Logical/Economical Upgrade to an emachines 5212

[tomcat6]

I have an e-machines 5212 that I am stuck with for awhile. I want to upgrade its performance but have found that I have a few obstacles. I do not want to sink alot of money into this setup because most the components are...cheap. I wanted to overclock the machine but I the bios is locked. I am now thinking that I can either go with a faster Pentium D which is the best I can do with the motherboard (D102GGC2). This came with a D805 2.66Ghz. I could go to a D945 at 3.4Ghz which might show some improvement. This alternative would probably be about $100 - $130 US. The alternative is to replace the motherboard and overclock the D805. The problem with this is that I have an OEM version of XP and I would have to buy a new operating system on top of the board. This would be about $200 - $250 US (with an inexpensive board). How can I get some noticable performance for the least amount of money?????

 

[tomcat6]

I also forgot to add that a mild overclock might set me up with the need for a new PSU and fan.

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

An idea, if a friend has an OEM windows xp cd, you might write down the serial number and try to install it anyway. Microsoft would want you to buy a new copy, but as I see it, if you bought the machine with that license, that is yours, and you should have a legit right to use that license. Anyone else have ideas?

 

[sailer]

tomcat6- I have an old e-machine that I use for some office work. Based on my experience, if you are the original owner and have the original XP CD with the license number, you should be able to get away with upgrading the motherboard and CPU. You may or may not have to call Microsoft for a series of numbers to re-activate the XP when you do this. I have had both the experience of having to call M$ for a re-activation number and also had it re-install without any problem what so ever.

Then again, I worked on one of these for someone else a couple months back and nothing worked in trying to get the licence re-activated. We ended up stripping his e-machine of any usable parts and built an all new machine with them, having to buy a retail version of XP at the same time. In the end, you can only try it and see if it works.

If you don't have the original installation CD and its numbers, you're pretty much out of luck and will have to buy a new license before you do anything. As for the licenses themselves, they have detailed User License Agreements which pretty much say that you never really own the license, but are just renting it from M$, and that they have the ability to revoke that license or otherwise set terms of its use.

 

[tomcat6]

I have looked extensively at the XP issue, thats why I assumed I would have to get a new installation. Do You think I would get much improvement out of a chip upgrade? I have already maxed out the ram which didn't do much.

 

[sailer]

My guess is that a change from the 2.66 ghz D805 to the 3.4 ghz D945 sould give a substantial increase in performance. Also, be sure to get a good aftermarket cooler if you do that, as e-machines do not have the best ventilation. The extra ram probably reduced time that is taken accessing the hard drive, but other than that, it wouldn't give a great boost to speed. The e-machines are just a bit too crude to take full advantage of the ram, as well as having the locked BIOS so you can't properly set the ram clocking.

 

[tomcat6]

Thanks Sailer, although the chip change was my most economical alternative, I was not sure I would get the bang for the buck. I might try finding a cheap 945 until I can do my own (first!) build.