Hey everyone... usually I am the guy to get answers from, but today I am stumped... Dell has no clue what their machines support and google was no help at all....I would like to upgrade his machine.. he has a pentium 4 with HT i think it's 850.. not positive, i am waiting for him to let me know.. along with the intel chipset the mainboard uses.. it does support PCI express, and DDR2 as I got him a 3850 512 and 2GB of DDR2 for X-mas....can anyone help me figure out what the machine can take for cpu? Thank you all in advance
apparently he went away for the weekend so I will have to wait till monday to get more info from him, also shadow, the machine already has the 3850 installed and running smooth as silk no hiccups at all.... it's a 35w psu from dell go figure.. I was all set to get him a new psu too....
just get new motherboard and cpu, cheap intel chipset with E2160 then overclock it. Due to the low FSB of the E2160 a cheap motherboard will be fine for overclocking it. All in you'd be looking at £90 for a really nice upgrade!
Most motherboards with pcie also support dual core cpus. You should upgrade it, the p4 will severely bottleneck 3850.
Instead of throwing money at an old p4...from Dell, it might be more cost effective to upgrade him a whole new machine.
Well said and true. About the PSU... I strongly advice you get a good PSU( even a Tire 3). Those Dell PSUs are cr@p imo. The Dell PSU will probably die in about 6-8months. The exception is the Dell XPS gaming rigs, i have heard those PSUs are pretty good.
just get new motherboard and cpu, cheap intel chipset with E2160 then overclock it. Due to the low FSB of the E2160 a cheap motherboard will be fine for overclocking it. All in you'd be looking at £90 for a really nice upgrade!
It's a dell so OCing is probably out of the question.
It's a pain but I'd try to figure out what model it is and see what other processors that model offered. There's no guarantee that any faster processors like core 2 duo will be compatible with the BIOS, even if it's known to be compatible with the chipset. Sometimes, the Dell BIOS specifies new support for a processor family.
that is a good point on the chipset compatibility.. I went through this b4 on his machine cuz I was considering it before....I rememeber the chipset definitely supports core 2 I didn't think of the bios stopping it.. I think I may just leave as is..... as far as oc'ing, I thought of that 2, but dell makes sure you can't....
P4HT + PCI-E + DDR2 + 350 watt psu, hmmm, Dimension 8400 ?
You're stuck with P4 5xx and 6xx chips if that's the case, and your power supply should probably last until the fall if it's been going this long, they are more robust than they're given credit for.
Not quite that ez.... some 945/975 chipsets can take the core 2 if they are the proper revision. The 945 and the 975 as specific examples, they were the most well known chipsets that got revisions to support core 2, there may be others. Also, even if the chipset/board does. That doesn't mean dell bios would recognize the new processor. They aren't known to be quite as prompt at bios revisions as aftermarket boards.
just get new motherboard and cpu, cheap intel chipset with E2160 then overclock it. Due to the low FSB of the E2160 a cheap motherboard will be fine for overclocking it. All in you'd be looking at £90 for a really nice upgrade!
thank you everyone.. when he comes back, I was alreeady gonna have him get cpuz etc... however.... the dell bios I think will be the prob.... I know the chipset supports core 2....(not sure about revision) when I have the info, I can check dells website for bios
Still... why not try a BSEL mod? Most people these days have forgotten or don't know about the good old BSEL mods .
The Dimension 8400 already comes with a hyperthreading P4. That means 800 fsb. The 8400 uses the vanilla 925 chipset, meaning that 800 fsb is the highest supported...no pinmod to higher FSB is possible.
Quote :
P4HT + PCI-E + DDR2 + 350 watt psu, hmmm, Dimension 8400 ?
You're stuck with P4 5xx and 6xx chips if that's the case, and your power supply should probably last until the fall if it's been going this long, they are more robust than they're given credit for.
Delluser, that 6xx CPU needs to be 90nm still, iirc. I've looked over this twice before, and I think I remember that 65nm Cedar Mill CPUs (6x1 series) are a no-go.
Dagger: The fact that the 8400 uses the 925 chipset also means that no dual cores are supported. Prescott P4s are where it's at.
To the OP: If this guy's dell is not an older clamshell case 8400, but turns out to be a newer BTX style Dell, you should have at least some sort of dual core support.
Xtreme.PCs@live.com 
.
.