New & Improved Dell Inspiron 530 - But can it run Crysis?

Let's take our E-Waste rescued Dell Inspiron 530 Desktop and give it the love that it deserves! In this video we will do a full restoration and upgrade to this desktop that was loved by many!
#dell #nostalgia #retro #retrocomputing #retropc #ewaste #pentium #intel #pc #restoration #crysis #tombraider #upgrade #windows7

[@GamerisawesomeYTonPSN]

The dell pc is a legend

[@TheRetroRecall]

It's a great machine!

[@TheRetroRecall]

I was always one to build custom PCs and never got these OEM systems. But the more I'm exposed to them now, the more fun they are to explore.

[@deaditedan424]

Good for you rescuing for these e-wastes. I remember these from my Circuit City days, bro.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks! I love doing this sort of work. The more challenging the better haha.

[@Mini-z1994]

@@TheRetroRecall Might be able to do a bsel mod on the pads of the cpu too get the cpu fsb running at 1333 fsb as the e7400 is a 1066 fsb cpu, should boost clock speed pretty nicely. At 333 fsb it would boost the cpu clock too 3.496 mhz from that 2.8 ghz doing this, it might need a voltage pad covered or shorted to increase the cpu voltage too be stable as well.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Someone else also just mentioned this. I'll look into it, thank you!!!

[@joshwalker4834]

GREAT video, and always amazing content!! Your Dell videos are always some of my favourites!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Awesome!!! Glad you are enjoying!

[@aarongates6817]

Every set up in my house has that mouse. It is indestructible.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I've had them for years and you are right - they just keep going!

[@maxtornogood]

Thank you for answering one of life's biggest questions, it looks to be working pretty well!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Hahaha it can! I'm impressed at how well this system worked. It can also be upgraded even further!

[@Sugarhil1Adot]

Love the videos bro keep it going cant wait to see more! 🙂

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you!! Glad you are enjoying :)

[@raymac1946]

My Inspiron 530 served two old ladies who have since passed away, and my granddaughter for home study during COVID. It is now a jukebox in my basement workroom. It currently has an E8400, 8 GB RAM, 250 GB SSD, Nvidia GTX950, 500 watt PSU, and USB wifi dongle. I run Spiral Linux LXQt no problem.

[@TheRetroRecall]

That's awesome that you are keeping the system going. Some of these systems just keep going!

[@AlejandroRodolfoMendez]

Honestly this is a great work. Nice to see it working well.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed!

[@moforetro3612]

I've got one of these & haven't used it for years. Gonna upgrade it to the max 👍

[@TheRetroRecall]

Awesome!! Let me know how it turns out!!

[@ANN1H1LATE89]

Loved this👍🏼👍🏼

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you!

[@carabara3947]

Glad To Find Your Site I Have Four Of These Three 530 One Of Which Is Brand New And One 530s Needing A Power Supply

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice and I'm glad to have you around! Thanks for watching!

[@justsumguy2u]

Well done! I'm glad you ran a period-correct video card, and also that you chose Win7; what a fantastic o/s that was

[@TheRetroRecall]

100%. It was a fun system to work with and is working quite well. As I test out new games, it's growing on me haha!

[@DuneRunnerEnterprises]

I'm not sure,that 750 IS period correct. It was much,much later made.

[@craigmurray4746]

​@@DuneRunnerEnterprises Agreed. A period correct card would be from the Geforce 8000 or 9000 series for Nvidia, not quite sure of the ATI equivalent at the time

[@TheRetroRecall]

Maybe not, I think it was 4 years newer than the system, however I deem period correct in the sense that the user could still have the system and perform this upgrade. If they did, it would keep them in the game for a while longer.

[@VideoGameGoonie]

I have this pc with an E8600. I didnt realize the bios could be updated to support more memory. Thanks I'm gonna upgrade the memory in mine now!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Awesome!!

[@JamesJAKAZeldaboy14]

Owned one of these after my old system partially died, and it was upgraded enough for light gaming and such. really good system for what it was!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes! A lot of these systems were purpose built and worked quite well. They also allowed a certain level of upgradability as well which was nice.

