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Upgrading Old Socket N / 478

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tlswift   11-09-2009 at 03:39:50 PM

I have a friends desktop he inherited and it has a "blazingly" fast 1.5 GHz Processor at 400FSB. He definitely is NOT a power user and wants to upgrade the processor and RAM (1GB / PC133) if not too outrageous. How fast a processor will fit into the Socket N / 478 400FSB board. Oh, by the way - it's a Dell Optiplex 240.

Any ways to overclock these processors, as Dell is / was so proprietary in their BIOS and such that you had no control over overclocking.

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ulysses35   11-09-2009 at 06:07:25 PM
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To be honest you will be lucky to find anyone that has an old socket 478 CPU to sell - even used ones are hard to find these days.

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tortnotes   11-09-2009 at 06:11:12 PM
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Best you could probably find is a 2-3GHz P4. And old RAM is expensive unless you find some on eBay or Craigslist... depending on budget it might be better to start with a newer motherboard or barebones system.

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MU_Engineer   11-09-2009 at 06:15:10 PM
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tlswift wrote :

I have a friends desktop he inherited and it has a "blazingly" fast 1.5 GHz Processor at 400FSB. He definitely is NOT a power user and wants to upgrade the processor and RAM (1GB / PC133) if not too outrageous. How fast a processor will fit into the Socket N / 478 400FSB board. Oh, by the way - it's a Dell Optiplex 240.

Any ways to overclock these processors, as Dell is / was so proprietary in their BIOS and such that you had no control over overclocking.



I betcha the fastest CPU that will work in there is a 2.0 GHz P4 Willamette. Since the unit uses PC133, it is one of the first P4 boards and many of them don't take 400 FSB Northwoods, particularly OEM units like your Dell. I'd get a cheap new unit if I were your buddy.

------------------------------ Upcoming Overdue Build: Dual-socket workstation, ~32 GB DDR3, OS on a fast SSD, high-end GPU, all wrapped up in a huge tower case. Coming H2 2011.

Yes, I am actually still running the Pentium III 1.0B Coppermine in the picture.
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das_stig   11-09-2009 at 09:14:20 PM
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System specs @ http://support.dell.com/support/ed [...] tm#1106346

Fastest CPU on a 400FSB 512K L2 is a 3GHz Northwood, but they are rare, so you should look for a 2.6GHz or 2.8Ghz.

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ElMoIsEviL   11-09-2009 at 09:22:33 PM
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tlswift wrote :

I have a friends desktop he inherited and it has a "blazingly" fast 1.5 GHz Processor at 400FSB. He definitely is NOT a power user and wants to upgrade the processor and RAM (1GB / PC133) if not too outrageous. How fast a processor will fit into the Socket N / 478 400FSB board. Oh, by the way - it's a Dell Optiplex 240.

Any ways to overclock these processors, as Dell is / was so proprietary in their BIOS and such that you had no control over overclocking.



Taken from: http://support.dell.com/support/ed [...] tm#1112435

Quote :

Microprocessor

Microprocessor type


Intel® Pentium® 4 microprocessor. Design provides for future Dell-supported upgrades. A slower compatibility speed can be set through system setup

Level 1 (L1) cache


8-kilobyte (KB)

Level 2 (L2) cache


1.5–2.0* GHz processors: 256-KB pipelined-burst, eight-way set-associative, write-back static random-access memory (SRAM)

2.2–2.6 GHz processors: 512-KB SRAM

Math coprocessor


internal to microprocessor

Memory

Architecture


133-megahertz (MHz) synchronous dynamic random-access memory (SDRAM)

Dual in-line memory module (DIMM) sockets


two error-checking and correction (ECC) and non-ECC

DIMM capacities


64-, 128-, 256-, and 512-megabyte (MB)

Minimum random-access memory (RAM)


64 MB (128 MB when running Windows 2000 or Windows XP)

Maximum RAM


1 GB

Basic input/output system (BIOS) address


F8000h

Computer Information

Computer chip set


Intel 845

Data bus width


64 bits

Address bus width


32 bits

Direct memory access (DMA) channels


four

Interrupts


15

Computer BIOS


Desktop Management Interface (DMI) 2.0s- and system management BIOS 2.3-compliant BIOS in 4-megabit (Mb) flash chip

System bus speed


100 megahertz (MHz) clock, 400 MHz data rate

Network interface controller


integrated 3C920-based 10/100 3Com® Ethernet controller



I've placed the important information in bold.

Intel Pentium IV Northwood (400MHz FSB/512KB L2 Cache) Processors are the highest the system will support.

RAM wise the highest is 1GB (which your friend has already).

------------------------------ Intel Core i7 920 D0 @ 4.4Ghz (HT on) | eVGA X58 Classified Hydro | 6x 2GB Corsair XMS3 Dominator GT PC3-2000 DDR3 RAM | ATi Radeon HD 4870X2 2GB Graphics Card | ATi Radeon HD 4870 1GB Graphics Card for Tri-Fire | eVGA 9800GT 512MB PhysX Card | Intel Pro/
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