for any non-MMX 75MHz to 200MHz Pentium to be installed. 133MHz is pretty much ideal for a fast MS-DOS PC. Some earlier or poorly coded DOS titles will run too fast, but the vast majority of titles, especially later DOS games such as DOOM, Quake, and Duke Nukem, should run great. It should also handle many mid-90s Windows games just fine.
2} Video – For video, we have our old friend the S3 Trio64V+ chip. The chip on this board supports a maximum of 2MB of video memory. This isn’t the fastest chip out there, but if you’re primarily going to be using this computer for MS-DOS gaming, it’s the standard for compatibility. For Windows 2D titles, it’s okay, but this is not a 3D accelerator chip, so if your focus is more on Windows 3D gaming, you may want to consider using one of those PCI slots for a more powerful 3D accelerating video card or pairing the Trio chip with a Voodoo or Voodoo 2.
3) RAM – Up to a total of 128MB of memory is supported, as well as EDO-type RAM. At its maximum, like I have here, 128MB should be more than adequate for any game this PC will be able to play. If you’re using this primarily as a DOS gaming machine, 128MB is overkill. The vast majority of games will play just fine, but consider reducing it to 64MB or fewer to avoid compatibility issues with a few stubborn games, and it should still be enough memory for most Windows titles you would play on a Socket 7 PC.
4) Sound – Sound is provided via a built-in Sound Blaster Vibra 16s chip and a genuine Yamaha OPL chip for FM synth. Overall, this is an excellent sound chip to have built in for its excellent compatibility and the widespread use of the Yamaha FM chip in DOS games. It’s also an excellent chip for Windows. If you want higher-quality wavetable MIDI tunes, you could consider adding an ISA AWE32 or 64 card, but for general sound, this chip is great to have built in.
5) I/O – Here we have a standard built-in floppy drive connector and dual IDE connectors supporting up to four IDE devices.
I like the Dell GXL 5133. As an “out of the box” PC for DOS and early Windows, I think it’s excellent. The S3 video and Sound Blaster sound built in give you high compatibility with DOS games and are quite adequate for Windows gaming as well. The CPU options are great, and it’s just a nice little slim desktop that doesn’t take up a ton of space and has pretty good build quality. It does lack slightly in the number of expansion slots in case you want to go crazy with IDE controller cards or multiple video cards, but I don’t think most retro gamers will find it to be a problem. Overall it makes a great “fast DOS” PC or early Windows 9x PC.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’ve always been a fan of the Dell Dimension series from the late 90s. They are aesthetically pleasing, are generally pretty powerful and capable for their time, and make great Win 9x machines. Today I’ll be looking at the L series, Dell’s more budget-oriented Dimension computer, specifically the L433c.
The case still has that signature Dell Dimension flair to it but it is smaller than other Dimension cases we have looked at here prior. Prior Dimensions we have looked at both have two 5 1/4 bays as well as three 3.5-inch bays. The L series case has much more limited expansion opportunities with only a single 5 1/4 bay and a single 3.5-inch bay, though there is a dedicated bay for a 3.5-inch floppy drive so the upper one can still be utilized for something like a ZIP drive if so desired. The case does have a slightly rounded top which can make stacking an issue.
On the rear of the case, we have standard color-coded PS/2 ports for the keyboard and mouse along with two USB 1.x ports, a serial port, a parallel port, and a VGA port for the built-in VGA. The PSU is interestingly next to the IO ports and at the bottom of the case, we have four expansion slots.
The sound card I currently have installed is a Sound Blaster Live!
Opening the case doesn’t reveal much as the power supply covers a large percent of the motherboard. The green tab on the upper right corner of the PSU can be used to allow the PSU to lift up on a hing and out of the way, very convenient.
The chipset is a version of the Intel 810 chipset which also tells us the VGA port we saw on the back is for the integrated 810 graphics. I’ve found the integrated graphics on the 810 chipset to be surprisingly good though you can add a discrete graphics card if you would like, provided it’s a PCI card.
The on-board video is running on an AGP bus and my implementation of the 810 chipset seems to have an AIMM (AGP Inline Memory Module) which would boost the performance of the on-board video. Unfortunately, the particular version of they chipset on this board also seems to limit the CPU choice to a Celeron.
