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Win7 and Dell Dimension e520.

facattack

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Mar 7, 2007
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I called up Office Max to ask if they could answer a question:
Me: "I have a Dell Dimension e520, originally came with XP. I think the BIOS says it can do 64bits. Can it run win10?"

OM: "No, it cannot. On account of the fact the drivers for network wouldn't work. The latest version I think it would run is win7."

Me: "How much does it cost?"

OM: "We can't sell it to you because Microsoft won't let retailers sell it. But it is on Amazon."



I didn't have to tell her what RAM the machine took (DDR2) or anything. Does anyone know if she's correct or she just pulling my leg with false hope? I honestly expected her answer to be "Try Vista."
 
I have found some reports of people successfully installing both Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 on a system listed as a Dimension e520. I can't confirm that their hardware exactly matches yours so don't complain to me if you have problems.

Windows 10 is available at retailers I checked for $119 (Home) or $199 (Pro); Windows 7 Pro is $139; Windows 8.1 is $99. Probably some other variations for different prices.

I would not bother buying an OS upgrade. The upgrade price of OS is about half of a new system that would be better in every way while using less power.
 
It's okay. I looked up "Can You Run It" and did several searches. It won't run Metal Gear Solid V: Phantom Pain so I'll buy a PS3 instead. hehe.
 
Windows 7 will run on the Dimension E520 fine. The only area of trouble you'll run into is that the GMA950 integrated graphics doesn't support DX10 so Windows will have to run in DX9 compatibility mode.

As to whether it will run Windows 10, it's anybody's guess. Driver support would definitely be an issue because the 965 chipset is nearly 10 years old and I'm not sure Intel supports it anymore.
 
Windows 7 will run on the Dimension E520 fine. The only area of trouble you'll run into is that the GMA950 integrated graphics doesn't support DX10 so Windows will have to run in DX9 compatibility mode.

As to whether it will run Windows 10, it's anybody's guess. Driver support would definitely be an issue because the 965 chipset is nearly 10 years old and I'm not sure Intel supports it anymore.

I think WDDM 1.0 is still supported in Win10.
 
My bet is that it would run Windows 10. System requirements haven't changed since Vista, and if anything, older hardware (within reason!) is going to be more likely to have drivers built-in to a later version of Windows. But, all that said, I'm not sure I could recommend spending the money to buy a copy of Windows 10!

As someone said, download a copy and give it a try. It will fuss about not being activated and eventually stop working, but it will work long enough for you to know if it supports Windows 10.

Wesley
 
older hardware (within reason!) is going to be more likely to have drivers built-in to a later version of Windows.

Not all drivers are created equal.

Microsoft has written thousands of generic device drivers over the years and they're almost always going to provide bare minimum functionality, just enough so the device is usable. While this may be fine for something like a HID device, it's not fine for something like a disk controller, video card or sound card. Those devices will suffer from very poor performance beyond just the Windows desktop.

Windows 10 adds a new dimension to that though. Since Microsoft now forces updates down your throat, drivers are included with updates and conflicts with user installed drivers and Windows Update overwriting them is a big problem.
 
I have Windows 10 x64 running on a Dimension E520 without a problem. Drivers for all on-board hardware are provided out of the box or on Windows Update including a WDDM driver for the onboard Intel GMA X3000 video. The machine was shipped with MCE2005 literally a day before Vista was released. It has a Vista Ready sticker on the front.
 
My video card is a ATI Radeon 6450 HD. I might get something better, though.
lol I was about to post "a 6450 should be fine, I'm still using a 4850!" but then I looked up some benchmarks and yeah..... it probably wouldn't hurt to upgrade if you're interested in gaming.
 
Just another marketing term for the Intel implementation of the 64-bit implementation also referred to as X64.
 
I called up Office Max to ask if they could answer a question:
Me: "I have a Dell Dimension e520, originally came with XP. I think the BIOS says it can do 64bits. Can it run win10?"

OM: "No, it cannot. On account of the fact the drivers for network wouldn't work. The latest version I think it would run is win7."

Me: "How much does it cost?"

OM: "We can't sell it to you because Microsoft won't let retailers sell it. But it is on Amazon."



I didn't have to tell her what RAM the machine took (DDR2) or anything. Does anyone know if she's correct or she just pulling my leg with false hope? I honestly expected her answer to be "Try Vista."

I have an Optiplex GX620 which is a close cousin to the Dimension E520. My particular machine has a Pentium D 925 and 4GB of RAM. It has an ATI HD5650. Windows 10 runs just fine on that machine. It's actually surprisingly responsive and does most basic tasks very well. (Music playback, video playback at 1366x720, web browsing, even ripping CDs and burning DVDs.) It's a secondary machine that mostly serves as a workbench computer.

So if you have enough RAM and maybe an upgraded video card (don't go crazy with that, get yourself a $40 card), I imagine you'll be able to run anything up to Windows 10.
 
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