Card slots?

[STICH626]

Hello,
How do you tell what type slots are in the computer?
I haven't worked on adding cards since when you manually set dip switches to set the ip address.
I have a Dell Dimension desktop that got shelved when I bough a laptop.
I plan on using this as my music only computer, to burn my albums/cassettes/8tracks to c/ds and use for my Ipod library, It will be hooked to my hifi surround sound for use in home with larger music files and for the ipod with the compressed files(apples lossless)
will be adding a quality c/d,dvd player/burner (external) and a good soundcard to get the sound away from the motherboard's sound chip.
other than that , it not be used for web or any "work"
Thanks for any insite on the card slotsd.
It'll be running (or try'n to run) windows 7, well see how that goes..

 

[BikerEcho]

it's fairly easy to see.
what is your computers full model name. i can then find a picture of the motherboard and tell you which it which.

 

[STICH626]

Dell Dimention 5150
mfg date 11/06 so it's nothing new, but should do just fine for a music server.
has a intel pen "4" ecu and not sure if it be worth upgrading it for what I plan on doing, only moving to windows 7 as xp is almost dead( iirc) 5/14. and not sure how long iTunes will support it, going to use an external H/D so that down the line I can build a computer set up for this task that isn't 7y/o , sad really it's only got 100 hours on it..

 

[BikerEcho]

this should be it's motherboard: http://www.ascendtech.us/mmASC/Images/HJ054002.jpg

You see those 2 white slots to the left? those are PCI slots. It's an old slot that is at the end of it's life span.
the next small black one is a "PCI-Express X1". those can be used for most modern sound cards and raid controllers and more
the last one is a "PCI-Express X16". it's mostly used for graphic cards

 

[BK_123]

I've found a picture showing the slots on the motherboard

and the manual ftp://ftp.dell.com/Manuals/all-prod...tops/dimension-5150x_Service Manual_en-us.pdf

 

[STICH626]

Thanks guys, BIG help.