[@vojtechadame5860]

Great video. From dead junk to awesome retro gaming monster.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you!!!

[@JovinRepairs]

I've got one of these in my collection. It's definitely newer than my area of knowledge, but it was in good shape and just felt like it was built well enough to be worth keeping around.

[@TheRetroRecall]

At first it was just one of those entry systems to me but it was fun to upgrade.

[@foamyflightmaster9385]

That Dell case looks mint

[@TheRetroRecall]

Agreed, it is in great shape!

[@SamCoder.]

I still have the original Windows 7 Professional CD-Media... (32-Bit) My father gave it to me in 2020 and said to use and preserve it well as it is rare to find the original media nowadays... :) As a 15-year-old, Windows 7 is pure nostalgia for me... I used MS Paint to make "Masterpieces" and called myself an "Expert" when I did anything in the Control Panel... "Those were the good old days!"

[@TheRetroRecall]

Ahhh that's awesome! Yes, keep the original! When I was younger I wish I had kept everything that I had. Fortunately I've been able to get mostly everything back. Have fun, it's a great hobby!

[@SamCoder.]

@@TheRetroRecall Ohh! That's great to hear... Thank You!!!

[@TheRetroRecall]

No problem!! Great having you part of the channel! Hopefully you are enjoying.

[@davefarley4318]

DUDE! YOUR GETTING A DELL!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Hahaha those were the days!

[@bryans8656]

Perfect combination, Windows 7 and Tomb Raider Underworld on a rescued Dell Inspiron.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Agreed! It's a nice looking system as well haha.

[@willaimkazer9754]

A thing that I did with my old HP Pro with a I7-3770, 16GB 1600MHz memory, and GTX 780 Ti GPU was Dual boot Windows XP and Windows 7. This makes mine an awsome rig. I used Windows XP 32 bit and Windows 7 64 bit. It works great. I have service pack 3 for Windows XP and Service pack 1 for Windows 7. Both OS's ar fully updated. I suggest dual booting frfom Core 2 duo up to IvyBridge like My PC. Take advantage of that memory. I have a few Vostro Motherboards laying around somewhere. I used E8400 in those with DDR2 at 800MHz. The fun good old days before TPM and Windows 11.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Sounds like you have a pretty awesome build!! Very versitile and able to handle quite a range of the gaming era!

[@davidlawrenc]

Yet another beauty in your collection we'll done on that restore and upgrade, maybe in a future video you could upgrade another pc that's retro but needs a bit of a kick ( eg AMD K62 500mhz)

[@TheRetroRecall]

So many projects, so little time haha! I have a K62 350 for sure.. not sure about a 500. Will have to dig :)

[@davidlawrenc]

@@TheRetroRecall if I still had my chip I would post it anytime to you I can't think honestly of a more deserving channel , here in south Africa that little beauty cost me R1599 way back in 01

[@TheRetroRecall]

Holy!!!! And that would be awesome to do a video on. Thank you so much for your high praise 💜

[@davidlawrenc]

@@TheRetroRecall well deserved praise , every retro PC you worked on in a way touches us all in ways that words can't explain

[@mikecawood]

It's all very interesting, great that old PCs are restored.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Restored and uograded :) glad you enjoyed!

[@PiercedJedi]

this would have been a pretty great system back in the day, especially with the upgrades you've made.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Agreed, 100%

[@chase7974]

Bought one off Goodwills website. Excited to mess around with it when it arrives.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Awesome!! Let me know how it goes :)

[@matthewday7565]

Maybe the new BIOS would offer AHCI, I wonder if "RAID" would have been AHCI... there is some tricky stuff to do if you want to change an existing installation from IDE into AHCI mode

[@TheRetroRecall]

Agreed. I did update to the new BIOS and it changed the interface a bit however I haven't had the time to go through all of the new options yet.

