Help with 440BX chipset

  • Thread starter Thread starter Aidan
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A

Aidan

I'm hoping someone can help me out here. I'm looking to upgrade my parents
computer for them as it is currently a 500Mhz P3 with 128MB RAM running XP.
My question lies in getting them a new CPU. The motherboard is a Dell from
about 5 years ago with the 440BX chipset and Slot 1 design. What is the
maximum this chipset will allow? I've been searching for a few days now and
can't seem to find the info I need. Can I use one of the Slot 1 adapters
I've seen around the net with a new Celeron at 1.1GHz or so? Even called
Dell in hopes that they might be of assistance but it seems as though
they've grown a bit too much to be as much help as they were then. The
memory is no problem I planned on throwing at least another 128 chip in
there for them, but the CPU is such a drag. Any thoughts?

Thanks much
 
I'm hoping someone can help me out here. I'm looking to upgrade my parents
computer for them as it is currently a 500Mhz P3 with 128MB RAM running XP.
My question lies in getting them a new CPU. The motherboard is a Dell from
about 5 years ago with the 440BX chipset and Slot 1 design. What is the
maximum this chipset will allow? I've been searching for a few days now and
can't seem to find the info I need. Can I use one of the Slot 1 adapters
I've seen around the net with a new Celeron at 1.1GHz or so? Even called
Dell in hopes that they might be of assistance but it seems as though
they've grown a bit too much to be as much help as they were then. The
memory is no problem I planned on throwing at least another 128 chip in
there for them, but the CPU is such a drag. Any thoughts?

Thanks much
Click to expand...
Look at the Powerleap adapters. http://www.powerleap.com They have upgrades
for slot 1 PCs. Costs about $100. Worth looking at to see if it meets you
needs and budget.

JT
 
I'm hoping someone can help me out here. I'm looking to upgrade my parents
computer for them as it is currently a 500Mhz P3 with 128MB RAM running XP.
My question lies in getting them a new CPU. The motherboard is a Dell from
about 5 years ago with the 440BX chipset and Slot 1 design. What is the
maximum this chipset will allow? I've been searching for a few days now and
can't seem to find the info I need. Can I use one of the Slot 1 adapters
I've seen around the net with a new Celeron at 1.1GHz or so? Even called
Dell in hopes that they might be of assistance but it seems as though
they've grown a bit too much to be as much help as they were then. The
memory is no problem I planned on throwing at least another 128 chip in
there for them, but the CPU is such a drag. Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
Why do you need to upgrade the CPU? If it's mainly being used for web,
mail, wordprocessing etc there's no point and sticking in RAM/Faster
HDD will be more beneficial.
 
Till today I am still using my Abit Bx6-2.0 (440BX) with
P3-1ghz
1Gig Ram
Geforce 4 128
and the sucker still rocks with the latest games and apps...
....awesome...best computer investment I ever made. Started this mother with a
Celeron 300A...remember those??? :-)

Redbrick...who loves his CLK
 
Look at the Powerleap adapters. http://www.powerleap.com They have
upgrades for slot 1 PCs. Costs about $100. Worth looking at to see if
it meets you needs and budget.
Click to expand...

+ new processor .... better buy ECS k7s5a + lowest XP cpu you can get + 256mb of
ram, same price, twice the difference

Pozdrawiam.
 
The fastest upgrade available is a "slot T" adapter and a Tualatin celeron
1.3 Ghz chip. Mine is running very nicely at 133 Mhz at 1.74 Gh, 1.75 volts.
Just Google for the slot t adapter.

CC
 
Aidan said:
I'm hoping someone can help me out here. I'm looking to upgrade my parents
computer for them as it is currently a 500Mhz P3 with 128MB RAM running XP.
My question lies in getting them a new CPU. The motherboard is a Dell
Click to expand...
from

<snip>

I think you forgot alt.ibm.toasters, comp.idontknowhowtousenewgroups and
comp.i.cant.stop.adding.groups.
 
I'm hoping someone can help me out here. I'm looking to upgrade my parents
computer for them as it is currently a 500Mhz P3 with 128MB RAM running XP.
My question lies in getting them a new CPU. The motherboard is a Dell from
about 5 years ago with the 440BX chipset and Slot 1 design. What is the
maximum this chipset will allow? I've been searching for a few days now and
can't seem to find the info I need. Can I use one of the Slot 1 adapters
I've seen around the net with a new Celeron at 1.1GHz or so? Even called
Dell in hopes that they might be of assistance but it seems as though
they've grown a bit too much to be as much help as they were then. The
memory is no problem I planned on throwing at least another 128 chip in
there for them, but the CPU is such a drag. Any thoughts?

Thanks much
Click to expand...
A Dell MoBo may not allow any overclocking, so a 100Mhz FSB solution would
probably be best. If you had a 133mhz manual set bios option, you could
do that with PC133 Ram.

