Dimension 8200 questions

[drew-and-not-u]

I just ordered a Dimension 8200 for dirt cheap off of ebay just to use as a glorified MP3 player with my Audigy 2 NX. All I know is that it has a 1.7GHz Pentium $ and 256MB of RDR memory. I'm mostly curious about what standard features came with it. Does it have a dedicated graphics card or was it available with integrated video? How many PCI slots should I expect? Minimum HD size? Chipset? Any quirks I should be aware of? The biggest reason I got it is that I've always heard good things about the 8X00 series, and for the price if it works at all (which they said it does) it will be a really good buy.

I looked at Dell's knowledge base, which used to provide many technical articles for each model, but they seem to have changed it to where you can only search articles based on problems. I just want to know what to expect from this machine basically.

thanks guys

-drew-

[Skybird]

Start with the Dimension 8200 User's Guide here ............

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim8200/

[VoiS2]

Here's the config for a friend of mine who has an 8200 -- you can cut out the things which you know are not a part of your eBay buy.

Motherboard / Dell OEM generic

BIOS / Phoenix Dell A09 09-13-2002

Processor / Pentium-4 2.25GHz FSB 133 MHz 1.5V / Northwood A80532 Stepping B0 / 478 Pin uPGA 64-bit width /
/ L1 trace cache 12K instructions / L1 data cache 8KB / L2 cache 512KB

Chipset / Intel Tehama i850(E) / 1.8V / Revision 04 Stepping A3

Memory / 2x256MB PC800 RDRAM (RAMBUS) 400MHz 2.5V / RIMM form factor / 2x256 Samsung MR16R 1628AF0-CM8 /
/ 16-bit width / Memory Bus Dual RDRAM with 32-bit width 400MHz

Video / nVidia GeForce4 MX420 (NV17, Revision A3) 64MB DDR 250MHz AGP4x 32-bit / Video BIOS 4.17.00.45.42 04-03-2002 /
/ driver nv4_disp 6.14.10.8195 Forceware 81.95

Sound / Creative SB Live Value CT4780 / driver ctaud2k.sys 5.12.2.252 07-24-2002

Monitor / Dell M992 (DEL300E) 19" CRT / 1.0.0.0 03-27-2002

Game Port / Creative 03-18-2002 / Microsoft PC-joystick driver

Optical Drives / Lite-On LTR-24102M CD-RW 24x,10x,40x / Pioneer DVD-106 DVD-ROM ATAPI 16x,40x

Mouse / Logitech USB Wheelmouse

Ethernet / CNet PRO200WL PCI fast ethernet adapter

Hard Disks / C: Maxtor DiamondMax Plus D740X 40GB / Model 6L040J2 / 7200 2MB ATA-133
/ E: Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 80GB / Model 6Y080P0 / 7200 8MB ATA-133

[drew-and-not-u]

awesome, thanks alot guys

[ejn63]

You will quickly find out that the Achilles' heel of this system is that it does not use DDR, but rather Rambus (RDRAM) memory.

It's as expensive as it is obsolete - a gig of DDR or DDR-2 can be bought for $100 or so; the same as RDRAM will run 4-5 times that.

[herb366]

The D8200 has been a rock solid system. You will be getting the 850 chipset with 400MHz FSB so the maximum CPU upgrade will be to 2.8GHz. Basic ram was 256MB (2 x 128MB) RDram. Like the other poster said it is outrageously expensive - but seeing how you don't mind used off ebay this shouldn't be a problem. It has to be installed in pairs. your other to ram slots are filled with Continuity modules just to complete the memory circuit. You will get four PCI slots with three filled: Santa Cruz sound card, 56K modem and NIC. The video card, GeForce4 MX 420, is a piece of junk. I have been quite happy with my system but Q3 2006 will be time for a new (build) system.

_______________________________________________________________________
Dimension 8200 (July 2002)
3.06Ghz P4 w/HT 533fsb---------------------------------------768mb pc800 rdram
128mb BFG GeForce 6800oc (16 pipes enabled)--------Dell 250W PSU
Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS -------------------------------------Logitech Z-5300E 5.1 THX
P992 19" Flat Screen Monitor----------------------------------Floppy Drive
40X CD-RW--------------------------------------------------------80GB Ultra ATA HD
Intel 10/100M PCI Network Card--------------------------------USB 2.0 Hub

[Zantac]

If I could just chime in, for what it's worth...I have had a Dimension 8200 since January 2002.  Other than upgrading from 512MB to 1GB of RAM (yes, it cost me about $200, expensive RAM on this model), and adding a Firewire/USB 2.0 Card (since this Dimension only has USB 1.1) -- this has indeed been a ROCK SOLID system.  It runs as smooth today as the day I took it out of the box and set it up. 

I'd say you found a gem if you got one of these on eBay.  Sure, it's not a gaming machine, but it's a high-end (or was in '02 and '03) machine great for the home user who wants to do digital photos and do everything but games. 

[drew-and-not-u]

Thanks for the info herb (and everyone else). That's exactly what I was looking for. The only thing this system will be used for will be to output audio via an Audigy2 NX external sound card to my home theater. I might also just end up using it as a folding machine if it doesn't work very well as a media server.

thanks again

---drew---