1) CPU – The CPU on this machine, as indicated by the label, is a socket 370, 433MHz Intel Celeron running on a 66mhz FSB. The C in the L433c label indicates this board is Celeron based and unfortunately will not support Pentium chips. It should be able to be upgraded to a Mendicino core 533MHz Celeron though I did not attempt this. I have read that a user claimed to be able to upgrade to a 600MHz Coppermine core Celeron but this wasn’t confirmed and I would take it with a grain of salt. The Celeron was Intels budget CPU generally running on a lower FSB than the equivalent Pentium and utilizing less on-chip cache.
2) RAM – The L433c has two slots for PC100 SDRAM. The maximum amount of memory you can upgrade to is 512MB via dual 256MB sticks. seeing as this PC runs best under Windows 98 and Windows 98 tends to have issues with memory over the 512MB mark this limitation isn’t too much of a hindrance unless you really have your heart set on running Windows XP.
3) PCI expansion – Unfortunately we are limited to four PCI expansion slots with this PC making running DOS or Windows XP achievable but less than desirable on this computer. I went with a Sound Blaster Live! card which is a great card for Windows 98 gaming and even DOS to a degree. For video, I tried running a PCI FX 5200 which I did find to get bottlenecked somewhat by the CPU.
4) floppy and dual IDE connectors
5)PSU connector – This board does use Dell’s proprietary power connector that uses an AUX style connector.
6) CMOS battery
7) Pizo speaker
I didn’t really love the L433c but as a budget machine it wasn’t bad. I was surprisingly impressed with the on-board graphics and under my Windows 98 testing it gave decent results in games from the late 90s. I feel this PC shines most when built into a Windows 98 machine as reasonably fast PCI video cards for gaming can be acquired and a Sound Blaster Live! or Vortex2 based sound card would make playing a good amount of games from the late 90s a reasonably good experience especially if you can get yourself a PCI TNT2 or faster and perhaps a PCI Voodoo 2. You could build this PC out as a DOS machine though the lack of an ISA slot for sound will hurt compatibility. Building this computer out to be an XP gaming machine is technically possible, especially with a powerful PCI video card but I suspect anything but the earliest of XP titles will likely chug along pretty poorly.
I’m a fan of the Dell Dimension and XPS series, especially of the late 1990s. We’ve looked at a few of these PCs in the past such as the Dimension XPS D and R series and the Dimension 4100. The Dimension series PC we’re going to take a look at in this article falls somewhere between those two in terms of when it was produced and its power.
The T___r series as seen here features the same slim tower case as the D series and the 4100 series I looked at in previous articles. My computer specifically is an XPS T700r, the number between the T and r designates the CPU speed so it can vary between PCs of this series from 600 to 850MHz.
The T___r series uses a tower case that is slightly thinner than most beige PC towers of the era. Several models of the Dell Dimension line use this tower case and I quite like it. It features dual 5.25 inch bays as well as dual 3.5 inch bays and then a special slot and cutout for a 3.5 inch floppy drive, typically of the 1.44MB variety.
The rear of the case is fairly typical with the PSU up top and a large case fan located underneath it. The built-in I/O is pretty sparse but has everything you need including dual PS/2 ports for keyboard and mouse. Two USB 1.0 ports (assumed 1.0 or 1.1) and a single serial and parallel port. There are four LED lights below the parallel port to help troubleshoot problems if they should occur with the PC.
There are seven expansion slots for adding video, sound, etc but generally, the computer was pre-equipped when it was purchased. my PC came fully equipped though several of the blank expansion slot plates were missing.
Here is our Dell with the side panel removed. You can see there is an extra 3.5 inch bay under the floppy drive where I currently have the hard drive installed but the hard drive can also fit vertically in the spot underneath. The CPU on this PC is cooled via the case fan and uses a black plastic shroud to direct air from outside of the case to flow over the CPU. The OEM Dell motherboard uses the Intel 440BX chipset.
Motherboard with CPU shroud and expansion cards removed.
1 ) CPU – The T___r series all use the Coppermine Pentium III CPUs in the slot 1 form factor. My T700r predictably uses the 700MHz version of the CPU. The T___r series used Pentium III CPU speeds between 600MHz and 850Mhz. The CPU can be swapped with another slot 1 CPU and if the shroud is removed one could use a CPU with its own heatsink and fan attached. The 700MHz Pentium III is sufficient for most Win98 gaming needs although everything up to the Coppermine 1.1GHz slot 1 CPU should work though this may require the latest BIOS.
