I have a Dell Studio XPS 7100:
Windows 7 Ultimate x64
AMD Phenom(tm) II X6 1090T Processor (6 CPUs), ~3.2GHz
8GB of RAM (2GBX4)
1GB ATI Radeon HD 5670 460W PSU
1TB SATA 2 7200rpm HD
I have yet to open up the tower and look inside myself, but there should be an extra SATA connection and one more 3.5" drive bay.
I want to upgrade the RAM to the max (16GB across 4 4GB sticks or 2 8GB sticks or whatever it needs to be) and need to add a slave drive (looking at 2TB-3TB) as my master drive is near 80% full (not good).
I need to know if these upgrades can be handled safely by the current power supply.
I called Dell and was told:
1. Max RAM each slot can handle is 4GB or 8GB (got two different answers from two different people)
2. If I add a slave drive bigger than 1TB, there will be problems with the PSU
I don't want to put too much in here and cause a problem with the PSU (won't that kill the computer entirely)?
Questions:
1. So can I make these upgrades safely or not without also upgrading the current PSU?
2. Is there a way for me to check the insides of my computer to know what is exactly in there (using software)?
3. Is there a way for me to test to see if these upgrades will be safe?
4. SATA 3 is backwards compatible with SATA 2 right (so a SATA 3 drive will work on a SATA 2 connection)?
5. What RAM and HD's would you guys recommend?
6. Can Windows 7 Ultimate support a 3TB HD as a slave drive with no problems?
I am always open to just buying an external HD and taking space off the master that way also.
it could blow things like drives, motherboard, ram & other things or behave normally. can always upgrade the psu later when you get the 2nd tb drive. do you really need a 2nd internal drive that big that you can't use on other computers? go external. i was taking guesses on the calc as i didn't know exactly what you had except for your list. should have no problem with 3tb as external.