Note that my old Abit BX6 (same chipset) ran pretty well with a 450mhz
CPU, and replacing it with a P3-650 OC to 866 only offered marginal
improvement. Probably the 133MHZ memory speed accounts for most of any
gain seen. NOTICEABLE improvement is possible with a good modern disk
replacement, and possibly additional memory if you are not at 128MB at
least. Having as little program loading on startup as reasonably possible
helps too. OS specific tweaks can improve performance as well.

That said, I would give a slot T and a 1.3G Celeron a shot.
 
Aidan said:
I'm hoping someone can help me out here. I'm looking to upgrade my parents
computer for them as it is currently a 500Mhz P3 with 128MB RAM running XP.
My question lies in getting them a new CPU. The motherboard is a Dell from
about 5 years ago with the 440BX chipset and Slot 1 design. What is the
maximum this chipset will allow? I've been searching for a few days now and
can't seem to find the info I need. Can I use one of the Slot 1 adapters
I've seen around the net with a new Celeron at 1.1GHz or so? Even called
Dell in hopes that they might be of assistance but it seems as though
they've grown a bit too much to be as much help as they were then. The
memory is no problem I planned on throwing at least another 128 chip in
there for them, but the CPU is such a drag. Any thoughts?

Thanks much
Click to expand...
Check Upgradeware's site too. Similar to Powerleap adaptors, but
cheaper. One, or both sites discusses speeding up a Dell. sdlomi
 
Aidan said:
I'm hoping someone can help me out here. I'm looking to upgrade my
parents computer for them as it is currently a 500Mhz P3 with 128MB RAM
running XP.
My question lies in getting them a new CPU. The motherboard is a Dell
from
about 5 years ago with the 440BX chipset and Slot 1 design. What is the
maximum this chipset will allow? I've been searching for a few days now
and can't seem to find the info I need. Can I use one of the Slot 1 adapters
I've seen around the net with a new Celeron at 1.1GHz or so? Even called
Dell in hopes that they might be of assistance but it seems as though
they've grown a bit too much to be as much help as they were then. The
memory is no problem I planned on throwing at least another 128 chip in
there for them, but the CPU is such a drag. Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

You can find tons of information specific for your Dell model on the
DellTalk forums hosted by Dell
(http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/). For example, if your
parent's computer is an Optiplex GX1 like mine, you must use a BIOS no
higher than A07, because newer BIOSs for this model had a timing loop
to lock out processors over 600MHz. Another good source of info is
Robert Hancock's site (http://www.roberthancock.com/dell/).

It probably isn't worth upgrading the machine other than adding memory
- either it's OK because it isn't being stressed much (ie, only being
used for web browsing, etc), or they now need so much more performance
that it will need so much upgrading that you're better off buying a
new one.

I'm guessing by the age of the machine that the HD is probably 8 to 20
GHz, probably fine for them. But it might be a slower 5400 RPM model,
and UDMA 33. You'll get better access speed from a Hard drive PCI
controller card - $30

Based on the age, I'm guessing 2x AGP 4~8mb integrated video memory?
Upgrade to 64mb pci vid card for about $35

Upgradeware Slot T adapter -$27 (you'll probably have to buy a 3 to 4
pin converter as the Slot T doesn't come with one and a lot of the
proprietary Dell motherboards did not have extra 3-pin fan connectors;
you also have to buy your own fan)

Celeron 1.3 ~1.4 GHz Tualatin processor $40-$49

128MB PC100 - $10-$35 (some Dells are picky about the RAM; if it
doesn't have a SPD chip, you might get an error: One or more DIMMS are
out of rev. It can be safely ignored, but is a nuisance as the error
stops the boot process until you tell it to continue)
 
cpu upgrade kits
www.newwaveupgrades.com


You can find tons of information specific for your Dell model on the
DellTalk forums hosted by Dell
(http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/). For example, if your
parent's computer is an Optiplex GX1 like mine, you must use a BIOS no
higher than A07, because newer BIOSs for this model had a timing loop
to lock out processors over 600MHz. Another good source of info is
Robert Hancock's site (http://www.roberthancock.com/dell/).

It probably isn't worth upgrading the machine other than adding memory
- either it's OK because it isn't being stressed much (ie, only being
used for web browsing, etc), or they now need so much more performance
that it will need so much upgrading that you're better off buying a
new one.

I'm guessing by the age of the machine that the HD is probably 8 to 20
GHz, probably fine for them. But it might be a slower 5400 RPM model,
and UDMA 33. You'll get better access speed from a Hard drive PCI
controller card - $30

Based on the age, I'm guessing 2x AGP 4~8mb integrated video memory?
Upgrade to 64mb pci vid card for about $35

Upgradeware Slot T adapter -$27 (you'll probably have to buy a 3 to 4
pin converter as the Slot T doesn't come with one and a lot of the
proprietary Dell motherboards did not have extra 3-pin fan connectors;
you also have to buy your own fan)

Celeron 1.3 ~1.4 GHz Tualatin processor $40-$49

128MB PC100 - $10-$35 (some Dells are picky about the RAM; if it
doesn't have a SPD chip, you might get an error: One or more DIMMS are
out of rev. It can be safely ignored, but is a nuisance as the error
stops the boot process until you tell it to continue)
Click to expand...
 
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