Never really liked the P4 Dimension era. The big plastic towers made them feel cheap and Dell's of the era seem to suffer from the cap plague more compared to HP/Compaq.
On the positive side though Dell no longer used the fake ATX connecter and these things were just about everywhere so is a true representation of the era.
I'm not going out of my way to get one but if one fell in my lap it would be fine as a Win9xx rig

Well goodness knows how long it’s been since mine was sparked up. Had to use a little switch cleaner, but all booting. Have Win98se installed, tomorrow will install Plus. Then finally some game 😀

The biggest issue with those is that that era of Dells was hit hard by the capacitor plague. I've had to recap my 2400 and 8300 in order to keep them running. They're fine now, but getting the caps changed on these desktop boards is a nightmare with all the giant heat-sucking ground planes. You may want to check yours.

Otherwise though, they're pretty decent systems.

Bought a Dimension XPS minitower back in 1995 and is still fully functional. Came with Pentium 120, 16 MB (8+8) EDO RAM, Quantum Fireball 1.08 GB HDD, and Number Nine 9FX Motion 771 (S3 Vision968) with 2 MB VRAM. Now the CPU has been OC to 133 MHz (simply by changing FSB from 60 to 66), 64 MB (32+32) EDO RAM, 1 GB eMMC to CF card, S3 Trio64V2/DX with 2 MB VRAM, and Sound Blaster AWE32 (CT3900).

Pros: BIOS, drivers and utilities can still be downloaded after 28 years.
Cons: BIOS was highly customized with very limited options. Power connectors of MB, PSU, and chassis are proprietary and incompatible with standard AT or ATX PSU and chassis.

I have 8100/8200/9150 and E520 Dimensions, however the 9150 is currently in pieces due to bad caps.

(I also used to have XPS T450 and T500 machines but they're long gone.)

I own a Dimension XPS D333 mostly stock aside from a Voodoo 2 addition.

Thanks for the warning about the caps, I haven't given it a through inspection, but I did take a quick look and I didn't see any bulging. I'm no stranger to recapping, what with having Amiga's. But I'll certainly keep an eye on this, might be worth getting it recapped, as a future proofing measure.

So today, Win98 Plus goes on...Holy crap, when exactly did copies of Windows 98 and Plus become so darn expensive?

Is there a list of all these machines somewhere? There are so many models, it's confusing.

I think this order is correct:

Dimension XPS -> Dimension XPS P -> Dimension XPS M -> Dimension XPS R -> Dimension XPS T -> Dimension XPS B

What came before/after I don't know.

Errius wrote on 2023-08-18, 16:12:

Is there a list of all these machines somewhere? There are so many models, it's confusing.

Wikipedia has a list.

Thanks, that helps.

I may have a Dimension somewhere , but I am 100% optiplex win98 user/ monthly. Btw regarding the caps, you can check them in circuit for consistency with a old style volt/ohm metter.analogic. should be a tutorial on yt. The nidle should not drop fast. Should stay in middle. Or a ESR meter.(if they are 2 dry or system not working properly you should probably recap.)

Errius wrote on 2023-08-18, 16:12:

Is there a list of all these machines somewhere? There are so many models, it's confusing. […]
Show full quote

Is there a list of all these machines somewhere? There are so many models, it's confusing.

I think this order is correct:

Dimension XPS -> Dimension XPS P -> Dimension XPS M -> Dimension XPS R -> Dimension XPS T -> Dimension XPS B

What came before/after I don't know.

After the XPS T/B, they had the Dimension 4100. i815, socket 370, 2 slots PC133, the last machine using the traditional beige case. Then the later 4xxx/8xxx systems were all P4s in black cases. Started out with Willamettes and RDRAM, then tracked the general evolution of the P4 platform...

There was also a Dimension L - i810-based. Ewwww, the i810. I think that was a new lower-end category for Dell, I don't think they had any systems with onboard graphics before then, whereas Compaq/IBM/etc sold lots of junk home systems with no AGP and some lousy video chip (ATI Rage... what was it... on an "IBM"-nee-Acer 2137-E56, I'm looking at you) soldered to the board. The L was succeeded by the black Dimension 2xxx series, the 2400/3000 in particular with 2.4GHz Celerons seems to have been everywhere. (With some additional RAM, a great XP machine for, say, an elderly relative back in the day.)

I had an XPS T700r for over a decade; terrific machine (as I would say, my first 'good' Windows machine... and my first real Intel, the machine that made me an Intel CPU/chipset fanboy for life), and now that I have been lurking around here, I regret having e-wasted it a decade ago after I just ran out of uses for it (it had been my main desktop, then my dad's, then my secondary desktop running XP, then a server running Win2003, then... I just had no use for it in a world where I started to drown in LGA775 45nm C2Ds). Would have made a nice retro Win98 SE machine, but to be honest, the experience with 98 SE back in the day was so bad (you could barely make it through a day without running out of resources and needing to reboot...), the idea just didn't occur to me. My biggest regret was ordering it with 98 SE - I think I ended up reformatting and installing 2000 6 months later, and Win2000 was a breath of fresh air. Needed more RAM, but it could stay up for months without a reboot. I understand the appeal of 98 SE for retro gaming, but... for real world use on a good late 1990s system, boy was 98 SE a piece of trash. And it probably took at least two years for XP to match the stability/reliability of 2000... one of the greatest Windows versions ever.

Dimensions comes in mid end that caters to business and consumer.

I had 8300, which was a high end P4 using 875 chipset.

Cheers,

Hiddenevil wrote on 2023-08-18, 08:31:

So today, Win98 Plus goes on...Holy crap, when exactly did copies of Windows 98 and Plus become so darn expensive?

I dont know the price has been pretty stable for quite some time now.

REMOVED

Grem Five wrote on 2023-08-20, 02:24:

Hiddenevil wrote on 2023-08-18, 08:31:

So today, Win98 Plus goes on...Holy crap, when exactly did copies of Windows 98 and Plus become so darn expensive?

I dont know the price has been pretty stable for quite some time now.

REMOVED

🤣 yeah inflation has not hit them yet 😁

pentiumspeed wrote on 2023-08-20, 00:32:

Dimensions comes in mid end that caters to business and consumer.

I had 8300, which was a high end P4 using 875 chipset.

Cheers,

That makes sense - 8100 was an i850 with RDRAM, probably socket 423, then 8200 was a socket 478 i850E with RDRAM (there was a second generation of the RDRAM platform with 533 FSB processors and 1066 RDRAM), then 8300 would have gone to the high-end 875/DDR platform, then 8400 is an LGA775 i925x with DDR2.

Then there was no Dimension 8500, even though the next system should have been an LGA775 i945/i975ish system with a Pentium D... is that when they brought back the XPS name?

Yep have a few and only the XPS are worth having, as mentioned above !!!

Horun wrote on 2023-08-20, 02:53:

Grem Five wrote on 2023-08-20, 02:24:

Hiddenevil wrote on 2023-08-18, 08:31:

So today, Win98 Plus goes on...Holy crap, when exactly did copies of Windows 98 and Plus become so darn expensive?

I dont know the price has been pretty stable for quite some time now.

REMOVED

🤣 yeah inflation has not hit them yet 😁

Really? I was struggling to find a boxed copy for under £100

I've got a Dell Dimension 4600 running XP. The optical drive doesn't want to open when the button is pushed. The computer itself runs pretty well.