2) RAM – With three memory slots, this PC can accept up to 768MB of PC100 SDRAM which is overkill for a Windows 98 PC and adequate for an early Windows 2000 or XP type build. My PC came with two 128MB mismatched sticks of PC100 RAM for a total of 256MB of memory.
3) Expansion slots – The motherboard for the T___r series comes equipped with one x2 APG slot, five PCI slots, and a single 16-bit ISA slot. The ISA slot makes this machine a good candidate for DOS games as one can install an ISA sound card for better compatibility with DOS titles.
4) dual IDE connectors
5) Floppy connector
6) Proprietary power connector.
Like most of the Dell Dimension PCs from this time the T___r series uses a proprietary power connector that is split into two parts looking like a standard ATX and additional AUX connector.
7) Piezo speaker
8) CMOS battery
Expansion Cards
My PC came with the above modem and ethernet cards.
duel USB PCI card.
Sound Card
The sound card in my Dimension was a Turtle Beach Montego II, a sound card based on the A2D Vortex 2 chip. Despite its odd form factor this is a very nice card for Windows 98 and early XP gaming as it supports Aureal A3D and A3D 2 3d sound in games and was a major competitor to Creative’s EAX standard. The A3D chip worked reasonably well in DOS as well despite being a PCI card and is an overall good choice for gaming. The one downside is the awkward positioning of the wavetable header so not all midi daughterboards are going to fit comfortably.
Video
For the video card, we have an AGP TNT2 M64 which is a fairly typical lower end OEM video card. In power, this card falls somewhere between the original TNT and the TNT2. This card supports both DirectX 6 and Open GL as well as performs adequately under DOS. The TNT2 line is the last Nvidia card to retain compatibility with certain games such as Incoming as later cards will display graphical errors. Overall it is an okay pick for a late Windows 98 gaming build but a TNT2 will do everything this card does including graphical compatibility with games like Incoming but better.
I love the Dell Dimension series of the late 90s and very early 2000’s and this PC is no exception. The case has plenty of room for upgrades but the thinner form factor saves some room. The setup of this particular build screamed low-end business machine and capable but not high-end gamer build. If you have access to the cards this machine could very easily be turned into a Win9x powerhouse. The m64 could be easily swapped out with a true TNT2 or an early Geforce or Radeon card. The single 16-bit ISA slot also leaves room to turn this into an overpowered DOS build as well by swapping the Montigo II out for an ISA AWE32 or 64. The CPU can also be easily swapped for a more or less power one depending on your tastes.
If Cadillac made PC cases I feel like the Dell XPS 420 case would be in their lineup. The case is elegant, functional and looks like a million bucks. I honestly love this case. The high-end Dell XPS line which stands for Xtreme Performance System dates back to the 1990s and were sold alongside the Dell Dimension series. The PC we will be looking at in this article is the model 420 from the XPS 400 line and dates from around 2005-2006. The 420 was intended to be a media-based home PC but please keep in mind the XPS 420 we will be looking at here has been significantly upgraded in some areas from its factory stock configuration.
One of the first things you may notice is the shiny piano black face plate giving the 420 an elegant look. Originally these PC’s shipped with Windows Vista but I have upgraded the OS to Windows 7 and replaced the OS badge.
Starting from the top and going down we have two 5 1/4 bays with covers that fold down of which one currently houses a DVD drive. Below these we have two 3 1/2 inch “flexbays” which allow for the addition of a hard drive, floppy drive or various audio/video input/output interfaces. Also on the front we have a mic and 1/8 audio jack as well as two USB 2.0 ports and one IEEE 1394 port. Lastly, we have a power button below these ports followed by the model and Dell badge.
The back of the XPS 420 at first looks very stark to the eyes of a retro gamer but that is mostly because the 420 lacks almost any legacy I/O ports. No serial, parallel or even PS/2 ports grace the back panel but you do have everything you need for a more modern machine. I’ll admit, I would have liked the 420 to at least have a parallel port to make it more useful if used as a more retro XP machine but the less cluttered I/O shield does have a sort of minimalistic charm.
