# Dell XPS 720 Motherboard: Need help finding non-Dell equivalent



## pjsorell (Dec 4, 2008)

I've owned my Dell XPS 720 for only a little over 15 months now, and within the first year it went through 2 mobos...they just, on separate occassions, up and died upon power-up...no POST diagnostics, no boot menu scrolling...nothing! Nothing but its case LEDs lighting, sounds of its fans and hard drives spinning up and the same front panel error code of numbers 3 & 4 being lit, which according to Dell's documentation is indicative of a memory problem. Each time they sent me replacement memory modules, but installing them didn't fix the problem. So twice, they sent out a service tech to replace the mobo and, voila!!! all was working again.

However, just this morning, the same thing happened again...dead computer. Same exact symptoms, error codes, behavior and all!..making it now the 3rd time that this has occurred. The only difference this time is that the computer is NO LONGER under warranty. Upon contacting Dell, they quoted me a price of $369 for a new mobo and it would be me who would have to install it unless I paid extra for a tech service visit. This, however, is actually not a problem as I am a hardware geek, building and repairing my own systems when I have the time. (NB: this Dell computer is actually my wife's...she thought it would be easier to just buy a system rather than having me configure and build her one!)

However, upon cruising the Dell forums, it seems that the XPS 720 mobo is plagued with a widespread history of sudden deaths and failures. Hence, I do not wish to be facing this same problem for a 4th time several more months from now.

Thus my question...

*I would like to try to replace the Dell XPS 720 mobo with one from another mobo-maker. Hence, does anyone know of any OTHER such manufacturer's mobo that would meet the specifications of, and be equivalent to, the design configuration and physical layout of the Dell XPS 720 mobo? I've had nothing but wonderful experiences with, and high praise for, the many mobo's I have worked-with over the years from both AMD and Intel.*

Any help or guidance would be GREATLLY and sincerely appreciated.

Respectfully,

PJS


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## Falconoffury (Sep 26, 2006)

I don't know the specs of the motherboard you have, but here is some general advice. You will have to check the form factor. The vast majority of computers use ATX or Micro ATX form factor. Check the power supply connection. See if it is a 20 pin or 24 pin configuration, and make sure any replacement has the same number of pins. Check the memory standard that the motherboard supports. Check the processor socket type. To be safe, make sure the replacement motherboard explicitely supports your CPU model in addition to the socket. If you have a video card, check the port type. 

Other than that, check how many optional ports you need, like PCI ports and pinouts for USB ports on the front of the case. 

Since Dell computers ship with the bare minimum power supply wattage needed, I recommend a power supply upgrade. It's good to go over the required wattage because power supplies age and lose efficiency over the years. Check the power supply forum on this site. It has sticky posts with information on buying the right power supply.

EDIT: I forgot to say that many Dell models use a non-standard power supply configuration connecting to the motherboard. Definitely upgrade the power supply along with the motherboard.


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

The Xps 720 is a BTX Dell board the industry never really went to BTX there are some Intel BTX around but not many the vast majority of them are either Dell or Gateway and both are proprietary the chances of find one to fit the case and have the front panel connectors fit are pretty slim, I think you may be better off picking a board and a case you like use your CPU, Drives.Video card, you won't be able to use the PSU because the power supply on the 700 series uses a proprietary 24 pin and a 20 pin power connector which is another reason the replacement board would have to be a Dell board.


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

agreed. Take the CPU, RAM, and goodies, and get you a REAL system.


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## jdftwrth98 (Sep 22, 2009)

Lots of luck in your quest, i have owned a xps 720 for 2 years and purchasing it was the biggest mistake i ever made.

Last weekend the mobo crapped out and calling dell to buy another one was a total waste of time, the run around with the various call centers was nuts and after 2 days i still don't know if they will be able to sell me one, no supply.

So do your self a favor buy something else!


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

jdftwrth98 said:


> Lots of luck in your quest, i have owned a xps 720 for 2 years and purchasing it was the biggest mistake i ever made.
> 
> Last weekend the mobo crapped out and calling dell to buy another one was a total waste of time, the run around with the various call centers was nuts and after 2 days i still don't know if they will be able to sell me one, no supply.
> 
> So do your self a favor buy something else!


Same advice for what you'll spend on a Dell board take the CPU and drives and build with a newer board at least you'll have a future upgrade path.


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

I would rather eat a bucket of golf balls then pay $369.00 for ANY dell motherboard !


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

here is what you need 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128372&Tpk=GA-EP45-UD3L

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...Coolermaster_centurion-_-11-119-068-_-Product

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139006&Tpk=corsair 750-tx

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186134&Tpk=artic freezer 7 pro


you'll haven enough money left over for the wife to take YOU out to dinner


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## Mr.Domino (Aug 18, 2008)

*Need to replace Dell XPS 720 Mobo - Suggestions?*

Hey guys,

First off, thank you very much for looking at this. People often don't give credit to those who must sort through endless diatribes on this crazy place we call the internet. 

That being said, here's the *TL;DR*: My Mobo (I think) is toast, and I'd like to replace it, be still keep the guts, advise?

Okay, so I know that this is more or less a rez of this thread: 
http://www.techsupportforum.com/f15...-help-finding-non-dell-equivalent-319996.html

But bear with me here, I'm spending money here, so I'd like to make informed buying decisions 

As far as my system goes, I had somewhat a unique problem. When I first bought it, the Ethernet port died within warranty, and Dell replaced it. This past May, I started getting a hell'uva lot of BSODs. I made a thread about it on this other worthless site:

http://www.cybertechhelp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=208975

Unless you can tell me that my problem isn't hardware based (I'm 99% sure it is), then I'm just going to switch to ATX form factor and probably pirate Windows 7, because Vista is a fat cow, and my copy of Vista was OEM, sigh. 

