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August 21st, 2014 09:00
Dell Motherboard
I have a Dell Studio 540 which is starting to get a bit long in the tooth. I recently bought an SSD, but am limited to the onboard SATA 2, which is obviously a bottleneck. I would have been willing to settle for a SATA 3 pci-e card, but unfortunately am limited my board's pci-e x1 v1 slots, which do me absolutely no good. Given the limitations of the board and the age of the system, I'm debating either upgrading the existing system or moving to a new custom build.
Given that I'm handicapped with upgrading the 540 due to the proprietary nature of Dell motherboards, I was curious whether or not I could swap my existing Studio 540 motherboard for a more current XPS 8700 board, which by all rights is a great all around mobo. That way, I'd be able to keep the existing chasis and psu and only have to worry about the board, cpu and a stick of DDR3. Anyone know if such a swap is possible?
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shesagordie
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August 21st, 2014 09:00
pworam
No, to swapping in a XPS 8700 motherboard, best to put the money spent on upgrading, towards buying a new desktop.
The upgrade you are proposing will not be cheap.
Bev.
pworam
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August 21st, 2014 10:00
Thanks for the quick response. Just to confirm, it's physically not possible, correct? It looks like the boards share the same form factor, so I would have thought it was possible.
pworam
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August 21st, 2014 11:00
The processor and RAM I already knew about. I have an aftermarket copy of Windows, so there are really no OEM issues. But if it doesn't fit, it doesn't fit. I don't know why, since they both appear to be micro-ATX. Doesn't matter anyway, as a barebones kit is so much more economical. I wish I didn't like the Studio 540 case so much... Gonna have to deal with a big, ugly mid-tower ATX now.
shesagordie
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August 21st, 2014 11:00
pworam
Yes, but you are welcomed to try installing the XPS 8700 motherboard, also you need to price this upgrade and compare it to buying a new system.
The Dell OEM copy of windows COA is factory embedded in the BIOS of Inspiron Studio 540, you may need to budget for a new license, or another copy of windows.
Plus, at the minimum, new RAM and processor.
The Studio 540 supports DDR2 RAM and Socket LGA774 processors.
The XPS 8700 supports DDR3 RAM and Socket LGA1150 Haswell processors.
Bev.
shesagordie
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August 21st, 2014 11:00
pworam
:emotion-21:
Bev.
rdunnill
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August 21st, 2014 20:00
It is not proprietary. It is mATX.
Is there a reason you won't consider a PCIe-x1 SATA 3 card? As for SSD support, SATA 2 will provide adequate performance.
pworam
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August 22nd, 2014 06:00
The front panel connector is proprietary to Dell systems. I could throw an off brand board in but wouldn't be able to use the front panel power button. As I had mentioned, I would have used a SATA 3 card, but my PCIe-x1 slots are v1 and have a much lower throughput than a standard SATA 2 connection (250 vs 300 MB/s), so it wouldn't do me any good.
rdunnill
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August 22nd, 2014 20:00
AFAIK, as the owner of a 540s, it's not. The motherboard is a Dell variant of an OEM mATX offering. Furthermore, the IO shield is removable, unlike some other Dell offerings of that day.
Even if the wiring is Dell-specific, since the female connectors are standard Molex, it's easy to move them to their correct assignments by tracing their destinations. I did that with an XPS 7100 chassis (Asus motherboard) and XPS 8500 motherboard (in a Cooler Master chassis).
I'd be more concerned about the heatsink mounting bosses: If they are an integral part of the chassis, that will limit compatible boards to those with LGA775 heatsink mounting holes.
pworam
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August 25th, 2014 07:00
Did the 540 and the 540s use the same components? If so, and if the Studio 540 board was an OEM variant, couldn't I just put a new matx motherboard in and everything should connect properly?
As far as rewiring the connector, that does not sound easy at all. Sounds like it would be a lot of trial and error, as I've never done something like that before.
I don't know about the heatsink. I did take it off to clean it and it seemed like it was screwed directly to the board, not the chasis - I wasn't paying that close attention to recall definitively what it was fastened too though.