At the top we have audio jacks including an optical audio out. Below this is an Ethernet jack and six USB 2.0 ports. It is recommended you connect more permanent devices such as keyboard and mouse via these rear USB ports. Further down in a second smaller cluster we have a coaxial digital audio out as well as an IEEE 1394 port and an eSATA port.
One of the more unique features of the XPS 420 case is the mini LCD screen on the top front as well as the diagnostic lights to the left. The diagnostics lights essentially serve the same purpose as post “beeps” from an internal speaker or piezo speaker only instead of using a combination of timed beeps it displays a number code using 1 through 4. The diagnostic lights have been used on earlier PC’s and I find this method a little more subtle and quicker to understand than the beeping method but it’s nothing groundbreaking. Next to the diagnostic lights we have two more lights, the top light being a network activity indicator and the lower light being a hard drive activity light. All lights on this top display use a very pleasing blue
Occupying the majority of the panel is the LCD and controls powered by Windows Slideshow. To the right of the LCD screen we have a menu button and below that a navigational and selection buttons.
The LCD itself acts as a sort of mini built-in monitor and according to the manual it allows you to perform tasks such as browse web pictures, view photos stored on your system, play or browse audio and video files, set reminders and alarms, monitor PC settings, and set a real-time count down clock. You can expand the functionality of the LCD via add on programs called “Gadgets”. According to the manual you can access the viewscreen and use these gadgets even if the PC itself is off or in sleep mode.
The screen will also work along side the diagnostic lights to help you troubleshoot problems when booting up.
Unfortunately the Hard drive on this machine required a full reformat and Windows 7 was installed instead of the original Windows Vista for better usefulness as a semi-modern PC. Because of this the miniview seemed to have limited functionality within Windows 7 and I was not able to do much more with it other than play a game of solitaire though I do plan to do more research on this in the future or a possible install of Vista to see the full functionality.
The case itself is very easy to open and only requires pulling a latch on the top rear of the case which releases a side panel.
Removing the side panel reveals the inside of the XPS 420.
If you are familiar with this machine you’ll see right away that a few upgrades have already been performed. First off the power supply has been swapped out from the original to an Evga 750W supply and the video card has been replaced.
I primarily replaced the power supply because of the power hungry nature of the video card I decided to install. Note that the power supply bay on the XPS 420 isn’t entirely ATX compatible and I had a little trouble fitting a standard ATX PSU in the space. with a little adjusting though one will fit, though I was only able to line the PSU up with two screw holes in the rear at the top right and lower left. This left a small space gap below the PSU but still provided a secure placement and the power supply should be fine especially considering your probably not going to be moving a PC like this very frequently. We will talk about the video upgrade at the end of the article.
There are two slots at the bottom of the case for hard drives though you can fit two more in the flexbays if you so choose. My machine came with a 7200RPM 320GB hard drive which I’m fairly certain is the original drive
The motherboard uses the Intel X38 Express chipset and features five SATA II ports, 3 PCI, 1 PCIe x16, 1 PCIe x8 (x4 electrically) and 1 PCIe x1. There are more than enough expansion slots for a decent Windows XP or later PC though the lack of a second PCIe x16 connector does more or less rule out a traditional SLI setup. It’s a shame the PCIe x1 slot wasn’t an x16 slot as you can see the solder points on the board for it. The motherboard does lack an IDE connector which isn’t a big deal but it does have a floppy drive connector so if your planning to add a good old floppy drive your good to go.
The built-in sound does a pretty good job but Dell did offer an option for an Audigy 2 card though mine did not come with one.
CPU – Removing the heatsink on the XPS 420 is actually super easy and way more convenient than a standard Intel LGA 775 heatsink and fan. The first step is removing the two screws on the left and right side of the heatsink. and then lift the heatsink up and off.
The heatsink itself is alright and does have a copper base and heatpipes. chances are you won’t really be doing any overclocking on an OEM PC like this anyways.
My XPS 420 came with the stock Intel Core2Quad Q6600 @ 2.4GHz. This seems to be the CPU that shipped with most of the 420s. The Q6600 was an early quad-core CPU that works great with most XP era games but if your planning on doing any gaming on this machine post-2008 or so or want to more easily max out the settings on some of the more intensive titles you may want to consider upgrading.
