It’s very likely that these motherboards are, in fact, built by Intel for Dell. Intel is the worlds largest maker of IBM-PC type motherboards from what I’ve heard. Does “building from scratch” mean you’re going to do your own PCP layout, design, and have one built-to-spec? BTW, I just saw something about a modular notebook computer that’s being released. I saw a video about it. I’m not sure it solves your problem, but it does look interesting. Also, since Apple stopped making their motherboards upgradable, their profits have jumped. The avg sales price has gone up b/c people are buying larger configurations to future-proof their machines, which is kind of dumb if you think about it. Larger memory modules are always going to be more expensive today than in 2-3 years from now for the same specs, and you don’t really need them today. Which is exactly why Apple’s profits have jumped. Just b/c the logic in the core chips can handle more RAM or SSD is no reason to allow them to take that much. They want to be sure you have a reason to upgrade the mobo in a few years rather than just more memory. FWIW, I’ve got an 8GB DIMM I took out of my Mac Mini when I replaced it with a 32GB DIMM, if it helps. These things are practically worthless on eBay. For semiconductor makers, especially where it concerns integration of a lot of components, their business models have always been some flavor of “reducing their customer’s time-to-market”. Intel sold chip sets and development systems first. Then they provided “reference designs”, then Gerber plots for PCBs, and finally just started making the motherboards themselves — but that was at a time when 90% of the computers being sold had the same physical form-factor (so-called IBM PCs). Then laptops showed up, and then notebooks. In order for Intel to keep getting their most advanced chips into so many computers, they had to make it a no-brainer to work with them to buy motherboards directly from them. That’s so when they formally announced a new chip, you could go out and buy a computer from two or three vendors THAT DAY that had that chip in them, rather than waiting most of a year for computer vendors to build their own PCBs from scratch. The switch to mobile devices that use really high integration chip sets and ARM-based CPUs has put a kink into Intel’s plans. And with Apple switching to their own CPUs across their entire product line, that has hurt them as well. That’s why they’re looking to have one of the new east-valley Fabs become an ARM foundry. -David Schwartz > On Jul 27, 2023, at 3:49 PM, Todd Cole via PLUG-discuss wrote: > > I have run into issues where cpu can handle more ram than the motherboard can recognize. I have also had success using more than OEM specs > bios upgrade may also increase motherboard ram capacity trial and error has and does work sometimes if you really need the extra ram. > > On Thu, Jul 27, 2023 at 3:40 PM Keith Smith via PLUG-discuss > wrote: > Thanks for your feedback. > > Interesting experience. > > I discovered if one is using Intel, one can look up what RAM that chip > supports. Windows reported which CPU I have. Intel on-line told me > what type of RAM and the upper limit. > > Interesting enough the CPU will handle up to 64GB of RAM, however Dell > told me the box will only use up to 32GB of RAM.*** > > My box came with DDR4-2666 and the CPU really wants DDR4-2400. > > I just ordered 32GB of DDR4-2400 from Newegg for $62 tax, title, > license, shipping, and doc fee. > > *** This is the second upgrade where I have run into Dell limiting > resources. Last time the computer would only support 1 monitor while > the CPU would run 3. BTW this box holds only one HD... I guess if I > want more I will need to add an aftermarket "cage".... If the > motherboard will support a second drive... Yikes!! > > I'm at the point where I am going to start building from scratch in the > future..... > > Thanks!! > Keith >