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Upgrading the Processor


-Demosthenes-

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You'll need to find what sort of motherboard you have and what socket type it uses.

 

The easiest thing to do would be to replace the whole motherboard, as replacing the CPU may be more difficult.

 

The important question is, of course, is what you need a faster processor? Is the computer slow because of a slow disk, lack of RAM, or the processor? Compare the speeds of things that use lots of disk access (loading large files) to those that do only processing (there are some programs that calculate pi that you can use for benchmarking... google).

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It's a IM845GL Motherboard, I think :P How do I find the socket size?

 

Edit: I believe the socket type is 478 pin, sound right? Would these two work?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819116175

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819112225

edit2: decided to get the first :D Im pretty sure it will work...

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its not certain to work - the correct pin amount isn't everything -

 

Your best bet would have been to find a processor compatibility list for your Motherboard.

You may find it will need a bios upgrade before it works.

 

and from experience whacking in a high power processor and expecting it to move alot faster doesn't always work - a computer only moves as fast as the slowest component.

 

Memory speed is the best thing to upgrade first - put in the highest speed ram - if you're on an IDE Hard Drive upgrade to SATA (if mobo supports)

Of course check the mobo bus speed as well all data travels along it so if its slow it'll only bottle-neck.

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with a 400MHz system bus, would a 800MHz FSB processor be slowed?

 

Edit: it seems someone wrote to the company to find out exactly what processors the motherboard supports (http://www.help2go.com/postp13783.html), either Willamette or Northwood. How much of a difference is there between the Northwood (533MHz) and others like 800MHz FSB?

 

Is it worth getting a new motherboard, they're pretty cheap. (sorry, I'm new at this :D)

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if the board only supports Willamette or Nothwood - i can pretty much guarentee your prescott one you linked above won't work -

 

I myself brought a prescott and there was generally only support from newer mobos - plus i think it was some sort of new direction from intel so they're a little different to some other P4's

 

Oh and you'll need to get a good fan - mine operates generally at around 70-80 deg C - which is stupidly hot.

 

Don't go too cheap on the mobo - think about the future expansions you may want to undertake - oh and you'll probably want some faster ram for it.

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you should be able too . . . though its better to upgrade it as the prescott burns hot - - - thats if the new CPU actually works on the mobo . . . i think we should start placing bets as to whether it will or not . . . look into a bios upgrade, see if anyone else has done one!

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you should be able too . . . though its better to upgrade it as the prescott burns hot - - - thats if the new CPU actually works on the mobo . . . i think we should start placing bets as to whether it will or not . . . look into a bios upgrade, see if anyone else has done one!

I decided just to get a northwood, a lot better than what I have (Celeron), pretty cheap, and it's more likely to work :P Would I need a bios update for that? (never done a bios update before :D).

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