pentium 3 upgrade?

P3 1.4 as of a Slot 1 motherboard.
What type of games do you play? Or want to play...
With your credentials, you'l barely be able to play, as ex:HL2, if at all.

Unless you play old games.
To add, for most mainstream games later than the year 00', you'd need to do a full rehaul. AGP card as 99% of games need a GPU now, more ram, a new PSU to accompany the graphics card and ect.
You'd be better off building a box man unless you play the origional HL or CS - a 400$ PC would do for you not to mention, with advances, being rediculously faster than upgrading to your current motherboards potential.

will any P3 possessor plug in or what. i know enough on how to change parts but not interchangabilty

You've got to find out if your motherboard supports Socket 370 or Slot 1. The easiest way is to open the case. If you see what looks like a Super Nintendo cartrige on the motherboard, it's Slot 1. If it's a flat cpu with a fan, it's S370.
I may had been wrong about Intel making a slot 1 P3 1.4.
Good reference checking site: http://www.pricewatch.com/cpu/

Ebay.

They never made a slot 1 1.4Ghz PIII. They introduced them only for 370.

Define "certain games" in:

With or without an upgrade that system can work as a server/NAS, a carputer, a kids computer, part of a rendering farm/other cluster, or just as a porductivity computer, but modern gaming computer: never.

I get systems like this or even older for free all the time from family members and friends. I shread the data, reinstall an OS, and give it a way to familes that don't own a computer.

Many people here are forgetting that e P3 1.4GHz is pretty hard and relatively expensive to find these days.
Especially if you have one of those P3 boards with DDR RAM (and you have RRD sticks), at ewiz.com you can find some good bargains on very cheap, but still contemporary parts for putting togeather a decent PC. I'm not sure but that case should comply with the ATX standard:

Socket 754 Sempron 2600+ for $28
http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=SDA26BX_64

PC CHIPS A31G Socket754/761GX/PCI-E/A&V&L/MATX Motherboard
(this is great value because for $36 has onboard video and both AGP and PCI-E x16 slots)
http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=MB-A31G

All these are much better parts than your system with a 1.4 GHz PIIIs and maybe kill even a 2.6 GHz Pentium4 in gaming. If you don't have DDR RAM it's not that hard to find a cheap 512MB stick. This setup is also very power saving an should ensure that you keep your old power supply if it's rated 300W and above, just make sure you can install a Micro-ATX board there.

Not replying to you in particular Crashman, just too lazy to scroll...

to the OP, i strongly suggest you buy a new computer, but not from Dell etc, try to learn assemble your own pc man, you would feel really great/satisfied even if you couldn't buy top-end, state-of-the-art hardwares....but if you could, then go for it, it's more worthwhile

Willamette was worse than the later P3's

You can find PIII-Ss on ebay for around 50 dollars US, which is a lot of money for the performance, but cheap for a decent upgrade to an old machine that you just want to keep running. PIIIs also only ever used SDRAM, which is one of the reasons PIIIs outsold the early P4s - SDRAM is/was much cheaper than RDRAM (not to mention the late PIIIs beat the Williamette P4s in a lot of benchmarks).

I've always wondered what people meant when they say "light gaming". It implies that the quality you demand from your hardware is directly proportional to the amount of time you invest in games.

Personally, I do not play games that much, but when I do I freak out if I can't max out AA and AF. Most of my friends are like me, and I imagine many people in general feel the same way.

"Light gaming", BAH. [/rant]
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^^
You don't happen to have the link do you? That sounds like a thread of quality.
-cm

Start with Dell Support - there should be a sticker on your box with a specific model # for your build. Enter that model number and view, download and install all the patches/upgrades for your model.

The Dell Optiplex GX110 had an intel 810e chipset - all that I have seen have been s370 'flip chips'. They are great mobos but a bit quirky because of all the stuff you could do with them.

AC97 onboard sound, 100/133 fsb, 2 slots pc100/pc133 sdram-max 512mb, most with onboard video - some with a 3.3v 2x AGP slot.

Some 810e boards were mATX some regular ATX so you probably have anywhere from 3 to 5 pci slots. Some versions even had ISA slots!

I've upgraded and 'maxed-out' a bunch of these boards. The first place to start is with your ram. You need to verify the bus speed (either 100 or 133) of the existing ram and purchase your upgrade ram as appropriate. WARNING - some dingleberry may have populated your box with 2 128mb ram sticks to reach your current level. THAT would be a bummer! (because in order to max at 512mb you would have to find TWO 256mb sticks to replace the 2 128mb sticks)

Depending upon your bios you may well find a P!!! 1.1 ghz flipchip *EB* (133 fsb / atc l2 cache) for less than 20 bucks. Same thing for a vid card if you have the 3.3v 2x AGP slot on the mobo. Pricewatch and ebay are your friends!

You are looking at a $50-$60 investment on a machine that's worth maybe $125-$150. Not really a bad investment to max-out the box!

Update to directX 9 if your video aloows (32mb minimum I believe ???) - and you may want to find a 10/100tx nic card for around $5.00. If I remember correctly these puppies didn't believe in onboard LAN.

Good luck and enjoy!

How do you like that 3200+, Adam?
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Wow, nice overclock. I have the slowest A64, the 2800+. It runs everything too. It makes me wonder what the Cores are like if these (now) cheap processors seem like beasts to us... a Core would be amazing...
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