[@craigmurray4746]

RAID would have required the Intel Rapid Storage Technology drivers loaded, but I don't think it offered AHCI unfortunately. AHCI was one of those hit or miss features in computers of this era in terms of availability

[@emeraldwordcool1023]

My dad had the 530s or the smaller version of the 530 for his business same e2200 pentium I got a 540s which is higher end 530s had a core 2 duo e7200 and came with a Blu-ray drive from the factory

[@jimmyschmidt14]

Blu-ray drive

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice!!!!!

[@TheRetroRecall]

I know... I have a couple of Blu-ray drives. They didn't take off but writing 25gb of data is nice.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes, a PITA to be honest haha

[@EastAngliaUK]

nice pc you can do more on this than some of the older ones you have

[@TheRetroRecall]

For sure!

[@kevinurben6005]

I have that PC - it came with a Core 2 Quad Q6600 - with the BESL mod it runs at 3GHz!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Awesome!!!

[@annareismith6843]

I had a friend that claimed the MB book said that you do not have to plug in the 4 pin connector and could not get his PC to work. I took a look at it and saw it was not connected and told him it needs to be so to work. He tried and it worked. He was so upset, I was right and he was wrong. Yet his PC worked from then on no problem.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes it's one of those connectors that for whatever reason I always forget lol!

[@REDBIRD-95]

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Resurrect, Retrofit, Rejoice: Because you saved a lot of money giving an old PC a new chance at life😁👍 Have a great evening

[@TheRetroRecall]

It was a lot of fun too! Always love a challenge.

[@hugosimoes5119]

Another great video. E2200 is a bit weak and you did well putting an E7400. I would probably put an E8500 from aliexp or E8600. I think you do well using spinning hdds for windows 7 and below because these OSes aren't optimized for SSDs, they say.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Appreciate it and I didnt know Ali express had them, I'll check it out!

[@amirpourghoureiyan1637]

@@TheRetroRecall I'd make the hard drive a drive for games and upgrade the boot drive to an SSD, Windows 7 got updated for SSD support way back in the day and works a lot faster on NAND.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I've been told that, great suggestion. Thank you!

[@Mange070]

Good choice with Windows 7. For a little "older games", i think it is better than Windows 10. Too bad you could not get a Core 2 Quad working in it.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I could if I went with the S series of Core2 Quad CPUs as they run at 65w VS 90w. The motherboard unfortunately is limited at the voltage regulation side to support any higher than 65w. If I find one I will definitely be putting it in! :)

[@laurencejohnson4106]

Splendid upgrades and that is a handsome case!👍👍 I would increase the ram., to 8 gig., and install an SSD., as the boot drive and install Linux Mint, the mechanical HD., would be fine for storage, I'm not a gamer, but there are many free games in LM., repository.

[@TheRetroRecall]

That's an excellent idea. Stay tuned!

[@DuneRunnerEnterprises]

But,No free Crysys. 😅😅😅😅😅

[@laurencejohnson4106]

@@DuneRunnerEnterprises As I mentioned in my previous post I'm not a gamer, so I had to Google Crysys to understand your comment, but now I do.

[@CantankerousDave]

I’ve forgotten the 4-pin more than once…

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha it seems to be not just me then lol!

[@lameashecc467]

Are you using the windows update restored site for retro pcs?

[@TheRetroRecall]

I have, but not for this build.

[@connorsteffan8958]

​@@TheRetroRecallyou can also use legacy update.

[@TheRetroRecall]

100%

[@bobcatpixels2292]

I own this Computer it's my Gaming PC I have 8gb in mine running Windows 10 64 bit

[@TheRetroRecall]

Awesome!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Absolutely. I can feel the speed when I was using it, like it needed more thrown at it!

[@bobcatpixels2292]

@@TheRetroRecall it works well with my Nvidia GeForce Gtx 760 I have the Window Vista sticker on mine I have a mini pci e slot on mine as well

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice! Yes this one has that as well. What a great computer.

[@bobcatpixels2292]

Ironic yours is a Core 2 duo Mine is a Amd Athlon 64x2 i also have the sticker for that too

[@willaimkazer9754]

You can just install legacy update for the internet and get service pack 1 that way. After that Windows update will work, but is slow.

