478 pin P4 - Prescott or Northwood?

[AbsoluteKevster]

Hello Guys & Gals,

I have an HPD330 (DF388A), running a P4N 2.8ghz.
I am going to upgrade to a faster chip..
But the question I cannot find the answer to is...
Can a 478-Pin P4Northwood CPU simply be replaced by a 478-Pin P4Prescott chip? (Cos 1mb L2 Cache has got to be better than 512KB!)

"That depends on your Motherboard!" I hear you shout..
This is the 2nd part of my mystery - as there's no mention of upgrades in the HP documentation for my 2yr old PC!

Haven't been able to find anything else published... Can anyone help please?
I have ascertained that my board uses the HP82865G/PE/P chipset, which does appear to support Prescott CPU's. (?)
Finally - does anybody have any experience with overclocking Northwood CPU's... I know it can be done.... just trying to weigh up my options.

(The result will be more crunched nuggets! )

Comments/Suggestions/Tea welcome!
Thanks in Advance
Kev

 

[muckshifter]

Simple answer is ... probably NO!

Intel don't make things easy either.

This "PC" is also called the ComCrap Evo (HP bought Compaq) ... amazing where that lead to.

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/s...TPM_344085_rev001_us/TPM_344085_rev001_us.pdf

You have to realise when a propriety manufacturer say you can "upgrade" they usually mean ... add more ram, 'cos they never gave you enough, replace/add another HD/CDRom drive, and that is about it.

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00059140/c00059140.pdf

BYOC

 

[muckshifter]

... and then maybe, you can ???

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/s...TPM_340154_rev001_us/TPM_340154_rev001_us.pdf

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsuppor...skId=101&prodTypeId=12454&prodSeriesId=321857


...

 

[AbsoluteKevster]

Thanks for your thoughts and time on this Mucks.
I might get hold of a 3.4 Prescott and drop it in - it will either work or it won't!

As a side note - I got infuriated with horrific driver support on previous home builds.
The D330 was the first PC I have ever bought as a whole proprietry unit - and I have to say..it's the best one I've ever owned! Everything worked and I've suffered no conflicts at all.
The ONLY problem I am aware of, is the limited BIOS options.
But even older PC's I've owned get to the point where 'nothing fits'.
I know Compaq had a bad reputation many moons ago - but I've used them at work for over 3 years, and had few issues with the hardware itself! Since HP came onboard, things have got even better..

 

[AbsoluteKevster]

Update:
3.4Ghz P4 Northwood Processor DOES NOT work in this system.

Bios boots and flags an unsupported CPU.

D'oh!
So, my simple 'upgrade' is now looking more like another PC build. With outdated hardware. Boooooo!