The first step is to make sure you upgrade the BIOS to the latest version which is ver. A07. I found the latest BIOS on Dell’s website and the upgrade can be done easily with a USB flash drive. Once this is done you should be able to use most of the Core2 family of CPU’s. I upgraded mine to a 2.83GHz Core2Quad Q9500 which is a bit faster then the old Q6600 but also runs on a 1333Mhz bus as opposed to a 1066MHz bus. With the latest BIOS update you should be able to upgrade all the way up to a 3GHz Q9650 if desired.
RAM – My XPS 420 came with 3GB of DDR2 SDRAM and then upgraded to 4GB via 4x1GB sticks as seen in the image below.
I finally upgraded my RAM to 8GB via four 2GB sticks of the type in the image below.
The RAM I used were all matching sticks of PC-6400U DDR2 rated at 800mhz. I have read of people that have had trouble running 8GB of DDR2 on the XPS 420 at 800MHz and I also had issues with mismatched RAM combinations where the speed would drop to 667MHz even if all RAM was 800MHz capable. The speed drop is not noticable in most applications and games but if you want 800MHz with 8GB installed I highly recommend using the newest BIOS version as well as four matching sticks of RAM with the same CAS of 5 or higher.
Video – Unfortunately I neglected to take note of whatever video card was originally installed but if memory serves me correct it was something like a Nvidia 8400. punching in the service ID number on Dell’s website brings up nothing. for a video card upgrade I went with the GTX 295.
Sure there are better choices and the 295 is a massive power hog but being released in early 2009 it felt like something that would have been a real possible upgrade to this machine from someone that bought an XPS 420 in 2006 and had been using it as a main gaming/media PC. The GTX 295 was a powerhouse when it was released in 2009 and still makes a usable card years later. As a Windows XP card it delivers more than enough power for almost any XP era game with maybe the exception of Crysis on the highest settings. as a Windows Vista and up card it still is serviceable and many later games are still playable on this card at low settings.
The GTX 295 is a 1792MB dual GPU card that’s perfect for situations like the XPS 420 where there is only one PCIe x16 slot on the motherboard. The 295 power wise is on average a little faster than two GTX 260s in SLI configuration.
The XPS 420 is a beautiful computer with a few possible upgrade paths. Being an OEM machine overclocking options are pretty limited with the biggest roadblock being the RAM. The miniview LCD on the case is interesting but it feels under utilized and a bit of a gimmick. I mean why would you scroll through your photos on a small LCD when your computer and most likely, your monitor are right there. It would have been cool of games took advantage of the LCD though, maybe in the same ways games took advantage of the VMU on the Dreamcast. The XPS 420 with some upgrades is still a usable machine in 2018 for lighter use like web surfing and office/productivity type work and with the right video card even some gaming though don’t expect smooth 60 FPS on ultra settings with new games. As a Windows XP retro machine the 420 potentially makes an elegant and powerful choice.
In this article we are going to take a brief look at the Dell Optiplex GX110 which is a Pentium III based small form factor computer from the year 2000. The Optiplex series was generally focused toward small business as well as education markets so we’re not looking at a gaming rig though it may make a fast and stable late DOS or Windows 9x machine. The closest similar machine I can think of from the same time is the Compaq EN small form factor which I wrote about here.
As you can see above the GX110 is a small form desktop PC but it also comes in a desktop and mini tower form factor. They also came in slot 1 and socket 370 form, this machine being the later socket 370 form. I would say the GX110 small form case is not as tall as the Compaq EN was but it’s not smaller by much. Unfortunately, I no longer have the EN to directly compare. On the front, we have a single button for power as well as a floppy drive and a CD-ROM drive though notice the CD drive is looking a bit odd with the eject button on the face plate but we will get to that.
On the back starting from left to right we have a parallel port with a serial port below it followed by two PS/2 ports for keyboard and mouse, two USB 1.1 ports another serial port followed by the built-in video port, Ethernet and finally three audio jacks for mic, line in and line out. Having a line in jack is nice as many of the small form factor PC’s I’ve looked at only have the mic and line out jacks.
Opening the case is very simple and you just pinch in two plastic side tabs on the sides near the rear of the case and lift the upper part of the case up and off.
Here is the inside with the riser card still attached. I currently have a Geforce 2 MX400 installed.
Here is the riser card removed though there isn’t much of interest revealed below it except that 3com chip which presumably controls the Ethernet.
