upgrading processor advice?

[poachedeggs]

What governs how much of an upgrade can be made with cpu's? I have a
six-year-old Fujitsu Scenic T, 1.3 ghz (intel celeron). I have souped-
up everything that will co-operate bar the processor.

Thanks.

 

[reikred]

What governs how much of an upgrade can be made with cpu's?  I have a
six-year-old Fujitsu Scenic T, 1.3 ghz (intel celeron).  I have souped-
up everything that will co-operate bar the processor.

Thanks.

Start by figuring out which package/socket the processor/motherboard
has.

Some of the problems you may run into:

1. The motherboard and socket (and BIOS) will limit the speed and
type of processor you can use
2. The motherboard will limit the speed and type of memory you can use

Usually the main problem is that you also want to increase the amount
and speed of memory, and then you find that the memory limit is soon
exceeded, or the type of memory is long gone out of style (and
therefore is expensive or hard to find).

6 years is several generations of computers and technology.

But if you want to do it, Craigslist and equivalent are often good
places to find upgrade components, at least in some parts of the world.

 

[Paul]

What governs how much of an upgrade can be made with cpu's? I have a
six-year-old Fujitsu Scenic T, 1.3 ghz (intel celeron). I have souped-
up everything that will co-operate bar the processor.

Thanks.

If the machine is S370, the top processor was 1.4GHz.

I suspect there may be more than one model of that computer,
so if there is more to the name of the computer than that,
you might try Googling to see if someone has already
tried a different processor in it. The Pentium has
more cache than the Celeron, but that is not going to
make enough difference for the money it would cost.

The "CPUZ" program can be used to give more hardware
details about your machine.

If you want to upgrade, one consideration might be
the OS you're interested in running. If you're already
using WinXP, then no problem finding hardware for
that. If you're running Win98SE, that can be more of
a challenge. I was able to install Win98SE on my
Asrock 4COREDUAL-SATA2 ($70) and Core2 E4700 2.6GHz ($170 retail),
with an old AGP video card. So there are some
platforms that will allow Win98SE to run. Win98SE
will only use one core of the two on the processor,
but is much faster at rendering web pages, than
my old Celeron 1.1GHz. (I installed Win98SE as
an experiment, to see if it would still work.)

Paul

 

[poachedeggs]

There is no reasonable gain to be had, your processor is
already too near the max performance possible from socket
370.   If you want to keep it snappy for basic uses, install
Firefox and block ads, scripts, and flash.  Install an older
Office Suite like Office 2000 or '97.   Compare the OS
memory load to the amount of memory installed and lighten
that load if reasonably possible.

That system might make a reasonable DIY NAS if you tossed a
gigabit ethernet card and SATA RAID card into it, though at
it's present age the motherboard or PSU might be too worn to
expect another tour of duty out of them.   Then again, the
cost of the two PCI cards could just be put towards another
drive for a newer system which would tend to have gigabit
ethernet and raid built-in.

The pc is a Fujitsu-Siemens Scenic T with D1371 mainboard. On a .pdf
I found it says the maximum RAM is 512 mb. However, when I had a
Compaq deskpro just before it I learnt through forums that it could
exceed the manufacturer's specified RAM, and at the time of this
Fujitsu .pdf the machine had a 1.2 ghz processor rather than the 1.3,
so perhaps this .pdf is significantly too contemporary to when the
machine was new and might be ignored. Should I be able to have 1 gb
in there? Money is tight and I'm just souping the machine up
gradually as a hobby interest thing prior to making my first attempt
at assembling it's newest compenents with a new motherboard, though
that is some way off.

So, if you can confirm that I should be able to reach 1 gb, I'll get
512 mb at a time from someone on eBay with 100% feedback.

If it helps you answer, I've looked at the .pdf and can add it has:

Intel 810E2 chipset

FC PGA370 processor socket.

Thanks.

 

[Paul]

The pc is a Fujitsu-Siemens Scenic T with D1371 mainboard. On a .pdf
I found it says the maximum RAM is 512 mb. However, when I had a
Compaq deskpro just before it I learnt through forums that it could
exceed the manufacturer's specified RAM, and at the time of this
Fujitsu .pdf the machine had a 1.2 ghz processor rather than the 1.3,
so perhaps this .pdf is significantly too contemporary to when the
machine was new and might be ignored. Should I be able to have 1 gb
in there? Money is tight and I'm just souping the machine up
gradually as a hobby interest thing prior to making my first attempt
at assembling it's newest compenents with a new motherboard, though
that is some way off.

So, if you can confirm that I should be able to reach 1 gb, I'll get
512 mb at a time from someone on eBay with 100% feedback.

