Upgrade from Pent4 (1.6) - Pent4 (3.0+) How/What do i need

[Denvers Dawgs]

I want to upgrade my HP PC from the Pentium 4 1.6ghz it came with 4 years ago, to a newer 3.+ Pentium. What do I need inorder to do this, and where should I get it?

Everything is running fine with the computer, but I would just like to make it a bit faster......

[budz]

you would need to find out if your motherboard will support a faster cpu....otherwise you would have to get a new motherboard as well......here's a link for pent 4 processors.....i would suggest you get a NORTHWOOD processor than a PRESHOT oops i mean PRESCOTT....

http://www2.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Manufactory=1157&PropertyCodeValue=507%...ubmit=Property

[Denvers Dawgs]

How easy is it to install one of these?

[rallynavvie]

I think it's easy to swap out CPUs, but it's scary the first time you do it. The trickiest part is actually applying thermal paste to the CPU and mounting the HSF to it. I suggest Arctic Alumina thermal PASTE (not adhesive) as it has almost identical thermal properties as Arctic Silver but with none of the conductivity so you can afford to be a little sloppy with. Apply little drops of the stuff and spread it with a credit card or similar so that there is a very thin coating of the stuff on the die, then attach the HSF to the socket. Try to keep the compound on the die and not all over.

[rkr1958]

Other compatibility issues you need to worry about is Front-Side-Bus Speed and RAM speed. If it were me I'd consider both a CPU and Motherboard upgrade. Upgrading a 4-year P4 1.6-GHz CPU to a P4 3.0-GHz one using the same motherboard just seems a bit dicey to me. Anyway ... good luck.

[erdons]

Depending on that old mobo i would say that the highest it will go is 533mhz fsb. Like rkr1958 said, upgrading the mobo and the cpu would be the best thing here. You can do this fairly cheap for less than 3 hundred dollars and it would be a major difference. I just got an asus p4p800se and a p4 3.0ghz preshott with stock heatsink, fan and some as5, the thing oc's very nicely and idles at around 39 degrees celcius.

[guns1inger]

4 year old motherboard isn't going to take the upgrade. Get a new motherboard, new cpu, new ram. As you are running XP, you can probably upgrade without a reinstall, and will probably only have to reactivate. Just put everything back together with the new motherboard (make sure your disks go back on the same IDE channels, then boot from your XP disk. Don't let it repartition. It should find your old installation, and offer you the chance to do a repair install. Do this, and it will leave all your old settings and apps in place, but install the new drivers for the motherboard and supporting chipset. A reboot or two later and all should be well.

[stiltman]

As a second idea, since your motherboard wont take a 3ghz chip, you can however upgrade it to a 2.6ghz chip. That's the max you can go for a 400FSB motherboard. BTW, the 2.6 chip is sometimes hard to find (in stock) now a days

[Denvers Dawgs]

ok thanks for all the help....

[ViRaL1]

Something to consider.

The downside of the 2.6/400 and other 'end of the line' chips like the 3.06/533 is that sometimes you can come out pretty close getting another processor with a higher bus speed AND a mobo for it. Because these chips are as fast as you can get on a given bus, they draw a premium over newer chips that are still in production.

[Denvers Dawgs]

huh? I just wanted to make this one a little fast, thats all. In a year or two I will most likely get a whole new cpu....

[rallynavvie]

...and other 'end of the line' chips like the 3.06/533...

Hey! Not all 3.06/533 chips are "end-of-the-line" :P

[ViRaL1]

Do they make a P4 (or Xeon) faster than 3.06GHz with a 533FSB?

[rallynavvie]

Yeah, there were three different revisions of 3.2/533 Prestonia Xeons. I don't think the 533 P4s went past 3.06 though. And remember that Xeons didn't have 800 FSB solutions until only a year ago, the 800 FSB P4s have been around for what, 3 years now?