Dell processor upgrade

[moray 0]

Anyone know anything about upgrading the processor on a Dell Desktop machine?

 

The Dell website says "don't do it" and come up with some lame excuse about their moBos being carefully balanced to support the components supplied.

 

I have a Dell Dimension PII 350MHz and have upgraded or replaced about every other compnent except for the board and processor. Does anyone have any experience of ripping bits of Dell circuitry out and replacing it with something more up to date?

 

Thanks

 

Moray

[Brian Frank 0]

If your gonna upgrade the motherboard, its a very good idea to reformat and reinstall. Its best to do this, because Windows will get confused, and then complain, which will cause you to complain.

You should be able to just get a new motherboard and processor and put it in.

Depending on how cramped it is you may have to remove a lot of the drives to remove it, and maybe even the power supply.

As long as its an ATX case, you shouldnt have problems. If you plan on getting an Athlon, having a 300 watt power supply will help, or if you have a lot of stuff now. Anything below 250 watts is not advisable.

It would almost be more prudent to just buy an new case to go along with the board and processor, then, since you'd be taking out most of the components anyway, you could just transfer the parts over.

[SimiaN 0]

you may have an issue with it being a proprietary case or something of that nature. It doesnt sound super proprietary as you have already upgraded other things and it still works, you just have to make sure it is a standard atx config on the back of the box.

 

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I cant help it I have Attention Deficit...hey whats that over there?

[kingtrey 0]

hey moray, whats up? i had a Dell Dimension with a Pentium II 400 in it, and i popped a Pentium III 800 in it and it runs just fine. VERY fast i might add all you have to do is change the CPU ... don't go any higher than 850 though or its too unstable according to a Dell messageboard. the clock multipiler is in the chip so don't worry about setting anything, you just put the chip in and turn the computer back on. its the easiest upgrade i've ever done. let me know if you have any other questions.

[moray 0]

Thanks for the suggestion Kingtrey

 

What does everyone else think about this? Will the motherboard be happy if I just replace the PII 350MHz chip with a PIII x00 chip?

Do I need a new power supply or fan or anything else?

 

Regarding the case issue - I have replaced the graphics card, hard drive and internal modem and added RAM. None of this has any implication for the space within the case.

 

Moray

[three 0]

i'd say crack open the case and see the make of the mobo, write the model number down, then go to the manufacturers website and check out the specs...see what the limitations are on the processors it'll allow, that would be the first step.

[clutch 1]

I would be interested in seeing if the voltage steps down for the newer processors. When he went from a PII 400 to a PIII 800 there is a bit of a voltage drop associated with the new CPU.

 

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Regards,

 

clutch

[Brian Frank 0]

Depending on the motherboard, you may have to flash the bios for it to work with a P3 that high, as that board would be 'old' in computer history.

[moray 0]

This is turning into an interesting thread.

I have since discovered that the mobo was based on the Intel SE440BX Slot 1 board.

 

BIOS is flashed as far as it will go.

 

There is an excellent online resource for any other Dell owners wanting to upgrade here

 

http://roberthancock.netfirms.com/dell/index.htm

 

There are a few issues regarding processor voltage and potential thermal overloading, but all things considered, it looks like I can just swap processors and not worry about new power supply or mobo. Different processor architecture is a consideration (SECC or SECC2 vs PCA or FC-PCA) and may necessitate a slocket (socket adaptor).

 

See also the Delltalk upgrade forum for info

http://webtalk.us.dell.com

[Brian Frank 0]

Hmm...is just the INTEL BX board or another brand WITH the BX chipset on it? If you have the Intel SE440BX, it could pose a problem. If its the SE440BX-2, you have a much better chance of it going through. You may have to get a slocket adapter to use a P3, but that's not to say you will. If its an Intel board, check their website about the board. If its not Intels BX board, find out who made it. Look between the PCI slots to find the manufactuer of the board, just to be sure who made it.

 

BTW its PGA and FC-PGA (Pin Grid Array and FlipChip-PinGridArray).

 

[This message has been edited by Brian Frank (edited 23 March 2001).]

[kingtrey 0]

when i upgraded my chip, i didn't upgrade anything else at the time. my power supply is the same as it was the day i got my PII 400. the comment about the voltage drop is correct, which is why this works so well. you don't need a new fan or anything like that, just make sure you get a good heatsink for the chip, or get it in a boxed set that comes with a preattached heatsink, thats what i did.

 

i have the latest bios availible for my mobo, i think its the A13 bios from the Dell site. make sure you have that ... the only other issues i can think of are all software related; make sure you have latest drivers for all your other hardware, or just reinstall Windows after you do the upgrade as a last resort if you have weird problems. otherwise, the CPU upgrade should go without any trouble.

 

btw - i used that website you posted as my guide for the whole thing, they sure know their stuff

[Igor 0]

DELL doesn't want to to upgrade because they want you to sell a new system

But I did replace a few CPU's on DELLs with a bit faster cpu and it was all ok.

What you need to do is to go to dell site and check to see what is the fastst CPU they sell that model with and that is what u can go up to.

In most cases you can't go to P3 if you just have a P2 model.

[Brian Frank 0]

Well, look at it this way: if the processor doesnt work, you can either take it back or buy a motherboard to support it. You wont know until you try.

[moray 0]

Thanks for all the comments on this thread however I must disagree with Igor about the possibility of upgrading a P2 machine with a P3 chip.

This site, lays it all out complete with testimonies from user who have successfully done it.

http://roberthancock.netfirms.com/dell/index.htm

 

The key point is that there is the newer P3 chips run on LOWER voltages than the old P2 chips (until you get towards 1GHz) so there is no problem with the power supply. The P3 has its own heatsink and fan and the motherboard (a variant of the Intel SE440BX) has a socket to plug the fan straight in so there shouldn't be a cooling problem.

 

The bios will not recognise the chip as a P3 because the board and Bios were both created before the advent of P3 chips, however although wrongly labelling the chip it still runs and everything zips along a hell of a lot faster than it did before. Or so I am told....I'll be trying it out soon and will let you know if I run into problems - i am prepared to eat my words if it all goes pear-shaped!!

 

Moray

[moray 0]

Hi again

 

I thought you might be interested to look at this page. It shows good pictures of a P2 to P3 upgrade in progress.

 

http://mav.net/phil/dell.shtml