[@TheRetroRecall]

For sure. I decided to do it this way as I was walking away for a bit and let it do its thing :)

[@stevencamp6824]

I spent hours and hours with crysis great game

[@TheRetroRecall]

I've never played it until now. Time to enjoy!

[@Hadisabetghadam]

And You Missed Aero Effect 😂❤

[@TheRetroRecall]

Lol.

[@stephenroberts7554]

My dad had one of these computers stock and I cannot remember what OS it came with but it had Windows 7 which was the only Windows my dad could tolerate he was more a Mac guy

[@TheRetroRecall]

I think Vista came on these machines. Windows 7 though was pretty great.

[@marvinmallette6795]

This particular machine also included a "Dell Dock" utility from Stardock, which sort of resembles the Apple MacOS Dock.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Really, I didn't know that, thank you!

[@marvinmallette6795]

@@TheRetroRecall Little unique flavor like Packard Bell's Navigator for Windows 3.1. Some cool stuff to watch out for.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I'll see if archive has that.

[@Pulverrostmannen]

We all know that you don´t know if it can run Crysis until you reach the part with all the snow :P You should do a comparison how big the difference between the CPUs actually is when you do the upgrades you did to see the actual benefit, I always overclocked my 775 platforms to the limit and gained up to over 50% higher clock speeds on some chips, I could dust off my White Dell computer here and we could have a battle of the past

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha. I could have done the prior test, I mean nothing stopping me from swapping the cpu back, however those benchmarks are readily available online. There is quite a difference in performance.

[@simonlathwell]

I'm currently working on a Dell XPS 420 that I was given back in 2017. It didn't come with the HDD as the owner removed it due to it being used as a business system. I'm kinda lucky as it's got an Intel Q6600 2.4GHz quad-core CPU, and was upgraded to 8GB DDR2 RAM. The only upgrades I'm gonna do is see if I can find a faster Intel Q6600, and upgrade the 768MB graphics card to something better, and get a Blu-ray drive. I managed to get the restore disks for Vista Home Premium and the driver/software disk from the web archive. It's gonna be a great system once I've done the upgrades and got Vista installed. After that I've got a Dell Vostro 200 that I was given, and Dell OptiPlex 780SFF that I brought a few years ago for £40 to work on. As always another great TRR video, and always looking forward to your content. Edit: Most Dell systems that come with Vista onwards with 64-Bit Windows will support 8GB DDR2. The three in my comment above support 8GB.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Awesome and thank you! Yes this machine will accept the 8gb with the 1018 bios (which is not upgraded). Love hearing about your systems, keep them going and thanks again!

[@lucid_ck]

get a core 2 quad q9650 and youll be flying

[@simonlathwell]

@@lucid_ck Thanks for the suggestion. I'll have to hunt through my CPU containers and see if I've got something faster. If not I'm sure I'll be able to get one from eBay for a few quid, and will give me a reason to buy a range of Intel Q6xxx and Q9xxx if I don't have any for any future systems I may be given.

[@happyatheists9361]

Windows 7❤️

[@TheRetroRecall]

It was a great OS!

[@lvev]

@@TheRetroRecall it is

[@stevencamp6824]

Like the core2 duo and core2 quad

[@TheRetroRecall]

Pretty decent CPUs!

[@stevencamp6824]

@@TheRetroRecall Intel should have skipped the P4 and went straight to them lol

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha, but then we wouldn't have all of the great P4 stories and space heaters haha.

[@kopspijker3515]

No AHCI? That's annoying....😒 You know what is always a good thing? Free stuff. Upgrading a free Optiplex 3010 from a 3rd gen Core i5 to a 3rd gen Core i7 which was also a freebee.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice!!!! I love hearing people saving these systems.

