Please help....Want to upgrade processor....

[FloppyRod]

I have a Pentium 2 233MHZ processor and I would like to upgrade to a higher powered INTEL processor. How do I go about replacing the one I have? Can I keep the same motherboard? What is the fastest processor that I can put in the machine? If it matters I have a Dell Dimension XPS400. Any help is greatly appreciated.

-Stephen-
floppy_rod@hotmail.com

[FloppyRod]

Can someone tell me a motherboard with a Pentium III processor that I should be able to swap out in my system without adding fans or anything? Or know where I can find a site that will help me out?

[kr0n0s]

if you have a old p2 233 then you will need to replace the CPU Motherboard and ram.... odd are you have pc66 sdram and to get the best out of a p3 you should have pc 133

with all the falling prices this shouldnt cost too much, but for what youll pay for a p3 800 you could prolly equip yourself with a 1.2 and up athlon

[FloppyRod]

Thanks for the reply....I just ordered two 128MB sticks (or whatever you would call them) of memory that will be here on Monday. I got 133 just in case I was ever going to upgrade.

The price of that AMD sounds great, but don't they have problems with video capture? The card that I ordered will be in Tues. (Matrox G400-tv) and I want to stick with Intel so that I won't have problems with that.

If I were to go with Athlon 1.2, are there any motherboard/chips combo that you would recomend? Will everything fit in my Dell case fine and can I use the existing fans?

[kr0n0s]

i think it would depend on if wether or not your 233 was an ATX setup, back when these chips were being used ATX was generally new and there was the option of getting as ATX or still the old AT style. to tell which is which just look at your current motherboard, does it have everything attached (printer port, com ports, PS2 ports for the mouse and keyboard). if all these are built onto the board then your looking good there. if its an AT style then you will need to buy a case.

the only catch may be the plate in the case. by this i mean that every motherboard these days can be different from the rest. 2 PS2, 2 USB, printer, serial, onboard video, onboard sound, scsi, a motherboard could have any combination of these, the way case makers deal with it is to provide many plates which can be interchanged if the motherboard config is changed in an upgrade. the question here is did your machine come with such plates if it is in fact a ATX case?

as far as the amd/intel issue, uhh unless matrox has issues with amd which could result in video capturing problems, i wouldnt be concered with anything youve read about the CPU, im running a 950 duron O/C'd to 1200, and its great, ive never had any problems, i dont use some of the programs you prolly do cause my primary purpose with movies is moving them into divx, my monitor is bigger than my tv so it only makes sense for me to watch the movies on my monitor instead of buying a dvd player and watching them on a small tv.

a divx rip of a movie on average of 90 mins takes me around two hours .. depending on if i decide to use other programs, or just decide to do it while im sleeping or out

i hope some of this helps

[FloppyRod]

OK, I looked at my motherboard and I am almost positive its an ATX. The board is about 11x8 and the connectors from top to bottom (along where the rear of the case) are power cord, keyboard and mouse (side by side), USB, serial and parralell (side by side), AGP, three PCI cards, two ISA cards,

I would like to be able to use 133 SDRAM in the new motherboard (3 Banks)

Could you please tell me a board processor combo that would work with this (if there is one with a case too I might be interested in that). I would like info on one Intel one and one AMD at the same price. Or if you could direct me to a site where I could find out myself and save you the trouble, that would be fine too.

Thanks.

[Stickthrower]

Check out this site for all your hardware questions;

http://www.hardcoreware.net

they even have a realtime price checker for processors and memory.

If you have already bought 2 sticks of PC133SDRAM, you will need to go with an older motherboard. FIC, and ASUS both make inexpensive boards for the Athlon/Duron and PC133 RAM.
Make sure you get one that supports UDMA100, for any future hard drive upgrades.

One last note, your power supply probably isn't up to driving an Athlon @1Gig or higher. You need at least 175 Watts, and 200 W would be better in a non OEM system.

Hope this helps.