PC Upgrading Questions

[wubb]

Recently picked up a Dimension 4600 for cheap and have a few questions on upgrading. Not really planning on doing anything with it any time soon, but I popped it open and wasn't sure what to do if I ever picked up a 2nd HDD in particular.

Wouldn't surprise me if this has been asked dozens of time, but I'd appreciate any help :mrgreen:

Here's a diagram of the system board:
http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/9381/dimension4600systemboard2zf.th.jpg (http://img20.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dimension4600systemboard2zf.jpg)

There's an open bay for a 2nd CD/DVD drive. That looks pretty straight forward. Found the open connectors for it on the same cable as leads to the existing CD burner. Are there common compatibility problems to consider here? (There is a floppy drive installed if that makes a difference.)

The HDD bays are side by side at the bottom of the PC. Existing one is in the outer bay and has to be removed to put a 2nd drive in the open inner slot. Question is this. The open connector for a 2nd HDD is on the same cable as the connector for the existing HDD. It's between the connector currently used and the board. One used now is lable HD DRIVE 1. Open one is labeled HD DRIVE 2.

If I added a 2nd drive should I move the existing one to the inner slot so it continues to use the HD DRIVE 1 connector and connect the HD DRIVE 2 connector to the new drive. Or should I put the new drive in the inner slot, connect HD DRIVE 1 connector to it and connect HD DRIVE 2 connector to the existing (main) HDD. Basically I'd want to continue to boot from the existing drive, so what connector should I use and/or does it even matter?

I'm pretty sure it's IDE, so that means a SCSI drive wouldn't work right?

It has those 2 SATA connectors. So that means I could install an internal SATA drive? Would there be a cable to run from the drive to that port and then I'd use the open power connector to power it?

Hopefully that all makes sense.

Also how do I determine if the CPU can be upgraded and what it can be upgraded to?

[m6oo]

Adding the 2nd optical drive is pretty straightforward. Just leave the existing optical drive at the end of the cable and put the new drive on the free, middle connector. The existing drive should be jumpered to Master if it's not already. Jumper the new drive as slave.

By convention, your boot HD is located at on the end connector of the IDE cable. I'd leave that one there. Again, it should be jumpered to Master when you add the 2nd HD. Put the 2nd HD on that middle connector jumpered as slave.

Note that you may have to physically move things around to accommodate the cable configuration that you need.

You have no SCSI interface, so a SCSI drive won't work unless you buy a SCSI adapter PCI card, which will come with it's own cable.

If you get a SATA drive, you'll need the SATA connector to go from the MoBo to the drive and a power connector. If you buy a boxed SATA drive, it may come with all this. If you buy an OEM drive, you may have to provide your own cables / power adaptor cables.

If you have to ask about how to add additional drives, then you're not ready for the hassles of upgrading the CPU. Besides, any given MoBo supports a relatively small range of processors. You're not going to get that big a bump for the money you'd spend on the new processor.

[wubb]

Thanks for the info. Just what I was looking for.

CompUSA has a nice deal on a 250GB SATA drive (but there are a ton of rebates...) That I might pick up and Staples has a decent deal on a DVD burner I might pull the trigger on as well.

The SATA drive comes with the connector and there already is a spare power connector so I think I'd be all set with it.

[m6oo]

Sounds like you're set.

If you go SATA, make sure the spare power connector you speak of is a SATA power connector. They are different from the (molex) connectors used for IDE drives.

[wubb]

Aha! Yep, the one I was thinking of is a Molex connector. Had no idea they were different :oops:

Hmm, guess I'll have to crack it open again and see if there is a spare power connector for a SATA drive. I don't think there were unfortunately. I suppose I could get a converter, right? Might be best to just wait for a decent deal on an IDE drive however :lol:

The SATA ports on the mobo look nothing like the ones pictured on wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA / http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:SATA_ports.jpg) Any idea what that would mean? Do I need a piece like the red port in the wiki image to snap into them? (Yep picking up an IDE drive is looking like a better solution all the time ;) )

Although I am intrigued by trying to get 2 IDE drives and a SATA drive all going at once. (Only has brackets for 2 HDDs though.)

[m6oo]

I don't know about those connectors. You might want to do some more research at the dell support site or dell forums.

They make adapter brackets for putting HD's into 5.25" drive bays. There's always a way...