Certainly repairs are possible; it’s just that if the parts are proprietary, the replacements may need to come from Dell. But if a computer is built from standard parts, the replacements can come from almost anyone.
Yes and no. Like they might use the ATX standard for standoff placement to attach the motherboards, but the Dell motherboard itself will use a weird power connector instead of the usual 24-pin connector and might also include a jutting out portion that has the front IO integrated directly into the case instead of the usual method of the case having wires that then attach to any ole motherboard. Likewise, the PSU screw layout and height/width might match standards at the rear of the case yet be weirdly long and, again, have cords that only work with the intended Dell motherboard.
Even back around 4th gen, you’d have to get an adapter to mate a “normal” PSU with the Optiplex motherboard (you’d be upgrading the PSU so you could use a GPU as well). By the time I was messing with 10/11th gen Alienwares, it honestly wasn’t even worth the effort for how obstructive they made it to do any home tinkering.
Thanks. The proprietary parts in the Dells I saw at work were never an issue since we were getting replacement parts directly from Dell. And actually, their computers were designed so that most maintenance could be done without needing a screwdriver; there were thumb screws or levers to press to open or release parts. That was nice.
I used to tinker a bit in the past but I have a guy come to my house to do repairs these days.
My son and I used to put our computers together. I quit doing that awhile back and have no urge to start again.
I am old & tired and willing to pay someone to do this stuff now.
I trust their experience and recommendations.
So I am not going to be doing anything myself.
Just need need something that will last for maybe another 5/7 years.
Here’s an old Dell Optiplex motherboard. In the video I linked earlier in this thread they show a similar board from a few years ago. Just…not good.
Yes, you are correct. The default configuration is 2 8 GB sticks. They would order 2 16 GB sticks for upgrading to 32 GB. (I should have known that, dammit.)
But I just found out that the 16GB default config is DDR4. I asked if the upgrade to 32 is DDR5. If not, I’ll keep looking.
Dumb questions: if I purchase the default config, can I pull out the 2 8GB DDR4 sticks and install 2 16 GB DDR5 sticks? How much should I pay for those 2 16GB sticks?
(I know, I told you all that I didn’t want to open the computer and upgrade the memory myself…)
Yes, you could pull out and upgrade the memory, no you can’t go from DDR4 to DDR5 as that’s tied to the physical memory slots on the motherboard.
DDR5 requires a newer motherboard which can handle DDR5 memory. Another extra cost.
Honestly, for your use case DDR4 is fine. I have DDR4 in my six year old PC and it does just great (and I game and do video stuff). DDR5 would be better for me but DDR4 is absolutely fine. Especially for your needs.
Thanks for the prompt responses!
Again, thanks!
BACKUP!
I feel the urge to speak up. We (wife and I) have multi-year taxes, the family real estate trust, a gazillion photos and scanned history, and her LLC. We have a second 2 terabyte external HD. Monthly backup and it goes to the sister’s house for safe keeping until next month. There’s bits and pieces of cloud storage as well. Plan for that.
If that’s directed to me, you’re preaching to the choir. I had a hard drive crash about 25 years ago and lost a lot of digital pictures. Never again!
Disk defrag seems to go forever, and I found there was some Windows spyware that consumed a lot of resources looking for unlicensed software. That I was able to turn off, which helped. As for
I think we have the answer:
Firefox and Chrome are both awful memory hogs, and I bet he’s swapping. You can check memory usage for each process, and that told me the story.
My computer was a very early Win10 one, so I was ready for an upgrade.
I know the field reliability numbers for the processors that my company made, and I have no doubt you’ve never seen a bad one. But when you have millions in the field, then you’ll see some.
However, I did a study once, and there were more trouble reports about the manual not being packed in the box than the CPU failing. And lots more problems with hard disks (back then) and power supplies. Processors these days almost never make it to the end of the bathtub curve where they fail (and if they are do they are way out of warranty so the manufacturer doesn’t care.) Failures in my experience are mostly subtle logic errors and manufacturing defects which didn’t get tested for. We burned in our processors, since our applications were high reliability, which helped.
