Question On Dell Brand Computers

[LadyGrey]

My hubby came home the other day and had run into a friend of his who has a Dell. No specs. at this time. This friend was wondering if he could put an internal CD burner into his computer. If the computer had been a built system of course I would know the answer but never having bought (or at least never again having bought,read IBM bomb) an off the shelf unit so to speak I'm unsure what to tell him. Does the Dell have to have all Dell parts or will other non Dell parts work?
Thanks much as always!
LG ;)

[classicsoftware]

You will be able to put non-dell parts in with the following caveats:

1) Is there an available drive bay?

2) The color may not match

[123456]

It should be able to work if it meets cs's requirements. The manual for the PC should state how it is done. Or dell online, or we'll tell you if needed. ;)

[Fruss Tray Ted]

A few things may be odd but it should install just fine.

I've only seen floppy drives with and without the front 'bezel' so cd-roms and burners I believe, all have the front plastic 'face'. Color may be an issue as stated above.

The ide cable in the Dell may be a single ended one without a slave plug. You could change the cable but if it is a desktop model there may not be any slot for an extra drive.

The power supply may not be up to the task of an added internal component or there may not be an available molex connector from the power supply. Therefore, you would choose to replace the cd-rom with the cd-rw so power consumption would remain the same or need to get a pass-through (or wye connector) molex plug to gain an extra power connection.

Undoubtedly there's a way to make it work. You simply won't know till you open the box or look up the model info.

[LadyGrey]

Thanks much everyone!! I'll tell hubby, well maybe I'll write it all down for him to give to his friend. Heaven knows what he would say if I just told him!
LG ;)

[Donn]

I'd to go to Dell and get the schematic and specs for the box, and see if his is a match to the schematic, then check with Dell support, and tell him while he has the box open to clean it out.

I take mine to the car wash and tape it into the sunroof opening :eek:
sorry, that's from a previous thread, you had to be there. . . . :D

[jlreich]

Last year I put in a second CD-RW in my sisters Dell. The only problems I had was figuring how to get the ******* front of the case off without braking it. It had to come off because the drive would not just slide in the without the front of the case off. I was finally able to see the small tabs that was holding it on. After 45 minutes of figuring out how to get everything apart, it of course only took about two minutes to put the drive in. :rolleyes: PSU was fine. Thankfully, there was a slave connection on the IDE cable. Although I have seen some that did not.

Our mom bought her the drive for Christmas last year, and of course she didn't think to get one that was black like the case. :rolleyes: Oh well, it works, that's all that matters.