[@moforetro3612]

Free is Gold 💰

[@kopspijker3515]

Good enough to function as a HTPC with an add-in low profile graphics card for a couple of years. That graphics card was needed to be able to output 4k/60 to the TV as the onboard HDMI connection is not capable of doing that. And good enough for 4k/60 AV1 decoding in software. (with associated fan noise as that there was not a lot of CPU time left)

[@danteblake9701]

I still have 3 of these models I updated them all to the same bios 1018 upgraded the ram to 4gb & installed 7 ultimate 64bit & Linux. Unfortunatelly the first of them appears to be finally dying after all these years.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Awesome to hear you have saved 3 of them. What's happening to the first one?

[@danteblake9701]

@@TheRetroRecall Power issues I've replaced the PSU twice & am out of spares. I also have a Optiplex 330 that the onboard video failed after a windows 10 update. The 4 pin connector in that model is even harder to get to

[@TheRetroRecall]

Ahhh ok, makes sense. It would be a shame to throw out, especially if you are able to repair the PSU / power issue.

[@DuneRunnerEnterprises]

Oh,but we talked about it already,i think!! If the sata cable is not fitting under the video card,fit an "r" shaped,"bent" sata cable,you sure have some???

[@CantankerousDave]

Still won’t fit with a right angle plug. I have some full-length PCI cards that give me the same problem.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Unfortunately there is 0 room underneath :(. The only way it would work is if I notch the video card cooling assembly.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Exactly.

[@stevesibaja3123]

Pale Moon Browser will run on Windows 7 32 bit or 64 bit

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks l

[@stevesibaja3123]

@@TheRetroRecall Your Welcome no Problem

[@Hadisabetghadam]

This Old Dell So Awesome Like Dell Optiplex gx270 These Old Dell Have potential To Upgrade To Get Ultimate Windows XP Or Windows 7 And ATI/AMD HD 5870 Is Perfect Fit In Dell

[@TheRetroRecall]

It was a nice system to work on :)

[@billchildress9756]

A lot of these older machines should be upgraded instead of junked, But a lot of people just can't see that. I have a Dell that I work with some and an older IBM ThinkCentre that will handle a 3.0 Ghz EE cpu and 2 gb of ddr1 mem I used a sapphire 3850 agp for video. I tinker around with this stuff to see what will and won't work. Big Fun at times. Very much enjoy seeing this!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you!

[@TheRetroRecall]

100%

[@billchildress9756]

@Maverick_the_Ace A lot of old software will not run on anything above win98 and dos so if it ain't broke don't fix it in cases like that. I have a lot of dos and win95 and 98 games that will run on win xp with vdm sound installed I installed Duke Nukem 1 and 2 and they both ran fine and with a dx10 for Xp you can run Ati/Amd cards in X-fire. A lot of old motherboards are getting very pricey too I've noticed so if you have a local recycler nearby pay them a visit and encourage them to offer intact units for sale.

[@donaldnemesis393]

but how well it runs windows 11?

[@TheRetroRecall]

Windows 11 is Junk lol... however, I am sure it could do just fine - especially with an SSD upgrade.

[@Hadisabetghadam]

Put E8600 And You Have Great Day

[@TheRetroRecall]

For sure, just need to find one :)

[@Xcile92-PX]

oh man... a duo... you should have gotten a q6660... make sure you use x86 win7 because its gonna bottlekneck and thermal throttle with x64. i had a q6660 ins 530 with r7 240 2gb and a 480ssd, 6gb ram. i cleaned it all out replaced the paste. damn thing wouldnt stay cool when booting to windows 10 x86. downgraded to windows 7 x86 same thing 89'c just to run windows. cooling fan on the cpu was already maxed. i did have diy plans to install a side 140mm intake but i decided to scrap the pc. what i hated more was the bios not accepting a full 8gb ram... another reason i threw it away because with windows 10 its bloated with MS services constatntly running in the background. that malware security ate up the cpu constantly while win was idle. i had my 530 since 2009 i threw it out last year. if i didnt throw away the CPU in mine i could have shipped it to you... i had the newest bios for mine too and it was terrible. not sure if the new bios is the cause for the fans being constantly maxed out. i have the tools to fix windows updates for windows 7 if you need help. to get new win 7 updates KB947821, KB4019264, KB4490628, Windows Management Framework 5.1, Microsoft Edge, IE11. the quad core q6660 is like under £15/10 on ebay now.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks - there were 2 boards that I go over in the video. This one will only support the Q series CPUs if they are the S variant due to the 65w power requirement. As for what I am running now, there are 0 cooling issues - I can barely hear the fan, not to mention looking at the monitoring utilities it's running nice and cool. Not sure if you had something else going on? I also updated the BIOS at the end and no change other than it will now accept 8gb memory. I will be on the hunt for the Q series S variant which it should support on this board. I do not anticipate any issues.