The riser card here supports two PCI expansion cards but from what I’ve read Dell may have also offered an optional riser card with one PCI and one 16-bit ISA slot. If this is true those risers would have been optimal for a fast DOS build.
Now let’s take a look at that CD drive.
So this machine does something I don’t see very often in desktop IBM PC’s and that’s use a laptop style CD drive. Now the obvious benefit of using a laptop style drive is you can have a smaller case and it also is lighter. You also can use a smaller floppy style power connector if you like that kind of thing. I find this a bit of a negative though since I find laptop style CD drives to be a bit less robust and more prone to damage. I also find them to be harder to replace as they aren’t uncommon by any means but desktop style drives are so much more abundant and can be found on any given day at a retail PC shop or used at a thrift where a laptop style drive may take a little more hunting to track down.
The hard drive bay is located under the floppy drive. Originally these models came with a variety of size options for hard drives but mine has a 40gb drive installed, it is likely this drive was added later.
Here we have a good view of the board. The board is based on the Intel 810e chipset which allows us to run a 133mhz FSB for our CPU but our memory is limited to 100mhz PC100.
1) CPU – The PGA 370 GX110 came with a few CPU options. I’m not sure what this one originally came stock with but it has been upgraded to a 1ghz Coppermine-EB Pentium III running on the 133mhz FSB. Just about any 100/133mhz FSB socket 370 Pentium III or Celeron should work just fine in this machine and any choice should be fine for a Win 9x or DOS setup though if you want to run things in higher resolutions or do some XP gaming a faster P III is recommended. There is an option in the BIOS to disable the cache to lower speeds for earlier games.
2) RAM – The Optiplex GX110 can take up to 512 MB of PC100 SDRAM via two slots. My machine currently has the max of 512 MB using two PC133 256 MB sticks. The PC133 clocks down to PC100 though depending on the RAM brand and specifications I have read of incompatibilities when using PC133.
3) Riser slot – This is the riser slot for the riser card we looked at earlier. It installs like just about any other expansion card though it has a little green plastic lever you want to raise before removing the card.
4) Floppy connector
5) IDE – Two ATA-66 EIDE connectors supporting up to four EIDE devices. Of course, you only have room for three total drives unless you get creative with dual SSDs for hard drives.
6) CMOS battery
7) CD audio in connector for the on-board audio.
8) PSU connector
Sound – Built-in sound is a sound blaster compatible with Analog Devices AD1881 soundMAX. It’s similar if not the same sound chip that was in my Compaq EN and although it’s okay for basic Windows sound it’s pretty terrible for DOS. A PCI Sound Blaster Live! or Vortex 2 based card would be a smart upgrade for one of the available slots.
Video – Video is Intel Dynamic Video Memory which seems to pull memory from the system memory. It’s passable for desktop use but if you actually want to use this system to run games a video card should be your first upgrade. A PCI Voodoo 3 would work great in this machine for Windows and DOS gaming but other later PCI cards would compliment the Pentium III CPU as well.
There is a seemingly more common full desktop version of the Dell Optiplex GX110 that I had acquired many years after this one. I declined to do a full article on it though because its really just the exact same motherboard placed inside a larger desktop case. Other than a larger footprint for the case all you really get is an extra PCI slot on the expansion daughter board. Mine had a quite zippy Pentium III 933MHz CPU though.
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And that’s about it for the Optiplex GX110. As usual, these Pentium III machines make great Windows 9x or late DOS gaming PCs with a few tweaks and additions such as appropriate sound and video cards. As for the GX110 though I don’t know if I’d necessarily recommend it just because there are better options out there. Unless you really really need the small form factor or are in an area starved for Pentium III PCs and earlier-era stuff. It’s just not that much smaller than other options like the Compaq EN which gave three expansion slots as opposed to two which can make a big difference when upgrading. In a pinch, it works but keep an eye out for something nicer if you can.
