Friend needs cpu upgrade.

[neokill3r]

Hi, my friend has this computer that is starting to run really slow. The computer is a dell with 1gb of ram, some kind of agp graphics card and a celeron 330. He is on a really tight budget so I was wondering if there was any cpu I could drop in to make it faster without changing the motherboard or heatsink. Thank you in advance for your help.

 

[lunyone]

The answer is......Don't know. We need a little more information about the computer. What is the model # of the Dell, this way we can research the system and be better able to help/assist you.

 

[m25]

Well, some time ago, there was an almost identical post to this and all started replying until someone realized it was started back in 2000 :lol:
Now, back to your problem; a dropin CPU or anything else on that platform would just be wasted money, because performance would still be far from that of a decent PC. However, some dirt cheap upgrade pieces I would recommend are:

Socket 754 Sempron 2600+ for $26 (this performs more or less like a 2.4GHz Pentium4):
http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=SDA26BX_64

motherboard with onboard video for $41 (because old AGP cards wont work on the latest AGP-supporting mobos). This is great because has PCI-e x16 too:
http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=MB-761GX

a basic 256MB of DDR RAM for just $18 (but you can add more if you want)
http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=D256M400TE

a total of only $85 and you're done; this is the most unbeatable price/performance for this budget.

 

[m25]

need the socket name like 370 or 478

he said Celeron 330 (333MHz); that can only come in socket370 or slot1 boards.

 

[neokill3r]

Well its actually a celeron d 330 2.66ghz on socket 478. I defragged it and despywared it but avg says it has like 300 viruses and It won't delete them (even in safe mode.) The thing is that its a small hard drive but it takes forever to scan it so it really annoying trying to scan it for viruses all the time.

I was wondering if he could just drop a socket 478 pentuim 4 in there with a new heatsink? like this? Intel Pentium 4 2.4B Northwood 2.4GHz 512KB L2 Cache Socket 478

Oh and it is a dell so doesn't it need a certain kind of motherboard?

 

[m25]

Well, that's a lot of difference if you add that 'D'
If his motherboard is running on a CeleronD (Prescott core), he can aim at a higher clocked and cheaper Prescott Pentium4 leke this:
http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=3.0E-8001M
Don't know if it has HT but the price is not bad for a Socket 478 CPU and will perform better than the 2.4G Northwood.