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Installing X800SE in Dell 4700
The more I read about the X800SE the more confussed I get. I purchased a 'new' X800SE from e-bay that was pulled from a 'new' Dell. It is a PCI express card. ATI does not want to support it as they said it is a Dell OEM card. Photos of it are different from photos of the other X800 cards I have found on-line. My card does not appear to have the six pin power connector on top of card (near back corner edge) like the others, but it does have a small white plastic 4-pin connector along top edge (about 2/3's the way back - not sure what it is).
My Dell 4700 came w/ video and sound on the mother board. Do I have to disable the on-board video to install the X800SE? I have found drivers on the ATI site, on Dell's site and on some third party sites (Omega). I am not sure which would be best to use as I read that the Dell drivers are not as up to date, but I hate to mess up my warranty.
Do I need a power connector for this card? Where can I get it since ATI's connector is for their cards, not the Dell OEM? I have seen a couple of responses from ChrisM (at Dell) that seem very helpful.... maybe he or someone can help me out here. Thanks and Happy Holidays from Florida.
- The four pin connector on the top of the X800SE is only about half as big as the power connectors for the disc drives. I have photos of the card (front and back) but I don't know how to upload to this board. I can send them to your email if you want to see the difference from a standard X800 card.Thanks for any help .
I recently installed an X800SE which I received as a replacement from Dell for a X300SE which was mistakenly shipped with my system. I had the same question you had about what looked like missing connections to the small white slot on the card. My old ATI 9800 Pro had a cable connection to a power source. The X800SE came without any such connector cable. I checked with Dell Gold tech support and was told that the X800SE did not use such a connection. They said that the small white slot was superflous for this card. That it was part of a standard board used to connect to an extra fan for more powerful ATI cards. They said that all the necessary connections were in the PCI e slot.
Hopefully, they are correct. My cards appears to work well.
Merry Christmas Past
I forgot to respond to your other questions. I have a Dim 8400 which does not have any integrated intel video card or drivers. If the 4700 does the card should be disabled.
I like the Omega drivers but you must use Driver Cleaner to get rid of any old drivers on your system before installing Omega divers or the latest ATI drivers. Follow the instructions on their site exactly or your system might keep trying to reinstall the default windows drivers when you boot up. The Dell drivers tend to be outdated.
Good luck- Thanks Jake,I bit the bullet and downloaded the Omega drivers last night. I finally concluded that the 'crippled/weakened' SE probably didn't have the extra power cable and should work off of the PCI-e slot (the fan is plugged into the video card). I finally found the FAQ from ChrisM (DELL) and it told how to disable the on-board video. It was too easy, you just let the setup do it automatically.The fan is running, video is great and all seems good so far...........If I had read more before I purchased the video card, I probably would have paid the difference and got a true ATI X800 w/256k instead of the Dell (OEM) crippled version. Now I know why everyone was bidding on the others and not the one 'pulled from a new Dell' . But not being an 'extream gammer' I will probably be happy with this one.My next task is to rob my Sound Blaster from my old 'puter and install it in my Dell4700.Thanks again, Doug
tigerwolf7
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Posted December 24th, 2004 21:00