Today I did what amounted to a dry run of the conversion. For those just
joining the program, its a project to swap Dell Precision motherboards,
upgrading from a PII Xeon 450mhz to dual PIII 933mhz cpus. Why am I
messing around with older pc's? Well, it's a lot cheaper than
experimenting with late model workstations for one thing. So basically
I'm learning more about how they are put together and what is compatible
and what's not.

Amazingly, the motherboards are identical in size and similar in layout.
Dell may have wanted to move to the new processor without spending a lot
on redesign and new parts. Some of the sheetmetal standoffs are not in
the proper location for the new board but they can be bent out of the
way easily. Also the sheetmetal plate to which the PII cpu holddown
secures, must be removed.

The only obstacles I have uncovered so far are a different floppy drive
connector and a different CD audio connector.

More to come.

Fred