P3 500Mhz-1Ghz

[flamethrower205]

Hi,
a friend of mine has a P3 500Mhz, in a Dell which he bought 2 years ago. He wishes to upgrade to 1Ghz. Will this be possible (w/ bios update of course); has there been change in the socket/slot necessary for Pentium 3 from 500Mhz to 1GHz?

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[RichardJSampson]

Most likely the P3 500 your friend has is the Katmai core, which was far inferior to what your friend wishes to upgrade to, the Coppermine core. His current chip is likely a slot 1 processor, which will obviously not accept the Socket 370 PIII 1GHz chip. They do have a converter that will allow for the upgrade, I've heard it called a "slotket" but I do not know what this costs. Your friend might want to consider getting a new motherboard entirely, though, because chances are he is running on the 810e chipset, which was originally designed for the Celeron, and would drain the new chip's performance. Furthermore, you won't be able to overclock on the OEM mobo either, and the 1 GHz chip should be able to get pretty close to 1200 MHz in overclocked mode with a good fan/heatsink. I know you can get a decent 815e chipset mobo for 50-60 dollars if you look hard. THat's probably his best bet right now.

 

[Crashman]

Your friend probably has an older BX motherboard. Many of these DID support Slot 1 Coppermines, but only at 100MHz FSB, and with the latest Dell BIOS. The fastest common Slot1 Coppermine is the PIII 850. Harder to find are the 900 and 1000E (as opposed to the 1000EB which runs at 133FSB). The 1000E is a specialty product and cost a lot of money.
So I'd say get the latest BIOS in the thing, and if it's a BX, go for the 850.
Let me know if it's a newer chipset than the BX, you get a different set of options then.

Back to you Tom...

 

[Crashman]

Motherboard replacement would require a new power supply and a modified front panel header. Both were proprietary on Dells.

Back to you Tom...

 

[Guest]

all questions regarding upgrading a dell:
<A HREF="http://www.roberthancock.com/dell/" target="_new">http://www.roberthancock.com/dell/</A>

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[flamethrower205]

New power supply won't be necessary if he upgrades to 1Ghz P3, right?


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[FatBurger]

If he's going from Katmai to Coppermine, yes. Dell includes only the bare minimum of PSUs.

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[Crashman]

No, he would not need a new power supply simply to replace the processor. The Coppermine uses less wattage than the old Katmai core CPU.

Back to you Tom...

 

[flamethrower205]

This is the mobo (this is what sisoft sandra said for chipste):SYS CHIPSET Intel Corporation 82443BX/ZX 550BX/ZX CPU to PCI Bridge [AGP Implemented]
this is BX I assume- so it will support the P3 1GHz, right?

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[Guest]

If he gets a new motherboard, he'll need a new PSU as well, as dell shipped those machines with a special PSU with an additional P4-style 4 cable connector. It wont power up if its not connected (I know, I had one).

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[Crashman]

I already mentioned the different power supply in my second response. In fact even the older Dell power supplies without the extra power connector still had the pins arranged differently than standard.

Back to you Tom...

 

[Crashman]

It would, but Dell does not support a 133FSB. So your stuck with 100MHz FSB processors. The 850E is standard and not too expensive. The 900E is out of production for a while now, and never was produced in large amounts to begine with. The 1000E (NOT EB!) is still available but at a singnificant price over the common 1000EB. I think the 850 is your best choice.

Back to you Tom...

 

[flamethrower205]

If he were to get a converter, would that allow him to use teh regular 1GHz?

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[Crashman]

No. The regular 1Ghz is 7.5x133. His motherboard does not in all likelyhoos support a 133MHz FSB. Therefore a 1000EB would run at 750MHz instead of 1000. While the BX is capable of 133MHz, it was not originally intended for that speed, so there is no BIOS option for it on most OEM motherboards, especially those made by Intel. The only way for him to get a 133MHz FSB would be to use SoftFSB or some other software bus speed program. And that's not garunteed to work. So 850 is his best option.

Back to you Tom...