I was doing my usual rounds at my usual thrift when a PC caught my eye. I knew from the stickers it was a mid 90’s machine and sported a Pentium II. Unfortunately I’m already up to my eyeballs in mid 90’s P1 and II machines and I had no reason whatsoever to buy this machine. Whats more it was priced at $24.99 which is a deal more then I normally would be willing to pay for a machine like this. Despite this it called to me. that case, the normal off white color of the era yet also sporting aggressive frontal styling and slimness. I knew of the Dell Dimension series, a mid-high end line from Dell and despite not owning one in their hey-day I have a sort of soft spot for the series and regularly preferred using them previously for Win 9x machines. After attempting to open the case and gaze on the goodies inside, and failing, I gave up and left. I know I didn’t need this machine yet I felt regret for not picking it up. A few days later I returned to the thrift and to my mild surprise the Dell was still there and the case was open. I took a peek inside and saw it sported an AWE64 which I could defiantly use in other machines as well as an Nvidia RIVA 128, A card I never really played around with. There was no hard drive and it was still overpriced at $24.99 but I gave in and despite my better judgment I bought it. At the very least it would make good material for a blog article I thought. That said, without further adue, the Dell Dimension XPS D300.
The Dell Dimension line was the name Dell gave to their line of PC’s for homes and small offices and they were usually of decent quality. The XPS line was at least at first reserved for there high end cutting edge machines with XPS standing for Xtreme Performance System, because as we know everything in the 90’s was EXTREME! sometimes even omitting the E for extra XTREMNESS!. The XPS D300 here came out in late 1997 from what I can figure and indeed uses very high end parts for the time. This machine would be one of the last and faster machines “designed for windows 95” before win 98 came out the following year. The D300 here was one of the highest spec PC’s of the D series of XPS computers. I’m not 100% sure whats stock on this machine but I’m pretty sure the second CD drive with the blue highlighting was added by the previous owner but it does match the upper blue case label and goes well with everything. I’m also not 100% sure about that Zip 100 drive below it either but from the pictures I’ve seen online of the D300 most have one installed in the same place so I’m betting the Zip drive is stock. The power button is easily accessible mid case and the smaller reset button a little below it. I don’t know what it is about these machines but I’ve always loved the case styling of the Dell XPS and Dimensions series. The case itself is also thinner then an average PC case.
We can see here that the case is tool-less to get into and only requires unscrewing one screw that can be done by hand. Under the PSU we have a really nice and large case fan to assist with cooling. Built in ports are a little sparse with two ps/2 ports (that are interestingly none color coded for the time). Two USB ports most likely 1.1, as well as a printer and serial port. Absent is the built in video and to a lesser extent built in audio. This is actually a mark of quality though as usually built in video/audio is of the low quality sort and is easily blown away by most add on video/audio cards. As I don’t think its likely at all that Dell sold their machines without any video or audio cards I can only assume the cards I found installed in mine were stock from the factory. This would make sense as the cards are period correct for 1997 and of higher quality which would also go along with the rest of the D300. Usually I go into the cards near the end but It feels right to go over them now since were on the subject. Keep in mind I don’t know for sure if these are stock cards.
First we will talk about the video card.
This is the video card I found inside. An AGP Nvidia RIVA 128 from 1997. Since in depth spec information on this model seems to be scarce I can only assume this is the card that came stock with the D300. It does make sense this being a high end machine as the date of the card matches the computer and the RIVA 128 would of been a higher end card to use in 1997 when it was pretty hot stuff competing with the 3DFX Voodoo. It was one of the earlier cards to use the then new AGP bus slot and was one of the earlier cards to integrate 2d and 3d into one card. The Riva 128 makes a decent card for DOS as well as early Windows 3d stuff. Its a great all around card and I’d suggest keeping it installed if you want to keep the machine 1997 stock correct. If not, toss in something more powerful, perhaps from the next generation Nvidia TNT or TNT2 line.
for audio we have…
A AWE64 CT4500. This would make it the AWE64 Value with only 512kb of RAM. Overall its still a decent card and as I suspected with the video card I also suspect this was the card that came stock with this machine though I was hoping it was a non value edition. Its doesn’t have true OPL FM or a waveblaster daughter board header but its not a half bad card. In DOS it will mostly act like a AWE32 with clearer output and If you hook up an external midi module the AWE64 is free of the “hanging midi note” bug found on just about all Sound Blaster cards from the SB16 to the AWE32. Its a good all around card for DOS compatibility and Windows 9x. Stick with this card or upgrade to the AWE64 gold if you want to stay period correct or plan on using the D300 for DOS heavy gaming. If not, A PCI sound blaster live! or something using the Vortex chip from Aureal. You’ll lose some ease of use and compatibility in DOS as is the case with all PCI sound cards but they will make better overall Windows sound cards in my opinion. (I actually replaced the AWE64 in my machine with a PCI Monster MX300 with a Aureal chip)
Now for the motherboard itself.
