Upgrading Processor - Installation Advice

[Dannae]

Hi,

First post and first foray into upgrading my PC. Will be updating my e6550 Intel Duo processor to the e8500 and am happy with the installation/hardware swap from reading your posts and watching a vid or two (applying thermal paste/zero force, etc). Shuttle motherboard (FG33 on G33 chipset) supports the upgrade.

Just looking on the comments for the e8500:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-193-IN&tool=3

and it mentions that one person had to update the bios when they swapped processors - is this normal? If so is there a link to how this is accomplished.

Another mentions that it corrupted their hard drive - comments? One off?

Any other info/advice before I take the plunge greatfully received. Hopefully this will give me confidence to build a new PC at some stage.

Thanks in Advance

Dannae

 

[Lemin]

I wouldnt buy new 775 cpu's now, too old. Id look for a second hand cpu, a Q6600 would be best.

 

[Dannae]

Thanks for reply. Yes too pricey to buy new I agree. I am getting the processor from a friend just for the price of postage and the power supply in the shuttle is only 250W. I believe the motherboard supports Quad but at what stress on the PSU I am not sure.

I am under the impression that only one core is ever being used primarily and other cores are there to run background/low priority tasks (assuming that only one progam eg game is being used)? Happy to stand corrected ofc.

 

[eddyr]

you may get away with it at stock if most of the 250w is on the 12v. if you check the psu it should hopefully show the suustained output wattage and amp figures.

Windows will assign different cores to different sofware allowing them to run concurrently as with the dual core also. It gives an smoothness to heavy multitasking (so long as the memory subsytem isn't overtaxed). single threaded application will only use 1 core however now many more are multithreadable than they were a few years ago. Depends on what software you will be running and how often.

 

[Lemin]

If your mobo already supports the cpu, then you dont need to touch the bios.

Edit, exept when you have to reinstall the OS.

 

[Dannae]

Thanks Eddyr - I hope to upgrade it to a 300W via ebay though the data you pointed me towards just about covers things on the 250W.

Upgrading my Media Centre pc thats all and thought I would have some fun learning the ropes to give it a last lease of life before all the components to upgrade are obsolete.

Thanks again Lemin. Just to double check - I would only need to reinstall OS if I changed/installed a new HD or SSD right? Changing the processor doesnt affect the OS (all other things being left unchanged)? Thanks in advance - nearly there with the dumb/newb questions

Dannae

 

[Lemin]

Changing the processor wont upset the OS normally. Good luck.

 

[j.col]

Thanks again Lemin. Just to double check - I would only need to reinstall OS if I changed/installed a new HD or SSD right? Changing the processor doesnt affect the OS (all other things being left unchanged)? Thanks in advance - nearly there with the dumb/newb questions

Dannae

yep, as lemin, said, changing the cpu or even the ram, does not interfere with windows

 

[artisan]

hi,last week i swapped my E8400 for a Q9650 that a friend gave me,i decided to run Intel's cpu test utility just to make shure it was ok & it didn't recognise the cpu so failed the test which left me worried incase my new cpu was faulty.
so i flashed the latest Asus bios which has sorted it,i'd never done this before but searched the net & found a video on youtube which showed how its done.

 

[Dannae]

Well I have now swapped my first processor and I feel like a God

Everything went well except for the several hours of trying to solve the DRM cache problem (Windows Media Centre stopped working). Apparently upgrading processors causes the DRM thing to freak out. I post the link here if you need to sort it out:

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Desktop-Operating-systems-and/Windows-Media-Center-Receiver-Service-stopped-working-and-was/td-p/2950

One final question - The old 6550 processor showed 5.2 on the windows experience score, the 'faster" 8500 shows a score of 5.0 - I'm confused What would account for this???

Thx

Dannae

 

[mickyflinn]

Maybe windows marks on higher clock speed rather than more cores.