It isn't just an issue of wattage (which will be higher with upgrades I listed), but age too. I remember 200W was used for early Pentiums up to MMX. We have no idea how long it was used and in what condition it is, therefore I assume it is fit for replacement as well. I do not trust these antiquated power supplies. From computers I bought cheap for spare parts about 1/3 of PSUs were bad. Being limited to Dell PSUs only would be a major problem.

That's true. We might assume Dell used better components(!?)... I have an IBM 65W AT PSU from 1992 that I use daily for testing all AT motherboards - last was just a few days ago Asus P5A-B with AMD K6-2 500.

We might assume Dell used better components

That purely depends on which manufacturer provided them that particular PSU. Usually, OEM PSUs in reputable desktop PCs were just average, landing perfectly in the middle between awful cost cutting and good quality with redundancy. Pentium III CPU may indicate overall good quality, since it' high end, but then again - we're talking about 20+ years old OEM PSU, not some fancy Silverstone or Enermax.

Motherboard is probably one of the Intel SE440BX family, but with Dell's variation of the ATX power connector and the Dell BIOS.
These boards and power supplies are better quality than most.
The Dell or Intel versions of these boards have a brand marking on them accordingly. Almost surely it will be the Dell version though.

I don't think the pinout difference is a big deal. If you need to change the PSU then just look at the wire colors on the connector to verify that it's the Dell pinout and not standard ATX. If that's the case you can get an adapter to use a standard PSU with it.
Or if you like to solder you can move the power connector on the motherboard which converts it to the standard pinout.

I have a Dell XPS T 440BX Motherboard and it is a quite solid one at that, mine is the same motherboard I'm sure I just got mine with a 600 Mzh processor ( a XPS T600 )

The system should be worth that price as just the turtle beach montego 2 easily sell for $30 USD each and thats almost half the price he is asking. Main thing is those systems used motherboards with proprietary power supply hook ups so if you do decide to use a power supply other than the proper dell one you can fry the board.... good news is you can easily get an adapter to use a standard pinout ATX power supply for around $20 if you need it.

I'm running mine with a standard ATX power supply an adapter but I bought my adapter like 2 years ago and they were half the price.

I also have BX motherboard by Dell, yes, did bought adapter harness to use ATX power supply with this board and using PIII 800 on this.

Cheers,

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-01-15, 14:25:

I find it odd to see a 56k modem included .. actually its very odd, I doubt that there is anything you could do with a dial up modem these days.

If I find them in my junk lots I see if they have any components worth salvaging and toss them in the e-waste bin.

Odd in 2022, but perfectly normal in 1999, which is where this system is from.

No, there's nothing sensible you can do with a 56k modem at present, but back then broadband internet - or indeed Ethernet - was a rarity. This system has a 10Mbps Ethernet card, which covers LAN and DSL/cable internet from that time.

All in all I'd say this is a very decent system for a reasonable price, but not ideal for DOS stuff; it might be better to look for a good DOS system with ISA audio for less money.

dionb wrote on 2022-01-16, 01:20:

Odd in 2022, but perfectly normal in 1999, which is where this system is from.

No, there's nothing sensible you can do with a 56k modem at present, but back then broadband internet - or indeed Ethernet - was a rarity. This system has a 10Mbps Ethernet card, which covers LAN and DSL/cable internet from that time.

Well, I have had cable modem in Austria since 1998 with 320 kbps downlink and 256 kbps uplink.
However, when I moved to Germany in 1999 I had to use a modem on my phone line.

I think death of dial-up is can be conveniently tied to the rise of Steam and Xbox 360/PS3 launch - 2005-2006

As others have already pointed out, this specific build may not be optimal for MSDOS gaming... the CPU could be too fast and the sound card may not work. PSU could be a future problem, I seem to recall that even with adapters+ generic atx style, some older Dells can be particular about PFC vs non PFC. It should be OK for games around the turn of the century, may want to get a better vid card though.

