Dell 420 Workstation, model WDC

[Gems48]

I have 15 of these Dell Workstations. Trying to find out what will work in them. Here are my questions as I went to the website and they do not give these details.

1. The original configuration of memory was PC800. I have alot of PC700. Will PC700 work?

2. What is the minimum and the maximum processor you can put in these?

3. I put in PC700 memory, PCI Video card (Rage), a pair of 733 processors but screen is black. I tried a AGP video card and a 450 pentium processor but the machine kept beeping so it did not like the smaller processor or the video card? What is the fix for this?

 

[aspire]

Check your motherboard for what types of memory it will support. then check what range of cpu speeds it will support. you should be able to find all of this online. the agp video card may be a 8x some older computers only run 2x or 4x if the memory doesnt work let me know what size sticks you have Im lookin around for some to add to my gateway.

 

[DJ-CHRIS]

PC800 RAM should be RD-RAM so you have to use matched pairs. RD-RAM is picky.

 

[Samm]

The dell 420 takes 4x AGP cards so don't insert an 8x agp card!

The system is designed to use dual P3 cpus, a 450MHz CPU may be a P2 or a P3 but the FSB of a 450MHz chip is supposed to be 100MHz. The dell usually runs at an fsb of 133. You may be able to lower this in the bios though.

If you only have one cpu inserted, it must be in the first socket & the second socket should be disabled in the bios

I don't know if the board will take P700 rimms or not. I do know it can support a max of 512MB on a single module, 2GB total memory & must have a minimum total of 128MB of ram.

The chances are it won't support P700 but if it does, make sure you don't put mixed types in obviously especially as Rimms are dual channel.
The ram that came with the system should be ECC Ram so if you use non-ecc you should disable ECC checking if possible.

If the system is just beeping at boot up with no display, it usually indicates a memory problem (most likely) or a video problem. If I were you, I would put all the original components back in the board, get that working again, then replace the components one at a time. You may need to clear the Bios each time though