Upgrade Problems

Reaper652

Reaper652

Reaper652

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25 Mar 2010
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Northern Ireland
I have been given the task of upgrading my granda's computer (the general request of can you make it faster?). He is currently running an Dimension 3100c with a Celeron 346 3.06Ghz and 2x512mb of 266mhz cas4 ddr2 (only 2 slots).

I was thinking an upgrade to 2gb (max supported) 533mhz ddr2, would this be much of a noticible upgrade?

Also was thinking about a processor upgrade but I can't seem to find a supported processor list. All the information i can get is "Intel® Pentium® or Celeron® processors". New bios's also shows:

"The following changes have been made to BIOS rev A01 to create A02:
1. Add support for new processor."

Do you think this would support the newer pentium 4 dual cores? This should be a nice upgrade for a resonable amount of money.

Cheers guys!
 
It has an Intel 910 chipset which only supports single core socket 775 Pentium 4 processors, i dont think you would get a satisfactory boost in performance with a P4 compared to Celeron, i dont think an extra 1Gb of ram will be much use.

I dont know what to suggest.
 
It was as much the faster ram, as well as the 1gb extra. It is a tricky one though. I don't want to be the bearer of bad news, namely "if you want it to go faster buy a new one".
 
I dont think the ram will make a great deal of difference. Have you tried streamlining the operating system. Switch off un-needed services and the usualy disk cleanup and defrag?

Hardware wise it looks like it would be a new mobo, cpu and ram
 
an extra gig of ram wont go amiss, but i dont really think its worth changing the cpu.

look for a cheapo bundle. Something like a sempron 140 with an 880G motherboard, 2 gigs ddr3 and a cheapy hard drive will wipe the floor with that lot for ~£150. be roughly the same power consumption as well, so you could probably keep the existing psu.

edit: just thought, didnt dells use the BTX layout until recently? Not sure if ATX motherboard would be compatible...
 
Asus M4A78LT-M LE AMD 760G (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard = £49
AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 245 2.90GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail = £48
2GB Corsair Value Select, DDR3 PC3-10600 (source elsewhere) =£35

total = £132

I don't think you could do it much cheaper, but no I wouldnt want to be the bearer of bad new either
 
thingemajib said:
just thought, didnt dells use the BTX layout until recently? Not sure if ATX motherboard would be compatible...
Click to expand...
When looking in the documentation it deffinatly appeared to be one of the inverted mb's, not sure if its btx though. So buying a new cheap system would need a new case aswell...
 
in that case:

Asus M4A78L-M LE AMD 760G (Socket AM3/AM2+) DDR2 microATX Motherboard £46.99

Patriot Signature 2GB DDR2 6400C5 (800MHz) Module (PSD22G8002H) £35.24

AMD Sempron 140 2.70GHz (Socket AM3) Processor - Retail £27.99

OcUK Athena Tower Case - Black £18.99

Akasa AK-191-SM Smoke Ultra Quiet 120mm Fan - 3 pin £5.86

that lot is £135 +delivery (which should be free for you). Keep the psu and optical. Id say get a new hard drive as well (£30), but i guess the old one will suffice if you wanna keep costs down

alternatively you could use the ddr3 version of this motherboard (same price) and source some cheapo ddr3 elsewhere (sould be similar price), but i dont really think there will be that much of a benefit
 
Will talk to him about the upgrade scenario tomorrow, allthough i may end up, for the sake of £30, trying the new RAM first aswell as the usual sweep of services for unneccicary stuff, win reinstall if possible, and then use that 2gb of ram in a ddr2 build such as provided by thingemajib if needed.

I also have an old winpower 650w sitting around i could donate to the cause, if we decide to replace it, should do more than fine for his uses.

Anywho... will talk it over and update you's with a decision. Cheers for the help so far!
 
Oh yeah you would probably need that PSU if you were to upgrade i dont think dell use standard atx wiring (or maybe its just the colour coding)
 
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