Dell Motherboard Upgrade

I have a project to upgrade a Dell Dimension 3000 motherboard, ram and hard drive. I got the hard drive, I'm pretty sure the max ram is 4GB. Though I'm not sure how far the motherboard can be upgraded. And yes I know I can buy a new desktop for cheaper but I want a project...

Moonplex

Dell states that the maximum DDR RAM supported by the dimension 3000, is 2gb's, as does Crucial.

http://ftp.dell.com/Manuals/all-products/esuprt_desktop/esuprt_dimension_desktops/dimension-3000_service%20manual_en-us.pdf

http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/compatible-memory-for/Dell/dimension-3000

Note: Both the hard drives and optical drives are IDE, SATA drives are not supported by the 3000 motherboard, unless a PCI SATA adaptor card is installed, also if a discrete graphics card is required, instead of the intergrated video, then only PCI cards can be installed.

  Either the Socket 478, P-4 3.2GHz, or the P-4 3.4GHz  will be fine as you can install any [Desktop] SOCKET 478 PROCESSOR

Also, the 3.06 Celeron D 345 in Dimension 3000 will Work, so will Intel Celeron D processors 320, 325, 330, 335, and 340.

Prior to replacing the processor, check that BIOS latest Version A03 is installed, when added support for newer processors was added.

The dimension 3000 will support two hard drives, but you will need the bracket for the additional hard drive and a three connector 18"L, IDE 80 wire, data ribbon cable, that's connected to the Primary IDE hard drive and to the motherboard's PRI-IDE J6J2 connector.

Dimension 3000 second hard drive installation.

There are no instructions for installing a second IDE/EIDE hard drive in the dimension 3000, but as the Dimension 4600 has the same case and chassis, you can use the 4600 instructions for the physical installation,

http://ftp.dell.com/Manuals/all-products/esuprt_desktop/esuprt_dimension_desktops/dimension-4600_service%20manual_en-us.pdf

Set the second hard drive's jumpers to "Cable Select" and connect it to the middle connector of the IDE data cable, that's attached to the Primary hard drive.

After installing the drive, enter the setup and check that the hard drive is set to Auto [on].

To enter the setup, tap the F2 key after a restart of the computer.

For the System Setup details, go to page 34 Here:

http://ftp.dell.com/Manuals/all-products/esuprt_desktop/esuprt_dimension_desktops/dimension-3000_service%20manual_en-us.pdf

Use disk management to partition, format and assign a drive letter to the additional hard drive after installation, for Windows to recognize the hard drive.

Bev.

Ps. If you want a project, why not build your own desktop system, same as I have done for the past 15 years, instead of wasting money on an obsolete Dimension 3000.

For the project I rather this be a learning project not so much a dream project plus its my mother older tower so I'll be giving it away free.

2GB per slot so 4gb total, sorry for confusion... I got a tech blog about it but will research one more because I been hearing 2GB total.

Moonplex

To fully address 4gb of RAM, you need to install a 64-bit operating system

32 bit OS will only address between 2.8 gb up to about 3.5 gb of memory, no more.

Bev.

2GB per slot so 4gb total, sorry for confusion... I got a tech blog about it but will research one more because I been hearing 2GB total.