processer/mother board swaping...

[Vendor Defendor]

my friend offered me a new processer for free, but it wont fit onto my mother board, so i guess i will have to get a new one.

right now, i am about to put windows XP on my computer, it currently has a 666 or 667mhz Intel Celeron, 256 megs of ram. the processer my friend said he is going to give me is a 1.2Ghz.

what will i have to do to install a new mother board? is it like something that will just plug in, the computer will start and all of a sudden be like, wow, im fast now? or whats involved?

thanks

 

[wiked87gn]

buy a motherboard that will support the processor and the memory you currently have or you will not go anywhere, most likeky a 266 FSB motherboard, and you should also find out how many pins the processor has to buy the right motherboard.

 

[progress1vebmx]

The computer won't be super super fast, depending on what you do. If you just surf the internet, and use word programs, it won't be that much faster. It might be able to run a lot of programs at once, but that's usually something the ram takes care of.

The best bet is to go to pricewatch.com and check out the motherboards, maybe getting an extra stick of 128/256 ram would be a good idea.

AMD MB - MSI 745 Ultra MS-6561 SiS 745 chipset Socket A
AMD MB - AN17C KT333
Intel - PC Chips M701G

You could just buy a cpu/motherboard combo for like 83 bucks, and would be easier, and not cost much more.

Well.. it all depends, on what CPU he is giving you. AMD, Intel?

 

[lp2]

Yup probably cheaper and easier just to buy an "older" combo pack, because a 1.2 gig cpu probably doesn't have motherboards around anymore, so you would need to hunt one down.

Oh, and make sure that your old ram would work if you do decide to upgrade the motherboard, because it might not!

It isn't a big deal for a geek to do, but basically you have to take out every card in the motherboard, unplug all the drives and power wires from the board, unscrew it & take it out, screw the old one in, plug stuff back in, reboot, format the harddrive (very VERY rarely does an operating system work after a motherboard swap), and then everything *should* be golden.

If that sounds like too much work, maybe see if your buddy could give you a hand, or just save some extra $$ and buy a new dell later... or use the old computer and spend the money on the car.

 

[wlaukaitis]

wellll....

Celerons and PIII are somewhat the same. I should know this but i don't. Is the celeron a slot 1? or is it a little square thing with a zillion pins on the bottom?

So, most PIII motherboards will do a celeron. A PIII is a tad faster because it has more cache.

Anyway, Yoo can get a slot 1 to FCPGA (Flip Chip Pin Grad Array)adapter, kind of like a card that fits into the slot 1 and the new PGA processor inserts onto this card.

You don't have to re format the hard drive if you don't want, but it may not run on the new hardware (if you get a new motherboard)

 

[gn85]

You said you're running WinXP. Have you thought about upping the RAM?? I just got finished working on my father in laws puter... only had 128 and was struggling with XP. I threw an old RAM I had laying around in there that helped it out some, but I would recommend 512 to be a little more comfortable. IMO.

 

[progress1vebmx]

Make sure you get the right ram. Mixing speeds won't work.