Upgrading Dell Inspiron 531 Motherboard to SLI

edited March 2009 in Hardware
I am seeking help in upgrading my Dell Inspiron 531 with a new or possibly used SLI Mobo and CPU so that I may upgrade eventually to dual 8800GT's (so excited) when the funds are available. The problem is that I am not sure what Mobos or what size Mobos (not sure if my case is ATX or M-ATX) will fit in the 531's case b/c I would rather not have to buy a new case and put the money towards the GPU. I have pretty much replaced everything else which leaves the stock mobo and CPU as the only pieces of original equipment left in the rig. As of now I have an AMD Athlon XP X2 4000+, SB X-Fi Xtreme Gamer Sound Card, 550W BFG PSU, 4GB Ram DDR2 PC6400\800Mhz, BFG 8800 GT OC, 500GB HDD, 250GB HDD. Any help would much appreciated with my first post! Thanx in adavance!

Comments

  • edited February 2009
    Also, I recently did a fresh install of XP SP3 b/c Vista was too resource hungry for my tastes! But now I'm showing "Other PCI Device" driver problem in D. Manager and can't find the driver to get rid of it. Tried the chipset drivers but that did not work. Thanx again!
  • mew905mew905 Saskatchewan
    edited March 2009
    toddman876 wrote:
    I am seeking help in upgrading my Dell Inspiron 531 with a new or possibly used SLI Mobo and CPU so that I may upgrade eventually to dual 8800GT's (so excited) when the funds are available. The problem is that I am not sure what Mobos or what size Mobos (not sure if my case is ATX or M-ATX) will fit in the 531's case b/c I would rather not have to buy a new case and put the money towards the GPU. I have pretty much replaced everything else which leaves the stock mobo and CPU as the only pieces of original equipment left in the rig. As of now I have an AMD Athlon XP X2 4000+, SB X-Fi Xtreme Gamer Sound Card, 550W BFG PSU, 4GB Ram DDR2 PC6400\800Mhz, BFG 8800 GT OC, 500GB HDD, 250GB HDD. Any help would much appreciated with my first post! Thanx in adavance!

    While you can't use SLi, you CAN go dual video card with the stock mobo. I'll explain this in a second, but firstly:

    You can't swap out the mobo without making a modification to the case, quite simply cutting out a hole for the IO plate in the back, the Inspiron 531 has it built into the case. I've tried finding one that would remotely fit, unfortunately the only ones that would have possibly fit, had Parallel and Serial ports (they stick out outside the case, so they interfere, USB and PS2 ports will sit just behind it so they're not a problem.
    I plan on going to the i7 with my Inspiron 531 as soon as I can afford it and grab a dremel.

    Now, on to running dual cards (NOT SLI), this will only work with single slot cards, and the second one will run at 1x PCI-e speed. Simply cut a slot in the back of the PCI-e x1 slot (just below the x16 slot) so a x16 card will fit. It's good for Folding @ Home, and CUDA applications (including PhysX) because you cant run CUDA in SLi anyway (well, you can but it only uses one card). There's a tutorial on how to do this, if needed I can find the link for you if you're interested.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited March 2009
    toddman and mew, why not just save up and look for a real case (standard size case) and full ATX motherboard? That's a lot of work you guys want to do for an off-the-shelf, minimal case. Also, if you are already eager to upgrade - I support that - you just run into more difficulties later trying to stuff components into the stock case. Generally, the internal components of brand name computers are decent, but the motherboards and cases are designed for simple purposes only - to operate the included hardware and to be as cheap as possible to compete with all the other name brands.

    Look on Craigslist and trading forums for a motherboard and a case. Everything else from your OEM (branded) computer you should be able to move over to the full size motherboard and standard case - CPU, CPU heatsink, DRAM, hard drive, optical drive, and *power supply (PSU).

    *If you plan on SLI or other high-powered video solutions, you may need to upgrade the power supply. Most store-bought computers have PSUs with very little power to spare.

    Another consideration you may not have thought about is the operating system. Your computers shipped with an "OEM" version of Windows. It is registered to the specific hardware configuration that your computer came with. If you change the motherboard, technically, Microsoft has the right to not re-validate your installation of Windows. It's on a case by case (non pun intended) basis. Microsoft would probably accept the new motherboard, but they wouldn't be required to.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited March 2009
    you CAN go dual video card with the stock mobo
    If you are running Folding@Home on each video card, that makes sense, but for gaming, what good is two video cards if they are not in Crossfire or SLI configuration?
  • mew905mew905 Saskatchewan
    edited March 2009
    Leonardo wrote:
    If you are running Folding@Home on each video card, that makes sense, but for gaming, what good is two video cards if they are not in Crossfire or SLI configuration?

    Physx, thats about it. Otherwise useless.
  • mew905mew905 Saskatchewan
    edited March 2009
    **sorry for the double post**
    Leonardo wrote:
    toddman and mew, why not just save up and look for a real case (standard size case) and full ATX motherboard? That's a lot of work you guys want to do for an off-the-shelf, minimal case. Also, if you are already eager to upgrade - I support that - you just run into more difficulties later trying to stuff components into the stock case. Generally, the internal components of brand name computers are decent, but the motherboards and cases are designed for simple purposes only - to operate the included hardware and to be as cheap as possible to compete with all the other name brands.

    Look on Craigslist and trading forums for a motherboard and a case. Everything else from your OEM (branded) computer you should be able to move over to the full size motherboard and standard case - CPU, CPU heatsink, DRAM, hard drive, optical drive, and *power supply (PSU).

    *If you plan on SLI or other high-powered video solutions, you may need to upgrade the power supply. Most store-bought computers have PSUs with very little power to spare.

    Another consideration you may not have thought about is the operating system. Your computers shipped with an "OEM" version of Windows. It is registered to the specific hardware configuration that your computer came with. If you change the motherboard, technically, Microsoft has the right to not re-validate your installation of Windows. It's on a case by case (non pun intended) basis. Microsoft would probably accept the new motherboard, but they wouldn't be required to.

    only thing left in my I531 that are dell parts are the card reader, case, motherboard, HDD and CD drive.

    The PSU, video card, 2 addin cards, CPU and heatsinks (both GPU and CPU) were installed myself. I like how you say "real case", I have trouble finding any case nearly as clean (yet not boring) as an OEM case. some are far too flashy, others (like Lion-li, and yeah, I do realize they are one of the best and most customizable) are just plain boring.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited March 2009
    If it works well for you, have at it.
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