Old PC Questions

I have an old Dell Dimension 2100 and I want to throw in a GPU so it will browse the internet a bit better, as well as actually scale up to my monitors native resolution. It can't handle 1680x1050. It has the old Intel 810 series chipset. This system has a 145 watt PSU, 1.1ghz Celeron, and 256mb of RAM. I know it isn't a gaming machine and won't be able to do stuff like that well. I am just wondering if there is any GPU that can scale up to my monitor's native resolution and can run without a PSU replacement? Or, could you suggest a way to force the integrated GPU to scale up to this resolution? Thanks!

Dell sold this model as an "entry level" PC. 512MB Memory max, PIII, etc.

It does have a PCI bus and a low power PCI video card MAY work. The manual states you have to remove the power supply to install any PCI cards.
Product Support | Dell US


From the manual:

Expansion Bus
Bus types PCI (version 2.2)
Bus speed PCI: 33 MHz
PCI connectors supports four three-quarter–length cards
PCI connector size 120 pins
PCI connector data width
(maximum)

32 bits

Newegg lists some PCI cards, I suspect you need a "low Profile" type, along with a low power card.

What OS are you actually running on this machine. Given the very reduced hardware I would run Linux Mint Mate 17. It will be as fast as such a small system can be and maybe it even resolves your screen resolution problem.

Here are some tutorials on how to setup Mint Mate. Be aware that the initial installation of Mint is only a bootstrap installation. Double click on the installation CD icon on that bootstrap screen to complete the installation.

Here is a video of Mint Mate that I made. It shows you how a setup system looks like. This happens to be a version that runs from a stick but a native installation would be exactly the same.

whs said:

What OS are you actually running on this machine. Given the very reduced hardware I would run Linux Mint Mate 17. It will be as fast as such a small system can be and maybe it even resolves your screen resolution problem.

Here are some tutorials on how to setup Mint Mate. Be aware that the initial installation of Mint is only a bootstrap installation. Double click on the installation CD icon on that bootstrap screen to complete the installation.

Here is a video of Mint Mate that I made. It shows you how a setup system looks like. This happens to be a version that runs from a stick but a native installation would be exactly the same.

I'm running Windows XP, 2000, and ME in a triple boot. Will Mint Mate run on 256mb of ram adequately?

Mint Mate will run much better in 256MB than any Windows. Even in my 2GB system it uses only 361MB.

whs said:

Mint Mate will run much better in 256MB than any Windows. Even in my 2GB system it uses only 361MB.

Ok. I may give that a try. Thanks! Does anybody have any suggestions of a gpu that can scale up to my display well and works on a 145 watt psu?

I don't think you will have any luck finding a GPU for 145 Watts. But replacing a PSU is not a big deal. Have a look:

whs said:

I don't think you will have any luck finding a GPU for 145 Watts. But replacing a PSU is not a big deal. Have a look:

I have done a couple of PSU swaps before. I don't want to buy another psu for this system though. Plus, Dell may have used proprietary connectors, but I am not sure about that.