Dell Dimension XPS T500 upgrades.

[AAVVIronAlex]

Hello,

 

I have a Dell Dimension XPS T500 with a Pentium III Xeon 500MHz (Intel Slot 1) laying around. I am thinking of transforming it into my antique LAN Tournament battlestation. The GPU is an AGP 2x ATi Rage Pro Turbo, it has 384MBs of RAM.

 

The CPU upgrade is quite simple, as long as it does not have a 100MHz FSB it should be, according to the user manual at least.

 

I am wondering what upgrades I can make to the system which will still be compatible with the motherboard and will be cheap (things like the 3dfx Voodoo cards on eBay cost a fortune).

 

My main concern is the fact that AGP 2x (version 1.0) does not support a lot of options, although I have learnt that there are PCI (of which I have 2-3 slots free of) versions of cards like GT 610 and the 520, which are also quite expensive.

 

There are many options, but they usually contradict themselves.

 

My goal with the system is to run Quake III Arena at 60+ FPS and if possible run UT2004 too.

 

My OS would be Windows 2000.

 

Thank you for reading. If there are any questions please tell me.

[jaslion]

You got 50$?

 

You can just get some rando core 2 officr machine and slap in some old radeon hd or gtx card that doesnt need external power and be waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay faster

[AAVVIronAlex]

1 minute ago, jaslion said:

You got 50$?

 

You can just get some rando core 2 officr machine and slap in some old radeon hd or gtx card that doesnt need external power and be waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay faster

I specifically want my PIII to be utilised. I have Core 2 Duos, Quads, Athlons and Phenoms for ages. Those are for another era and I can build a pc for less than 50 dollars if I use them.

[jaslion]

5 minutes ago, AAVVIronAlex said:

I specifically want my PIII to be utilised. I have Core 2 Duos, Quads, Athlons and Phenoms for ages. Those are for another era and I can build a pc for less than 50 dollars if I use them.

Then id say a geforce 2 mx or ultra would be about as far as you could push it. Some older quadros do also operate on agp 2x.

 

As far a cpu a 1ghz p3 100mhz fsb is easy to get.

 

 

[Needfuldoer]

40 minutes ago, AAVVIronAlex said:

(things like the 3dfx Voodoo cards on eBay cost a fortune).

Get a GeForce or Quadro card and install nGlide. Just about every Glide API game you run should have full hardware acceleration, same as if you bought a Voodoo card, but without the "rare hardware from a legendary company that's no longer around" hype tax.

[AAVVIronAlex]

21 minutes ago, jaslion said:

As far a cpu a 1ghz p3 100mhz fsb is easy to get.

This has to be Intel Slot 2.

 

28 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Then id say a geforce 2 mx or ultra would be about as far as you could push it. Some older quadros do also operate on agp 2x.

Geforce 2 is an option, thanks. But is there any way to use 4x cards on this, it looks like it should be possible.

[AAVVIronAlex]

13 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

Get a GeForce or Quadro card and install nGlide. Just about every Glide API game you run should have full hardware acceleration, same as if you bought a Voodoo card, but without the "rare hardware from a legendary company that's no longer around" hype tax.

Yea, I will try. I hope I find a cheap Voodoo sometime.

[jaslion]

1 hour ago, AAVVIronAlex said:

This has to be Intel Slot 2.

 

Geforce 2 is an option, thanks. But is there any way to use 4x cards on this, it looks like it should be possible.

You could yes but its very questionable if it will work since agp is less forgiving.

 

Oh its slot 2? P3 xeons at 1ghz are available. Thought it was slot 1 only?

 

If 1 just get a s1 to socket 370 adapter for 15$ and throw in a 1ghz+ pentium. It works fine that way. Will look a lil dinky but well it is officially supported

[Needfuldoer]

25 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Oh its slot 2? P3 xeons at 1ghz are available. Thought it was slot 1 only?

It's definitely Slot 1. 

 

Slot 2 was AMD.

[jaslion]

1 minute ago, Needfuldoer said:

It's definitely Slot 1. 

 

Slot 2 was AMD.

Yeah found it confusing already. But then best bet is to just s1 to 370 and slap in whatever cpu that fits in the specs allowed.

 

Could have fun ocing the shit out of a celeron with a hardware oc adapter

[AAVVIronAlex]

1 hour ago, jaslion said:

You could yes but its very questionable if it will work since agp is less forgiving.

I have an identical post on a retro hardware forum here. They said that it should work. I have some people I know that work in an old nuclear research lab and they have a lot of old stuff which has been changed over time. I asked them if they had some 4x cards. I will try them in the slot if they end up having any. Wish me luck, I hope they have high end stuff.

 

1 hour ago, jaslion said:

Oh its slot 2? P3 xeons at 1ghz are available. Thought it was slot 1 only?

Apparently it is Slot 1, but I cannot be sure until I check it for myself, the people on the other forums said that it is indeed slot 1 and they are apparently regular Xeons.

 

1 hour ago, jaslion said:

If 1 just get a s1 to socket 370 adapter for 15$ and throw in a 1ghz+ pentium. It works fine that way. Will look a lil dinky but well it is officially supported

I would look forward to that if I do not have any other options, as I do not know how I should go around about cooling the thing after doing so.

 

Just the fact that Pentium III means a lot of things across 4 years or whatever the exact timestamp is, is already showing how the naming schemes have gotten better over the ages. Hopefully intel does not go with that horrendous new scheme 15th gen apparently has.

[jaslion]

25 minutes ago, AAVVIronAlex said:

thing after doing so.

Put a socket 370 cooler on it. Like the stock coolers for these chips are PLENTY.

 

27 minutes ago, AAVVIronAlex said:

I asked them if they had some 4x cards. I will try them in the slot if they end up having any. Wish me luck, I hope they have high end stuff.

It can work however some cards dont like it (usually stated on their spec page) and sometimes oem boards were more locked down.

 

Since this is old hardware with a lot less documentation best I could do was find people using up to a geforce 3 something thing that is agp 4x in it but then others not having luck with all gefore 3 and 4 being off the table mostly

[AAVVIronAlex]

I will update you when I have results.

[AAVVIronAlex]

So quick update, I got 2 Radeon 9250s and an FX5500 from the research centre. I will keep them all and I will use the 9250 for the PC. All of them work. They also had Pentium IIIs, but they did not time to unveil them so that would have to be delayed until another time. Overall I can keep my hopes up, the only problem I really have now is that my HDD looks like it died on me, right after the drivers got installed. I rebooted and rebooted again to see some system files were not loading up and now even the Windows 2000 installation disc cannot format the drive. I would have to try to repair that, I know someone who does it for fun (and has done it successfully in the past), so I will take a go at that, if it does not come back I will get a new one or just tell the centre to include that with the Pentium III they will be giving away.
 

Forgot to mention that all the cards are AGP 2X/4X so they work like a charm.
 

I also saw an FX5200 for just 2 dollars in my local Craigslist alternative, so I will be getting that as well (just for safe keeping). I also found an extremely cheap listing of a high-midrange Socket A, so I will be getting that too.
 

Thank you all for your support.