Can I upgrade my CPU?

Question

Can I upgrade the CPU in my nearly 3 year old Dell Dimension 3000. I have an Intel Celeron 2.4 processor in it. It also has a gig of ram, and a 7200rpm hard drive. Was wondering if i could upgrade it myself? I am very mechanical and good with stuff like this, i just never have done anything this serious to my computer before. The reason I asked, is that I recently purchased a game that takes a 2.6 gigahertz processor, and I didn't realize it till I got it home and installed it and tried to play it. I don't want to buy a new computer if i can help it because i like this computer and its been a great computer for me.

Several of you have mentioned the socket, how do I find that information about my computer?

Answer 1

You can definitely upgrade your CPU. It doesn't take much technical knowledge, either. I replaced the CPU in my laptop and upgraded the RAM at the same time. Wait until after Christmas and look on Ebay for your components. Right now there are lots of uninformed people overbidding on there right now.

Answer 2

If I am not mistaken the motherboard that is in that computer is an Intel 865GVHZ. You can take the side panel off and look between the memory slots and the processor socket and there should be an Intel motherboard printed in that area.

If it is the 865GVHZ then here is a link for info on the board. Here you can find out what type of processor you can upgrade to.

http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/d865gvhz/index.htm

There are a few videos on the web that will walk you through how to change out the processor.

Here is one I found on YouTube.. pretty basic, but shows the steps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSFOfAGjql0&feature=related

Where to pick up a processor, well the best time for getting one is right after Christmas on Ebay, because everyone is installing their new hardware and selling things off cheap.

Just find a person that has good feedback.

You will need the Socket 478 processor, they are still pretty cheap. Since you are using a Celeron right now, look for a processor that comes with a Heatsink and fan also. One that is rated for the processor you will be installing.



Get a program called PC Wizard and run it. It will tell you everything you need to know about your computer. It will tell you what type of processor, type of socket, drive info, memory info. All without opening your computer.

Here is a link:

http://www.cpuid.com/download/pcw2008_v180.exe

Answer 3

To say you can not compare them at all is not strictly true, you can not give direct comparison ok, but you can put it in to context...although you will need to do some serious resource monitoring to really gauge how much of a benefit any upgrade would give you. For example upgrading the RAM when you are not fully maximising what you have already will see little to no benefit. Whereas, if you monitor page file usage / page faults and notice a constant heavy trend occuring (i.e. many page faults), more RAM will help. (A page fault, in over simplified terms, is when a program looks in memory for a program but it's not there so it fetches it from disk). Disk replacement will only help if you are using disk instensive applications. This can be misleading though, dont assume that just because you machine accesses the disk a lot that its because the application requires it. You page file is also on the disk so your first check your RAM as above to make sure this is not causing excessive disk usage. Final point, disk swaps on a laptop are quite usually a pain in the @ss. Unless you have two 2.5" HD drive bays and a copy Ghost. Anyway, first thing to check with regards to the RAM upgrade: run perfmon (Start->Run-> perfmon (and click ok) ) on the system monitor add a counter (click the + button above the graph) Select the Memory category and add Page Faults/sec from the list. Ok everything untill you get back to the graph, it should now be counting. Now is the tricky part, you need to try guage when there is a problem, to do this open a few programs, maybe just one or two more than you would normally have (like maybe 3 or 4 internet explorers, outlook, word, excel) let the system idle, that is wait until absolutely everything has finished loading completely. That does not mean when they show on the screen, that means when your disk stops going so crazy! Your page faults graph will most likely spike and max out whilst loading everything dont worry this is fine. Once everything is sitting open you want to start watching the graph again, maybe move back and forth a bit between windows or type a url into one of the IE windows. Remember, the graph will spike, that is normal but you need to look more for a baseline average here. For example if the graph is consistently running above say 16 (using the 0-100 scale at the side) then I would say you could benefit from more RAM. This again is a bit vague, some people say as low as 5 others say its not a problem till you are over 40 but from my experience 16 - 20 seems about right. To bring this all to a conclusion, how does this help the CPU? (Again this is vastly over simplified) Well, every time a page fault occurs the memory subsys must go interupt the processor, go fetch the necessary data from disk and load it in to memory. This takes CPU cycles. So by adding more RAM your computer does not need to pull in data from disk so much and therefore does not bother the CPU as much.

Answer 4

yes, upgrading your CPU is possible, only thing to look for when buying your new CPU is your motherboards socket type. the socket type will decide which kind of processors it will accept.

after buying an appropriate CPU, just line up the pins on the back of the processor push it into place, and secure the heat sink and fan which will be included with your CPU purchase.

documentation for the installation will come with the CPU and can also be found on the company's website.

Answer 5

You can upgrade it, just go to newegg.com and buy the CPU that will fit into your socket type. All you have to do is pop it in the socket, apply some thermal grease, put the heat sink back on and your good to go. Make sure the computer is off and unplugged before you do anything to it but I think you understand that.

Answer 6

yes on ebay you can get up to a 3.0 for about $35. one problem with you motherboard is you can not put a good graphic card in it you have to go with PCI socket not the newer PCI express.

Personally I would step it up a notch for just for just $15 to $40 dollars more and you can use you same memory and every thing else plus the on board video will be better then the DELL plus you will have some future expansion you can put a new style video card and will make your games much better.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813135057
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813135060


you socket is an intel 478 you can not go any higher then a 3.0

Answer 7

Check the motherboard and the socket size. Oh, hell, just ask Dell about it. Their support is very good.

Answer 8

yes u can upgrade it...speak to dell sales get the info and buy the new processor where ever u want to buy it from////

Answer 9

Yes as long as the socket is the same.

Answer 10

You can upgrade to the UPC.
http://www.readytobefree.com