THANKS!


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

First off Pirated software is frowned upon on this site.

What Error Codes are the BOSD giving you?

Have you taken any troubleshooting steps like testing the ram or hard drive yet?


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## Mr.Domino (Aug 18, 2008)

wrench97 said:


> First off Pirated software is frowned upon on this site.
> 
> What Error Codes are the BOSD giving you?
> 
> Have you taken any troubleshooting steps like testing the ram or hard drive yet?


Thank you very much for responding.

Sorry about that. Like I said, I paid for the original OEM software, but OEM is motherboard tethered, and I don't have the money to buy yet another copy of Windows. Perhaps I'll use Debian or Ubuntu, as I really don't know what I'll do with this machine should I get it working. The point is that the current motherboard is garbage and I am looking for a replacement. 

The BSODs, in order of most frequent, were:

Memory_Management
IRQL_Not_Less_Or_Equal
Bad_Pool_Header
PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA

I tested the RAM on a separate computer, and both Windows Memory diagnostic and a puppy linux diagnostic returned no errors. I then wiped my hard drive completely clean, reinstalled windows, and still got the same results. Changing the RAM order and even taking different sticks out resulted in no new progress. 

Running memtest on the original configuration returned several million errors, which led me to deduce it was a hardware issue. Of anything, I believe it is an issue with the Northbridge, or Memory controller hub. 

Thanks!


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

The Error Codes on the BSOD are there to help diagnose the problem .Posting them might help us to ID the problem.


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

What ram is installed and what voltage is it running?
Nvidia boards are very picky about ram, which leads me ask is this the original ram from Dell or upgraded ram?

The only way to replace a XPS7xx board will mean replacing the case and power supply, at this late date a upgrade to a i5 or i7 & DDR3 is worth looking at.


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## Mr.Domino (Aug 18, 2008)

I do not have access to this computer currently, this thread was kind of a "I threw in the towel already, let me try to fix my mistake of buying this computer". 

Anyways, I did log one of the error codes from event viewer after a BSOD and, mind you, I got a hell of a lot of these "Critical" and "Warning" errors:

- Provider 

[ Name] Application Popup 

- EventID 1801 

[ Qualifiers] 49152 

Level 2 

Task 0 

Keywords 0x80000000000000 

- TimeCreated 

[ SystemTime] 2010-05-02T21:39:01.531Z 

EventRecordID 933 

Channel System 

Computer Bubba2 

Security 


- EventData 


000004000100000000000000090700C0270100000000000000 0000000000000024301B8E0000000000001000 


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Binary data:


In Words

0000: 00040000 00000001 00000000 C0000709 
0008: 00000127 00000000 00000000 00000000 
0010: 8E1B3024 00000000 00100000 


In Bytes

0000: 00 00 04 00 01 00 00 00 ........
0008: 00 00 00 00 09 07 00 C0 .......À
0010: 27 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 '.......
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0020: 24 30 1B 8E 00 00 00 00 $0.Ž....
0028: 00 00 10 00 ....


As for the RAM, or rather, full system specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E6850 (4MB L2 Cache,3.0GHz,1333 FSB)
4 GB Corsair Dominator DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz OC'd to 1066MHz (4 DIMMs)
512MB Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT
BTX Motherboard, Vista 32-bit premium


I can't really provide anything else guys, sorry. Like I said, I provided everything I thought relevant over here, not that they did anything to help me...: http://www.cybertechhelp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=208975

I'm just looking to buy a new ATX form factor mobo, because I know there is no hope for the Dell BTX one, nor do I want it. Like I said, if I were to replace this one, I'd be on my third. No thanks. I'm not paying premium price for faulty hardware.

What else should I look to buy if I were to keep the CPU, GPU, RAM, and HDD?

Thanks for the replies, guys!


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

Remove two of the RAM sticks, set the RAM to stock speed and see if there is any improvement.



Mr.Domino said:


> What else should I look to buy if I were to keep the CPU, GPU, RAM, and HDD?


Mobo-Case-PSU


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

To stay with the 775 socket, a Intel P45 board decent 775 DDR2 performance boards are getting scarce and hard to find here are 2 I've used both in the past and they are both good boards the Asus has a larger feature set you probably don't need. http://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-Core...ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1291074815&sr=1-1 And http://www.amazon.com/Asus-Turbo-In...ref=sr_1_6?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1291074815&sr=1-6

Your also going to need a power supply the Dell xps unit is non-standard at least a Corsair 650tx, larger if you plan to upgrade the video card or move the supply forward to a newer build.


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## Mr.Domino (Aug 18, 2008)

wrench97 said:


> To stay with the 775 socket, a Intel P45 board decent 775 DDR2 performance boards are getting scarce and hard to find here are 2 I've used both in the past and they are both good boards the Asus has a larger feature set you probably don't need. http://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-Core...ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1291074815&sr=1-1 And http://www.amazon.com/Asus-Turbo-In...ref=sr_1_6?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1291074815&sr=1-6
> 
> Your also going to need a power supply the Dell xps unit is non-standard at least a Corsair 650tx, larger if you plan to upgrade the video card or move the supply forward to a newer build.


Ah! Fantastic, you are awesome. This is precisely what I needed. I do realize that this system won't have too many future options for upgrades, but that's not what I'm in the market for. Thank you so very much. *Solved.*


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