Upgrading Presario 4508

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Licensed to Quill

I have a slightly long in the tooth Presario 4508 which is limited by it's
only being able to handle 64 meg of memory.

Does anyone know if I can upgrade the motherboard using one from a similar
looking Pavilion 6475z (or a 4535)?

(No, I am not suggesting that just becasue they look similar that should
make any difference, I just wanted to preserve the proportions in my studio
layout)

Are these unit's motherboards all standard ATX with standard power
supplies?

Licensed to Quill
 
I have a slightly long in the tooth Presario 4508 which is limited by it's
only being able to handle 64 meg of memory.

Does anyone know if I can upgrade the motherboard using one from a similar
looking Pavilion 6475z (or a 4535)?

(No, I am not suggesting that just becasue they look similar that should
make any difference, I just wanted to preserve the proportions in my studio
layout)

Are these unit's motherboards all standard ATX with standard power
supplies?

Licensed to Quill
Click to expand...

I don't know exactly what a Pavilion 6475z looks like, but from what I
remember of the Presario 4500 it was quite proprietary... The motherboard
was a non-standard LPX, shoehorned into the case with less than 1/2 "
clearance in some areas, with a tiny little Mitac AT power supply that
was worth about 90W, and the memory slots were stategically located
because there was very little space to allow even a memory module to stick
up at a 90' angle to the board.

It's not worth fooling with that system, far better to buy a standard case
with decent power supply. You wouldn't be able to use the Compaq
quickrestore CD anyway, once you replace the board (though of course a
restore cd from the "other" system's board should work).
 
Shrewd response. Only recently with P4 systems (and maybe later P3s?) did
Compaq use more standard parts in its Presarios. Much better to jettison the
box and even buy an inexpensive standard P2 or P3 or P4 system, whatever ones
pocketbook can afford. Those old Presarios are a nightmare to service, too.

.... Ben Myers
 
Thank you for your response: The main point seems to be that if the power
supply simply can't be used for the Pavilion mobo, then the whole upgrade
loses its point: The whole point was that the Pavilion computers are
junkers on which I was HOPING that at least the mobos were usable
 
Better to try to bring a Pavilion back to life. After HP gave up LPX form
factor motherboards, the Pavilions became pretty standard, tho often
underpowered... Ben Myers
 
Actually, the 4508 will only handle 48MB of RAM. The only two 4500 series
machines that could see 64 were the 4528 and 4532.
HH
 
I woudnt mind trying that but the 4535 seems to take a non-standard size
power supply SHAPE which I haven't got and am not prepared to spend real
money buying a specailly shaped ATX PS for a Celeron 400.

This was why I was wondering which parts of the Presario were standard:
Because if I can just put the Pav MoBo in the Pres, it would be a working
computer of some modern use with which I could use a reasonable amount of
memory

I DID manage to get the Pav 4535 to light up the screen but it continuously
loses its BIOS settings annd gives an invalid checksum message on hard boot
(with a standard replacement PS) leading to CANNOT FIND OS whatever I try to
change in the BIOS. As the battery measures just over 3 volts, there may
just be something irretrievably dead about the 6475 mobo which is why I
wanted to test it in a properly working box. (the only other working box is
a similarly vintaged Dimension 233 with a max of 64 Meg which has an even
more nonstandard PS) I should say that when I got it someone had cut off
all the wires to the PS without even unplugging the ATX plug so maybe they
knew more than it was worthwhile my finding out. Isuppose I will take out
the 56K modem and the 6 gig HDD and chuck the rest away

It seems I can't do it the other way around and put the Pres PS in the
smaller Pav because the Pres PS doesn't seem to be in any way standard

I tried asking here abouit the invalid checksum messages on the Pav but no
one had any idea except the obvious 'change battery'
 
Yes, take out the modem and hard drive. Take out the floppy while you're at it.
You never know. Get rid of the rest. Quickly. The Presario 4508 was not born
right... Ben Myers
 
Sorry, Ben that wasnt my point at all: It is the 400 and 433 mhz Celeron
Pavilions which both seem to need chucking away: The Presario, however
feeble, is working to its specification and properly
 
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