XPS 8900, no documentation, no parts

Question

I have an older Dell XPS 8900 pc. The solid state hard drive is failing and Dell offers no parts. The hard drive is an ordeal to swap out. No documentation comes with the system except for the online manual which is not very good. PC is hard to work on and the monitor case is poorly built. I would not recommend a Dell.

Chino de Oro · Answer

Sorry to hear that you are having trouble with replacing your failed hard drive. Maybe you had some difficulty finding parts for your system, but Dell do have M.2 solid state drives as well as SATA solid state drive. But, you would not want to pay the premium prices Dell charges a lot more than it costs you at local Best Buy Standard hard drive on the market should be compatible with your PC, just have to decide on which types that suit your preferences.

As for the replacement process, it's available on Dell support site. Although it seems easy to follow, but if you feel intimidate with difficulty, just have it replace by your local computer shops.

Procedure for removing solid state drive:

Remove the screw that secures the solid-state drive to the system board.
Slide and lift the solid-state drive off the system board.

Image: Removing the solid-state drive

Procedure for removing hard drive:

Disconnect the power and data cables from the primary hard-drive.
Remove the screws that secure the primary hard-drive to the chassis.
Slide the primary hard-drive out of the chassis.

Image: Removing primary hard-drive

Chino de Oro · Answer

Here is the service manual for your system from Dell support site

https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-us/xps-8900-desktop/xps-8900-desktop/inside-view-of-your-computer?guid=guid-4cbbd852-e755-45f5-aed7-545777fa10f6&lang=en-us

redxps630 · Answer

OP 'Solid state hard drive' refers to m.2 ssd on motherboard? 8900 oem onboard m.2 is x1 lane which was not mentioned in spec but later admitted by Dell engineers  The Dell XPS 8900 motherboard features an onboard M.2 slot that is natively wired for PCIe Gen 3.0 x1. This limits maximum speeds to around 1GB/s. You cannot alter this hardware limitation via BIOS or software to force a x4 lane width. Why is this happening? Hardware Design: The built-in M.2 slot shares a data bus on the motherboard chipset, dropping the standard x4 lane width down to a single lane (x1). Performance Impact: Faster NVMe drives will be bottlenecked to SATA-like or slightly faster speeds. may be technically easier for OP to replace with a 2.5 sata ssd as the on board m.2 is quite limited.   A 2.5 to 3.5 adapter can facilitate installation of 2.5 ssd reference https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/xps-desktops/xps-8900-m2-nvme-ssd-boot-compatibility/647f7d17f4ccf8a8deb83781

DELL-ChrisM2 · Answer

@wrgarrisjr

Dell stopped provided in the box paper manuals back in 2008. All manuals were uploaded as shown by Chino de Oro.

Dell generally only provides spare parts for up to 5 years from the release date. The XPS 8900 released 11 years ago in 2015.

XPS Desktops

XPS 8900, no documentation, no parts

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