Old P4 Mobo question

You'll need to find out from Gateway what 533MHz FSB CPUs the system's BIOS will support. One of the problems of buying a prebuilt computer is that the manufacturer often isn't helpful with info about upgrading the system, because they don't make money from that. If you don't get anywhere with Gateway, you may be able to identify the OEM manufacturer of the motherboard and its model number by looking at the MB itself, and pursue your inquiries there. Since modern CPUs costing as little as $60-70 are 4x or more faster than yours, and 4GB of DDR2 RAM can be had for $25, you may want to consider just buying a new MB and RAM and rebuilding your system around that.

The other thing to keep in mind is that a faster P4 CPU will mean more heat generation, so you may have to buy a better CPU cooler as well. Finally, you'll need to make sure that the CPU cooler will physically fit in your system, as prebuilt systems often use non-standard component configurations to save cost.

Try installing & running CPU-Z:

it should report the motherboard manufacturer, model, chipset
and BIOS revision etc. under the "Mainboard" tab.


MRFS

p.s. You're spending money on an obsolete architecture:
mid-range FSB is now 1333 MHz (333 MHz quad-pumped).

RDRAM? DDR2 is still going strong and still runs very fast
(read "excellent bargains galore")


Take a look at Intel's P45 & G45 chipsets for great stability
and very mature technology e.g. ASUS P5Q-EM:

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2365

Gigabyte also has some very fine products with the P45 chipset.


The 45nm dual- and quad-core Intel Core 2 CPUs will all
run circles around your P4. They are also built with
cooler transistors that consume much less power.

FYI: Intel did a detailed study and now they
recycle all their internal PCs every 3 years.


MRFS

I received another response from Gateway...it was a link to the support page (which I have already looked through). This includes very basic information, but no part numbers or manufacturer info. Thanks Gateway!

I have been considering replacing the entire mobo and starting again from scratch. I will run the CPU-Z and take another look...a lot of the >3GHz P4's on ebay are going for around $20 and may be overclocked to around 3-3.5Ghz with a little luck. I thought this may have gotten my by until I built another system. But as it has been pointed out, a new mobo, process, ram, and video card just might make more sense.