Mmmmm, unless you’re really going to miss that $50 (the difference between having the computer shop do it vs doing it yourself), can I suggest that given your stated desires (of wanting something that would just work and not have to maintain it much over the years)… you just pony up and let them do it? Yes, it’s a ripoff, but that removes any excuse they might have if something doesn’t work right later.
It’s $50. Apple would charge you $400 for that upgrade. Dell nearly $200. $50 is nothing.
If you’re going to go through all the effort and expense of shopping for a custom build from a local vendor and establish a relationship with them, don’t give them an upfront excuse to blame future problems on a part you bought & installed on your own. In many states they can’t actually shoo you away for something like this, but many shops will try anyway. Don’t give them that chance.
Look, like many here, I totally get that RAM upgrades are a simple thing you can do on your own. And that totally makes sense when you just buy the cheapest build you can find online and upgrade various parts on your own. You’re choosing to take things into your own hands then.
But if you’re buying local and expecting local support, for a $50 difference, IMHO it’s worth it just for peace of mind. Otherwise why even bother buying locally?
The advantage of the local shop is almost never that they will be cheaper (because they have to use in-house labor to build things, usually, and don’t have the buying power of Amazon or Best Buy or Microcenter), it’s that you will establish a relationship with them and hopefully get better support from them than you will from the Dell chat guy 5000 miles away. If that’s not worth the premium to you, don’t bother with the local shop. If it is, then $50 is a small price to pay to start that relationship off right.
I think a lot of the premium they charge is providing some warranty (I assume they are providing a warranty…they should). It costs the consumer more but, if the person doesn’t want to be fussed with repairs that cost can be worth it (although somehow they seem to manage to have the warranties end three days before it breaks…presumably they have a LOT of data on when things break and put their warranties under that time).
Yeah, exactly… I’m in that boat now too, of having built a lot of PCs out of mixed parts in the past. My first job was a computer refurbisher. Probably handled hundreds of RAM chips over the decades.
But now, as a washed-out old man (ahem, I mean, busy working adult), if $50 can save me the time and effort of having check DDR compatibility charts and timings… hell, it’s money well spent. My computer is no longer a toy, it’s just one more appliance to use and hopefully not have to maintain too much, alongside the car, TV, washing machine, etc.
$100 spread over 5 years is less than $2/mo. That’s less than the fluctuations in my water bill.
If the OP is in at all a similar situation, where time is increasingly fleeting and there are better things to do than taking apart and putting together a PC for kicks, eh, just go for it. Then spend time with the fam instead of worrying too much about any of this. It’ll be fine. It’s already a huge upgrade over the 2017 machine.
Agreed but the devil is in the details. How is that warranty work done? How long are you without your PC while they sort it out? What if they tell you the problem is not a warranty thing and it will cost $500 to fix (loads of horror stories like that out there).
A warranty is nice to have as is having someone else do the work but this is a big cost to the people making your PC and they really try hard to not have to honor the warranty if they can find a way out of it.
Be careful with that. Some are better than others.
Personally, I’d rather go to my local MicroCenter, buy the replacement piece and fix it myself in a few hours and then return the broken part for a refund rather than spend a week fucking around on the phone with support and then mailing in the piece and hoping they send something back.
Heck, I had a co-worker go to the Apple Smart Bar for support and they were anything but “smart.” She needed her iPhone and Airbook wiped and have their OS re-installed. Apparently the guy there didn’t know how to do that (he should have known how to do that…especially the phone which is a few button pushes).
FWIW, I just looked and Dell charges $100 to upgrade 8GB and Lenovo charges $110 for the same. Those are for DDR5 but the delta between them ain’t nearly enough to explain $100 to pop in an 8GB stick (especially for what Dell is paying for the components at scale). So $60 to add a second 16GB stick might be more than a PC tinkerer like me would pay (but I view messing with my PC as a recreational activity) it certainly isn’t crazy or mustache-twirlingly evil from an industry viewpoint.
Sure, he’s making a better profit off that stick than he probably is on the PC. That’s par for the course in all manner of industries where the bells and whistles are where they actually make money.
I think memory gets cheaper over time, so perhaps go for 16GB now and upgrade in a year or two if you want?
I was egregiously wrong on the quote/configuration. The config contains two 8GB memory sticks. Two more 8 GB sticks are 60 bucks. Two 16 GB sticks are 100 bucks.
I think this is a good idea.