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March 9th, 2019 10:00
Studio XPS 435 MT, upgrade, Windows 10?
I bought this machine within 6 months or so of the release of Windows 7; I wasn't entitled to a free upgrade. So I kept the Vista machine, and two other more powerful computers to my home LAN and moved on. Now this machine is the slowest in the circuit and I don't enjoy using it... but I have to.
So I'm wondering if it's possible to have a tech shop upgrade this in an economically practical fashion. My preferences would be to add an optical drive and Windows 10.
If I listed my items for the Device Manager here, would someone be able to give me a rough idea of whether or not it MAY be possible? There may be something that a more technically inclined member here could recognize and immediately rule out or confirm that what I want to do could be done economically. I'm sure it could be done if I simply threw money at it but at some point it becomes impractical. And for a machine this old... that point might be reached rather quickly. What would I consider "economical" ? Maybe $700 - $800. Beyond that... I may as well buy a new machine for $1200 - $1400.
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fireberd
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33.4K Posts
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March 9th, 2019 11:00
Why try to spend $$ on an old system. After you spend the $$ on the old system you will still have an old system with some modern parts but it can only work at the old speed and Win 10 compatibility is iffy at best.
For about $200 you can buy a refurbished Dell OptiPlex that is fairly recent hardware and with Windows 10 installed and a better place for your $$.
Here is an example.
CLICK
Techgee
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March 9th, 2019 13:00
I have this machine in the house and it's still in everyday use. It's been upgraded about as far as it can be and as such is a nice usable machine. (Current config is Windows 10 on a SSD, quadcore 3.33GHz Xeon W3580 (i7-975 equivalent) CPU, 24GB RAM, Radeon HD 7850 graphics, with a hand-me-down USB 3 card on the way).
However, Window 10, while it works on this machine, is unsupported and Microsoft could break it with a future update. (The only special thing I had to do for a Windows 10 clean install was load the Intel chipset driver and use a special version of Intel RST in RAID mode. Windows 10 version 1803 "broke" Intel RST, causing mouse "micro-freezes" and intermittent audio buzzing issues on the Dell Studio XPS 435MT. BTW, IDE mode doesn't have these issues.)
If I hadn't upgraded it over the years (for cheap, too, as most of the upgrades were hand-me-downs), for $700-800 I'd look for a different newer machine, either new or used.
speedstep
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March 11th, 2019 09:00
There are no issues with many dells as old as 2006 optiplex GX620 and windows 10.
HOWEVER older models like this do not have BIOS mitigations for Spectre and Meltdown and never will per INTEL.
The issues with INTEL RST have to do with the driver not working correctly.
You will have to install the older DOTNET 2.0 and 3.5 then reboot.
Then install INTEL RST 10.1.0.1008 whql as administrator.
Newer versions of RST ARE NOT SUPPORTED.
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/20104/Intel-Rapid-Storage-Technology-RAID-for-Intel-5-Series-Chipset-Based-Desktop-Boards
This will address those issues.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/framework/install/dotnet-35-windows-10
Travel for life
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February 7th, 2020 05:00
I upgraded my XPS435MT to Windows 10 and use the upgrade option during the install, which worked fine. I have upgraded the PC over the years: 24 GB of RAM DDR3, NVDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti, a Blue ray writer , DVD Writer, 4 TB (2 TB Hybid and 2 TB Eco), ASUS PCE Wireless Lan and 650 Watts power supply. I use 2 X 24 inch screen and it does what I need it to for an old machine, it is fine. I purchased a Windows 10 Pro Key, before upgrading, but did not need to enter it. The Home edition is ok. Good luck.