Modified Dell Bios

H

[H]alcyon441

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 25, 2004
Messages
173
Maybe this should be in the mobo section, I figured since it was about ocing it was okay.
I have a Dell Dimension 2400 and I was wondering if anyone knew where to get modified BIOS' so I could overclock. Or at least attempt to. Since the Dell BIOS has no options whatsoever to even think about oc'ing. Right now it's just a f@h box. I also wanted to try watercooling but am too nervous about using that in my main rig.
 
well, the dell bios locks all of the clock options, i have never seen any hacked bioses for dell, and any other bioses wont work, because the board is manufactured by dell

not to say that one doesnt exist, ive just never seen one, anywhere
 
The BIOS is not the problem. Look up the clock generator on the motherboard. It only supports a few FIXED speeds, not 1MHz increments with flexible FSB/memory ratios like enthusiast boards do.

About the only step you can do is 100MHz FSB (QDR = 400MHz) -> 133MHz FSB (QDR = 533MHz). Plus you can't adjust the voltage anyways, so good luck even with that. If you already have a 533MHz FSB CPU or want to do real overclocking (or want an AGP slot), just buy a microATX board and put it in the case. I have a pinout of the front panel connector if you need it.

I've swapped motherboards in 2350/2400 cases before and it's not very difficult since the screw holes are in the standard places in the case and the PSU is a regular ATX 12v model. You will have to pop out the wires from the existing harness to plug into the new motherboard properly, though.

Seriously, I hope someone doesn't bring up the nonsense about non-standard ATX boards and PSUs. That hasn't been done in non-SFF Dell (i.e. 4600C uses an odd motherboard and PSU that isn't ATX) cases in over 3 years already. :rolleyes: :p
 
Thanks pxc. I wasn't looking to do some serious ocing just to tinker. The biggest thing that bothers me though is the way the only hard drive in the system is installed. Did Dell honestly think that a 40GB would be enough and then give me no extra 3.5 hd bays. Oh well it was a free computer, got it w/ course I'm taking. Guess I can't complain.
 
on my old dell i tried stuff like cpufsb and such, and while it provided very small overclocks, it was nothing to gloat over
 
Giturar said:
on my old dell i tried stuff like cpufsb and such, and while it provided very small overclocks, it was nothing to gloat over
Click to expand...

samehere. I've got a Dell optiplex Gx100 that should only take Celerons. Used a NEO s370 adapter and put a P3 1Ghz in there, but the board really only supports 100Mhz bus speeds. I used cpufsb to get the bus to 112, which gave me 800Mhz...but the board craps out at 124Mhz fsb b/c it has no dividers that will work the PCI and ram at that speed.

real bummer, but it's only used for the internet so it's no big deal.
 
Thanks to all who posted. As I said I wasn't looking for record-breaking oc's. Just wanted to mess around. Anybody know anything about maintenance mode in the BIOS?
 
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