Upgrade Dell Dimension 2400

[EquineHero]

I've got a 14 year old Dell Dimension I'm just toying around with. I've got a few spare 478 CPUs lying around that I haven't recycled for gold yet.



I'm also looking for a standard 32-bit PCI SATA card because IDE is officially balls. I've got two 7200RPM 80GB IDE drives but the board doesn't seem to effectively RAID0 the volumes.
Can anyone link me to a standard 32-bit PCI SATA card? Amazon seems to think I'm looking for PCIe cards.

I have some older AGP cards as well I can stick in, I've got an 8400GS I've popped in it for now.

In its current state with 768MB of RAM it can run Windows 7 32-bit just fine, but NFS Underground 2 lags at just 15 frames per second at 800x600, I'm 100% sure this is a CPU limitation, as my laptop's HD 3200 GPU performs worse yet I get 30-60 FPS at 1440x900.

Intel Pentium 4 2.2Ghz, Intel Celeron 2.2GHz, Pentium 4 2.4Ghz, and a Celeron 2.6GHz.

Is the 2.6Ghz Celeron the best thing I have? If so, how can I overclock it on this factory Dell board?

 

[R_1]

not endorsements examples only. Keywords PATA PCI IDE
the single port cards can handle both drives on one cable. I prefer a drive per cable though. good luck

https://www.amazon.com/32bit-SATA-Adapter-VIA6421-XBOX360/dp/B0754F35DP/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1505925166&sr=8-16&keywords=32-bit+PCI+IDE+RAID
https://www.amazon.com/Port-eSATA-External-Internal-Controller/dp/B002XHGL4W/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1505925166&sr=8-10&keywords=32-bit+PCI+IDE+RAID
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAE8G60E1139&cm_re=ATA_raid_PCI-_-9SIAE8G60E1139-_-Product

 

[EquineHero]

not endorsements examples only. Keywords ATA PCI IDE
the single port cards can handle both drives on one cable. I prefer a drive per cable though. good luck

https://www.amazon.com/32bit-SATA-Adapter-VIA6421-XBOX360/dp/B0754F35DP/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1505925166&sr=8-16&keywords=32-bit+PCI+IDE+RAID
https://www.amazon.com/Port-eSATA-External-Internal-Controller/dp/B002XHGL4W/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1505925166&sr=8-10&keywords=32-bit+PCI+IDE+RAID
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAE8G60E1139&cm_re=ATA_raid_PCI-_-9SIAE8G60E1139-_-Product

Do you know if I can boot from the SATA drive with either card?

 

[R_1]

https://www.amazon.com/Monoprice-102664-Combo-Serial-Controller/dp/B001VL9B84?SubscriptionId=AKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q&tag=duckduckgo-ffcm-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B001VL9B84#Ask

this one does. are you installing XP? if so you will need to insert the card drivers during install.

sorry I read you were looking for an ATA RAID card for the 2 x 80GB drives

overclocking on dell boards has always been iffy to non-existant.

 

[EquineHero]

https://www.amazon.com/Monoprice-102664-Combo-Serial-Controller/dp/B001VL9B84?SubscriptionId=AKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q&tag=duckduckgo-ffcm-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B001VL9B84#Ask

this one does. are you installing XP? if so you will need to insert the card drivers during install.

sorry I read you were looking for an ATA RAID card for the 2 x 80GB drives

overclocking on dell boards has always been iffy to non-existant.

I'm going to install 7 32-bit with 1GB of RAM - I'm just playing around here and this rig doesn't really serve a purpose. Perhaps when I'm rich and famous it'll be the guest PC in my massive tower in New York City, but for now it'll sit in a closet when I'm done.

 

[EquineHero]

Funny thing, I installed the 2.4Ghz Pentium 4 I mentioned, and now NFS Underground 2 runs at triple the framerate as before...Holy moley...Myabe this thing is actually usable.

I don't get it though, as the Celeron, according to benchmarks, is actually faster.

I'll run my own and see what's going on with it, maybe just a poorly binned CPU.