leticia | (no subject)

(no subject)

...apparently, the Dell XPS 600, billed at the time mine was purchased as Dell's greatest gaming computer...

...lacks heat sensors on the motherboard.

Yes.

I've been trying to install nTune, nvidia's monitoring utility for their nForce chipset, which the mobo uses, and wondering why it wouldn't work. So I just checked out Dell's support forums. Apparently the hardware needed to monitor such exotic things as temperature and voltage does not exist on this motherboard.

And this is their idea of a gaming computer.

Dear Dell: I like performance computers. I want to know if I have provoked instability by installing an extra two hard drives. I would like to check my system temperature and the voltage I'm drawing off the power supply so I know whether I should yank a drive back out.

You sold this as a performance computer. Get your damn head out of your ass. KTHX, LOVE LETI.

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...oh dear. I mean, I knew that Dell was the type to cut corners in order to offer lower prices, among other less reputable actions, but I didn't realize they'd go that far on a supposed gaming machine. (Note to self: Do not buy next computer from Dell.)

Or at least poke around the internet and investigate some things first.

There are no temperature diodes. I'm still sitting here and going "what"?

Here's another one: I had to buy an IDE card to put two more drives in, because it only had one IDE port on the mobo, and I have two IDE CD drives in their.

Well, after investigating, the controller as built onto the mobo is capable of handling a second channel. And if you look closely at the mobo, there are /contacts/ for it, right next to the first. But they /didn't solder on the socket/. That's all.

So I had to go buy an IDE card.

Ewww. Just...not going to buy from Dell, I think. I've heard too many bad things about them from various directions to trust that company any more.

I'd say they're not bad if what you want is a stable desktop machine you have no intention of playing with yourself. If you're doing Word and Excel and just don't care about games, go for one of their low end systems and enjoy their support. Which is pretty good, as far as computers go.

But if you demand a lot from your system or like to install new hardware or anything, meh. Go with something you know what all's in with no proprietary bits.

...
One MORE strike against them.
In college, most of the people I knew had Dells, and most of the time came to ME when something broke. Almost every time I could tell them what was broken, but could it be replaced or upgraded? Of course not! It's a dell, and uses some wonky part nobody else has ever heard of or supports. Especially on their motherboards. Bleh.

Good luck getting that worked out, Leti.

Well, alas, there's really nothing to be worked out. It's a pretty good computer, which was given to me free. I'm going to keep using it until it dies or it gets too slow, so that means I simply get no temperature sensors and have to hope I'm not melting it.

But it HAS ensured next time I go looking for a gaming computer, Dell won't be on the list of sources. Probably just build the damn thing myself.

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