[@brett9000]

There is no 700 Nvidia GPU the 700 is the series number so you will never find one that is just a 700 if you want to find out what a GPU is without having to plug it in check the stickers that usually have serials numbers and stuff on them as they will usually say what GPU model it is on there.

[@TheRetroRecall]

For sure, I found it after :)

[@brett9000]

@TheRetroRecall I saw you found it in the video. The video reminded me of upgrading my PC slowly over time in the 2000's it started like as a acer desktop. I remember learning a slightly expensive lesson early on when I upgraded to a geforce 4 mx440 and found out afterwards it was the cheaper version that didn't support certain things.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Still, upgrading systems back in the day was always exciting.

[@2xtreem4u]

i want one more computer but then i have to remove one computer

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha. It's such a hard decision to make!

[@2xtreem4u]

Geekbench them and sell the loser 🤔

[@TheRetroRecall]

Hahah I can never throw these out.. I am fortunate to have the space available, but even if I didn't, I would find it so hard to throw them out.

[@2xtreem4u]

@@TheRetroRecall Well i can't make my apartment bigger and we have a housing short so no luck with a larger apartment

[@cliffordreynolds1835]

Hey, what do you think of the Windows 98/XP dual boot machines they sell on eBay?

[@TheRetroRecall]

I have always done my own dual boot configurations so I wasn't aware of the ones being sold on eBay. Hard for me to coment on them.

[@joshj88]

How is windows 7 retro now!? Sheesh I’m old 😭

[@TheRetroRecall]

Well, Windows Vista I would call retro, I upgraded to Windows 7 and it's border line lol.

[@marvinmallette6795]

I think that just happened. The OS was released in 2009, and reached end of support status during the winter of 2019-2020. The EoL kind of put a deadline to get Windows 7 out by 2020. There are early adopters of Windows 10 that haven't seen Windows 7 in almost a decade. With Windows 10's EoL looming in 2025, some users are starting to look at Windows 10 as being "old", especially on computers that did not receive May 2019's version 1903 "Light Mode" update. At 15 years, we are looking at a generation of youth entering the work force with significant demographics that have never used Windows 7, and at best view it as a piece of ancient and obsolete technology that may as well be Windows 95.

[@craigmurray4746]

It really is border line retro now and that does indeed make me feel old lol. 7 was blessed in that the UI never changed and all the years of updates pounded the system into a pretty damn stable OS. The same could be said for Windows 10 1909 or the current 22H2 versions I reckon. Windows 10 22H2 still has a long life ahead of it on PC's that will never see Windows 11.

[@michaelwood9866]

now i am not sure ddr2 will play nice with win10

[@BenState]

its fine

[@TheRetroRecall]

Runs fine on my Dell D630 :)

[@michaelwood9866]

@@TheRetroRecall hhhmmmmm

[@DuneRunnerEnterprises]

It has it's funky sides. For example,i have a ABit IP35. Managed to make it start with 4 sticks of DDR2,but with a special kind of it. The 1066 kind!!!!! Although, with it current Bios i can't install nothing,have to download and update to a new one.

[@BenState]

@@DuneRunnerEnterprises that's a CPU, mobo bios or user issue. Nothing to do with Win 10. BIOS ID:26 for that board fixes memory compatibility issues.

[@dayfornight88]

Video is sponsored by shoppers drug mart ... I came across a relic. I would have bought it if it wasn't expensive 1980 zeneth health computer . vv wss asking 199.99.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha due to the IPA? I would have totally challenged VV on that! What city?