One of the first things to catch the eye is the CPU and the massive copper heatsink. The motherboard itself is a slot 1 motherboard and features the Intel 440LX chipset and the at the time new AGP slot for video cards as well as PCI and ISA slots giving a lot of nice expansion options for building a DOS or Windows machine. The PC speaker is a “beeper” type so it doesn’t produce as great a sound as a true PC speaker. You can also notice in the image above the vertical bay to the left where normally a PC speaker or case fan would go. That bay is for a hard drive but on my system I simply mounted my drive in a more traditional manner In a bay under the Zip drive. I don’t know the type or size of the hard drive that came with this model as it was removed when I received it but my guess is that it was a 2GB+ model hard drive. I installed a simple 1GB model IDE drive to replace the missing drive.
There is no L2 cache on the motherboard since slot 1 CPU’s have L2 cache on the CPU package itself.
1) CPU – The CPU in the D300 as the name may suggest is a 300mhz “Klamath” Pentium II. This CPU was pretty hot stuff in late 1997 and would of been a good choice for a higher end PC. The heatsink on this CPU is huge.
As you can see there is no fan directly on the CPU and my guess is the design here called for the oversized heatsink to be cooled by the case fan behind it.
2) – CMOS battery
3) RAM – 3 sockets for up to 384MB of PC66 SDRAM as I have here.
4) two IDE connectors and above them a floppy drive connector
5) this cable connects the reset/power buttons on the front of the machine to the motherboard.
Even with the praise I’ve given it the machine does have its faults. First of which is the case. Just let me say again I love the case. I love the look and the ease of taking the side panel off with one hand screw BUT I still have not figured out how to take the other side panel off. This prevents me from removing any dead drives and the ones currently installed are screwed in on both sides. I know it sounds silly and there’s probably a manual online…wait, let me Google that real fast…..no, nothing I could find in 5 minutes anyways. just dead ends. its unacceptable when you have to hunt down a manual to take a case apart or maybe I’m just missing something here.
Second issue I had is the password which is set to be there by default. Usually the user sets a password and then if the CMOS battery dies the password dies with it but in the case of the D300 and I suspect most Dells of the time the opposite is true. I received this PC with an obvious dead CMOS battery so after POST I was presented with a road block in the form of a password. What you have to do is find this jumper on the motherboard.
Jumper pins 2-3 to set the machine to “config mode”. reboot and then go into BIOS and set things to no password. make sure you have also replaced the CMOS battery with a working one or else you will need to do this again after you power down. Power down and replace the jumper to pin 1-2 for “normal mode” Its not a huge deal but it was kinda annoying.
Lastly we have the proprietary Dell power connector.
This is the bane of most all Dell PC’s from 1996 until about 2000 and you can actually fry your system if you decide to try and use a standard ATX power connector. Basically if your PSU dies its not as easy as grabbing a spare ATX PSU you may have lying around or can find at goodwill for $5 the same day. There are a few adapters I found on eBay that let you hook up a regular ATX power supply for about $6 so that may be an option though I cant comment on there reliability.
The machine performs adequately and truth be told makes a pretty cool Windows 9x machine or even a good DOS PC depending on what video/audio cards you decide to go with though even the stock cards are well up to either task. The biggest real downside is the Dell PSU but that’s only really an issue if it decides to die on you. As far as OEM machines I would recommend it though I currently definitely prefer using generic cases and building your own machines from scratch this would of been a pretty nice PC for 1997.
Benchmarks for DOS
300mhz Pentium II MMX, 384MB SDRAM, Nvidia RIVA 128
3DBENCH – 179.2
PCPBENCH – 78.5
DOOM – 70.07
Quake – 58.3
This is the Dell Dimension XPS R450 which is at the highest end of the Dimension Pentium II line. Its uses the exact same motherboard as the D300 with the only difference being the CPU is a 450mhz Pentium II. It even still has the oversized heatsink with no fan. Obviously the front of the case is redesigned but offers the same number of expansion options though the lowest slot now needs to be a floppy drive or ZIP drive. I think this machine was altered by the former owner but the Video card was an Nvidia TNT card
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