Is this a full Dell system? Or did the seller just take parts and swap into a generic case? Personally I would prefer a mostly unadulterated Dell machine in the original case, I like their style from the 90s up to 2000/2001-ish

As far as modems, yeah a lot of devices came with them well into the 2000s. Broadband, at least in the US, didn't really take off until 2000+. That was a big plus of going to college, broadband in your dorm room! Which was just amazing. I think my parents finally caved and got cable modem about 2002.

Also, I always see plenty of retro hardware on sale in the EU on ebay, it should be pretty easy to build or acquire a DOS machine (e.g. a pentium 1 which could give you ISA and PCI slots). Just my 2c.

drosse1meyer wrote on 2022-01-16, 13:33:

As others have already pointed out, this specific build may not be optimal for MSDOS gaming... the CPU could be too fast and the […]
Show full quote

As others have already pointed out, this specific build may not be optimal for MSDOS gaming... the CPU could be too fast and the sound card may not work. PSU could be a future problem, I seem to recall that even with adapters+ generic atx style, some older Dells can be particular about PFC vs non PFC. It should be OK for games around the turn of the century, may want to get a better vid card though.

Is this a full Dell system? Or did the seller just take parts and swap into a generic case? Personally I would prefer a mostly unadulterated Dell machine in the original case, I like their style from the 90s up to 2000/2001-ish

As far as modems, yeah a lot of devices came with them well into the 2000s. Broadband, at least in the US, didn't really take off until 2000+. That was a big plus of going to college, broadband in your dorm room! Which was just amazing. I think my parents finally caved and got cable modem about 2002.

Also, I always see plenty of retro hardware on sale in the EU on ebay, it should be pretty easy to build or acquire a DOS machine (e.g. a pentium 1 which could give you ISA and PCI slots). Just my 2c.

I believe the seller put the parts into a generic case. Eventually bought it for 60 euro's, and think I made a good deal 😀
Concerning the GPU, I was thinking of eventually upgrading it with a Geforce 3 TI and a Voodoo 3. Hope the CPU won't bottleneck it though.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-01-15, 14:25:

I find it odd to see a 56k modem included .. actually its very odd, I doubt that there is anything you could do with a dial up modem these days.

You can always call another modem and transfer some data... which is totally pointless but may be a fun thing to do 😀

bassix6 wrote on 2022-01-16, 14:07:

drosse1meyer wrote on 2022-01-16, 13:33:

As others have already pointed out, this specific build may not be optimal for MSDOS gaming... the CPU could be too fast and the […]
Show full quote

As others have already pointed out, this specific build may not be optimal for MSDOS gaming... the CPU could be too fast and the sound card may not work. PSU could be a future problem, I seem to recall that even with adapters+ generic atx style, some older Dells can be particular about PFC vs non PFC. It should be OK for games around the turn of the century, may want to get a better vid card though.

Is this a full Dell system? Or did the seller just take parts and swap into a generic case? Personally I would prefer a mostly unadulterated Dell machine in the original case, I like their style from the 90s up to 2000/2001-ish

As far as modems, yeah a lot of devices came with them well into the 2000s. Broadband, at least in the US, didn't really take off until 2000+. That was a big plus of going to college, broadband in your dorm room! Which was just amazing. I think my parents finally caved and got cable modem about 2002.

Also, I always see plenty of retro hardware on sale in the EU on ebay, it should be pretty easy to build or acquire a DOS machine (e.g. a pentium 1 which could give you ISA and PCI slots). Just my 2c.

I believe the seller put the parts into a generic case. Eventually bought it for 60 euro's, and think I made a good deal 😀
Concerning the GPU, I was thinking of eventually upgrading it with a Geforce 3 TI and a Voodoo 3. Hope the CPU won't bottleneck it though.

cool, enjoy... looks like you've already been bitten by the upgrade bug 😀

Seems ok. If it does not have ISA slot, then the best option is an YMF-724 sound card. Full OPL3 core inside the XG chip.
If you run it through Win98se, then you get full access to both Wavetable and OPL3, but in MS-Dos-6.22 you only get OPL3.
SB-Pro is possible in both Win9x and Dos with this sound card. And if the MOBO have PC-Pci/SB-Link, then you get non-masked IRQ/DMA/IO.