If it helps you answer, I've looked at the .pdf and can add it has:

Intel 810E2 chipset

FC PGA370 processor socket.

Thanks.

This page lists i810E2 as the chipset.

http://www.fujitsu-siemens.co.uk/rl...t/professionalpc/Scenic/scenict/sceniclt1.htm

The i810E2 is listed as "two memory slots, 512MB total max" here.

http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/mature/index.htm

PDF page 81 Section 4.3 of the following doc, lists support for
128megabit chips on the module. 16 of those chips would give a
256MB DIMM. Two 256MB DIMMs achieves 512MB. Table 4 on PDF page 40
shows the programming options of the DRP register, and a 256MB DIMM
consisting of (16) 16mx8 chips is the largest configuration
shown.

http://download.intel.com/design/chipsets/datashts/29067602.pdf

On the next GMCH chip technology wise, Table 4 on PDF page 54
shows the row and column bit requirements. Your chip uses 12row/10column
for a 256MB DIMM. The next modes are 13row/9column and 13row/10column.
Your chip couldn't do those, because it only has 12 address lines. If
you stuck a 512MB chip in the slot, only half of it would be detected
would be my guess.

http://download.intel.com/design/chipsets/designex/29071401.pdf

So unless you can find some evidence in Google, that an 810E board
took larger DIMMs, I would advise against wasting money on the
experiment. 2x256MB is it. I just did a quick check, and the
test results look like a failure. But check for yourself, just
to be sure.

HTH,
Paul

 

[larry moe 'n curly]

The pc is a Fujitsu-Siemens Scenic T with D1371 mainboard. On a .pdf
I found it says the maximum RAM is 512 mb. However, when I had a
Compaq deskpro just before it I learnt through forums that it could
exceed the manufacturer's specified RAM, and at the time of this
Fujitsu .pdf the machine had a 1.2 ghz processor rather than the 1.3,
so perhaps this .pdf is significantly too contemporary to when the
machine was new and might be ignored. Should I be able to have 1 gb
in there? Money is tight and I'm just souping the machine up
gradually as a hobby interest thing prior to making my first attempt
at assembling it's newest compenents with a new motherboard, though
that is some way off.

So, if you can confirm that I should be able to reach 1 gb, I'll get
512 mb at a time from someone on eBay with 100% feedback.

If it helps you answer, I've looked at the .pdf and can add it has:

Intel 810E2 chipset

FC PGA370 processor socket.

Intel 810xx chipset means 512MB is limit. I tried more, and it didn't
take.

Windows 98SE and ME run fine with 256MB. Windows XP, at least XP
Home, seems to run fine with at least 512MB, but forget about trying
that with Vista.

Take a look at Fry's local store ads:

http://newspaperads.mercurynews.com

They also do mail order at Frys.com, but prices aren't always the
same.

Their cheapest deal currently is this $50 mobo w/ Athlon uniprocessor:

http://cdn.travidia.com/rop-sub/24874581

But for $80 you can get this better combo:

http://cdn.travidia.com/rop-sub/24866195

Unless your current power supply has a square 4-pin power connector in
addition to a 20-pin one, you'll need a new one. Cheap is OK, but
junk is not, and power supplies vary more in quality than about any
other PC component does. www.JonnyGuru.com tells you what's good and
what's bad.

Fry's best memory deal now, $20 AR, 2x1GB PC6400 Crucial/Micron or
Crucial/Samsung:

http://cdn.travidia.com/rop-sub/24866645

Skip the Kingston 2GB P5300 deal for the same price or the Corsair
TwinX 4GB pair for $25 because those brands are made with pretty bad
chips, and last week I returned that very type of TwinX -- twice.
Your safest bet is Crucial, but only if it has no heatsinks and works
at completely standard voltage (2.50V for PC2100 - PC3200 DDR, 1.80V
for PC5300 and faster DDR2). There's a good chance that those pair of
1GB Crucial modules were made by Samsung, if not Micron.

 

[Joel]

What governs how much of an upgrade can be made with cpu's? I have a
six-year-old Fujitsu Scenic T, 1.3 ghz (intel celeron). I have souped-
up everything that will co-operate bar the processor.

I don't think you need to ask the question with no direct answer. Or you
just need to drag and drop your soul to some web page like www.newegg.com to
figure out the total cost of your own choice.

Or you just go there to pick the combination then figure out the total.

 

[Joel]

I don't think you need to ask the question with no direct answer. Or you
just need to drag and drop your soul to some web page like www.newegg.com to
figure out the total cost of your own choice.

Or you just go there to pick the combination then figure out the total.

I meant to replace the old horse with a faster donkey.