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computers - Dimension 8200 reborn

Got a motherboard from eBay.
Despite what they may say online, the 7G535 motherboard is the original 850 chipset one that supports the 400MHz Front-Side Bus (FSB).

New motherboard with old gear still didn't work.

Got a Celeron 2.7GHz from PCcyber.ca and it works fine, my computer is alive again.

Lessons learned: If the CPU is dead, the Dell motherboard won't light up ANY of the ABCD LEDs. It would be nice if it would light up one to say "motherboard OK, CPU dead".

I still don't know if it was just my old CPU, or the old CPU *and* the old motherboard that were dead. I don't want to try any tests with the old motherboard just in case it shorted out in some interesting way that will kill any CPU I put in it.

You may want to get at least a three-year warranty with any new computers.
I had a one year and it expired just a few months before my computer did
(I think it was a power surge that did in my Pentium, and yes, I have in fact a very fancy APC UPS that's supposed to protect me from surges.)

In order to get help, I posted a message Dimension 8200 motherboard? in the Dell Support Forums online. I got quite a few useful response.

The oddly-named SpongeBob Upgrade site is very helpful if you're looking for Dimension 8200 upgrade information. It told me enough so that I knew it was probably safe to get a Celeron to replace my dead P4. posted by Richard at 16:30 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)