Dell Dimension 8300 MOD help?

[haggard112984]

I currently own a Dell Dimension 8300 desktop I bought almost 2 years ago. Recently Ive decided I wanted to update my compter; memory, dvd burner, gfx card, tv tuner, power supply and case. But when searching around I came to find out doing so wont be as easy as I first thought. It seems that Dell makes it almost impossible to mod there computers. By making certain things such as there motherboards only work with certain power supplies. Also if the cooling specs arnt correct you could fry your motherboard?

I want to know what I should do? I know what case, power supply, dvd burner and gfx card I want but I dont know if they will work with my current motherboard. Also I dont know what type of memory is the best choice (I know I want to add another 256 mb but I know nothing about brands basically which has the best performance. The main problem is I dont have any clue what type of motherboard is in my computer.

Any help is welcomed because this noob needs all he can get.....

 

[braddds]

You could use AIDA32 or another utility to id all your componets in your pc. AIDA32 is a freeware system information utility which can found at:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download181.html

Also go to Dell and check out your system in their support...you should be able to find out what your current system's components are ie: motherboard!

Cheers

 

[braddds]

I found an interesting link that the discusses ram for the 8300.

http://www.ntcompatible.com/thread30493-1.html

Their is a download for a utility called CPU Z that can be found at:

http://www.cpuid.com/

This will id your ram stats!

Cheers

 

[braddds]

I noticed that the link for the ram discussion doesn't work...probably due to the "thread" usage for this site. Anyways just try this

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=mozclient&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&q=Dell+Dimension+8300

and click on the "Generic RAMs for Dell Dimension 8300" link to get to it!

Cheers