Simple upgrades for my Gateway and HP

[keithnh]

Have 2 older computers I want to be my first victims for upgrading with the intention of just making them as fast and modern as they can be economically for internet usage and modern programs. They are both P4 XP machines I believe but the Gateway I just bought is coming with Win 7 Ultimate on it supposedly. The HP had a "no memory" error code(after 7 years of service to me leaving it on most of the time) and HP support said it was either a memory problem, which I switched out and had identical defect, or mobo bad. I've since ordered a replacement used mobo to find wrong rev (E01 vs original D01), plug from power button was different. Tried didnt come up. Then ordered new 351067-001 D02 which has the right power button plug. Now waiting to try but was going to upgrade processor and wanted to choose the best for the mobo. I see the mobo spec'd with 865GV chipset and capable of 400,533, or 800Mhz fsb speed dependent upon the processor. The processors are spec'd as Celeron, Celeron D, Pentium 4 and Pentium 4E. I see various P4 processors some 32 bit some 64 some HT some not. See the Prescott 3.73 has 1066 fsb and 64 bit ... wondered whether it would be worth to change and if would operate at 800Mhz effectively. The 3.46 Prescott a possible alternative. I dont see the 32bit 64bit mentioned in my motherboard manual. Dont know how it affects things really. Probably a big difference in gaming which I currently dont do much of. Probably be best to modify to it for future though if it can be done effectively.

I guess my minimums for these 2 boxes ...

Win 7
P4E 3.0 with HT
800 MHz fsb
3GB 400Mhz PC3200 memory
IDE 100 7200
Ethernet cable modem
Internal wireless card ??
Video card capable of gaming ??

Dont like when video's have to buffer when watching, is there a minimum component spec that eliminates that for now and near future?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks Keith

 

[Dangman]

Just buy a new PC. In fact, you shouldn't have spent any money repairing that HP either or bought that Gateway: You could have saved the money for that new PC. Overall, those systems are just too old to upgrade. In the case of the HP, it's basically completely incompatible with any new part that would actually provide you with a decent performance increase (SATA, PCI-E, newer CPU, etc,)

Any of these Dell desktops would be massive improvements over either PC:
http://www.dell.com/us/p/deals?cs=19&ref=tile1#!dlpgid=popular-desktop-deals&c=us&l=en&ref=tile1

Yes that $250 Dell PC is significantly faster than your P4 or any P4 CPU in existence.

 

[the_servicer]

Yeah, Dell is fine. Just remember you're saving money via unwanted software extras. Another option would be a small, cheap Socket AM1 box from AVADirect.

 

[keithnh]

I dont need the fastest computer in the west. P4's are still snappy enough for me. There is a point where speed increases for the sake of are pointless given my usage anyway. I dont expect to spend more than 100$ a box to have 2 systems that will do me fine, just trying to make the right choices to maximize them. Besides that I would like to get comfortable modifying machines with a successful outcome to become familiar enough with ins and outs to design my own from scratch down the road apiece.

1.Trying to find best processor for my new HP mobo which supports 400/533/800Mhz fsb processor dependent. Looking at SL7PP (29$) but was figuring if I can find a 2MB cache in 478 socket @800 Mhz @3GHz or better I might see noticeable improvement over the 3.0 1MB I have now. I see 478 to 775 socket adaptors but not vica-versa. I see 775 P4's with 64 bit capability but not 478. Heard there are 478 P4's that run 64bit. Havent found the number of them yet. My chipset is 865GV. Not sure it runs 64. Interesting little puzzle to figure out.

2.Have 4 1GB stick PC3200 400Mhz. This fully loads the memory slots to rated maximum memory. Have heard there is only so much recognized ... or "needed" by Windows 3.2GB? so any more doesnt help anything, maybe slows it down?

3.Want to install Win 7 on this XP machine hoping it will at least be supported for awhile longer, and need machine to be up to the task. Not sure whether to it will be 32 or 64 bit I guess thats dependedent on processor I end up with. If the same socket processor will run 32 as 64 then additional pins for the 32 extra bits must not be necessary or there are unused ones in 32 bit mode ??

 

[PornoSatan]

You can't make a P4 modern. You're going to be limited by ram, you're going to be limited by CPU, you're going to be limited by the chipset itself. It won't have USB 3. It MIGHT have a PCI-E x16 slot or it might not. At best it'll have SATA 1 or plain old PATA. That means you're not going to be getting any disk transfers speeds faster than say 140 MB/s or so at the very best assuming SATA 1.

Just go to Newegg and check out their "DIY PC SuperCombos" sections, that will give you a bunch of compatible parts for relatively cheap that you can put together yourself. So not only will you get to upgrade to a much much nicer system for cheap (that isn't hopelessly obsolete like a P4), you'll also learn a thing or two.

And I'm not saying that to be hating on P4's, I actually just restored a P4 based Dell Dimension myself. Received it for free from an older couple and it was slow as molasses until I restored it back to factory and uninstalled a bunch of junk, and now it's been perfect. I installed Final Fantasy 7 on it, high res pack and all and with a nice 17" Dell monitor it's awesome! It doesn't get much use though, mostly printing ebay labels.

But really just buy yourself a pc supercombo from newegg.

 

[Dangman]

I dont need the fastest computer in the west. P4's are still snappy enough for me. There is a point where speed increases for the sake of are pointless given my usage anyway. I dont expect to spend more than 100$ a box to have 2 systems that will do me fine, just trying to make the right choices to maximize them. Besides that I would like to get comfortable modifying machines with a successful outcome to become familiar enough with ins and outs to design my own from scratch down the road apiece.

$100 is still much money to spend on hardware that outdated. You could use both those PCs in a cluster and the dual-Core Celeron in the $250 Dell I posted earlier is still far far superior. Not to mention that the Celeron is not even the fastest CPU on the market: It's the lowest-end Intel CPU on the market now. Yet it still massively outperforms your P4. Especially if you plan on watching youtube or other flash or streaming content in HD. The onboard video of that Celeron CPU actually helps offload the processing of HD content which means lower overall CPU usage and therefore better streaming performance. Your HP mobo doesn't have even an AGP port: It just has PCI slots. As such, you cannot upgrade the video card at all in that HP. Which means that you'll still get choppy streaming performance since that is now going to have to be reliant on the CPU and not the GPU.

Then there's the difference in hard drive performance: That HP only has IDE. IDE hard drives are ridiculously slow by today's standards. Since the hard drive makes a big difference in the overall responsiveness of the PC, just jumping from IDE to a newer SATA drive alone will make a difference. Then there's better driver support in Windows 7 since it's newer hardware and not a bunch of old old hardware that may not have Windows 7 drivers available. So $250 for a massive performance increase and something that accomplishes everything you wanted is a worthwhile purchase.

Unfortunately the experience you'd get from working with those old PCs would be of very little value with a newer system down the road since, as I said earlier, both PCs are incompatible with new part. As such, you'd still have to learn again how to build a new PC these days.

So no, you're not making the right choice here by trying to upgrade a bunch of old old hardware. If you actually use a newer system, you can instantly tell that there's a big difference between your old P4 and virtually any modern CPU in web browsing and normal usage.

1.Trying to find best processor for my new HP mobo which supports 400/533/800Mhz fsb processor dependent. Looking at SL7PP (29$) but was figuring if I can find a 2MB cache in 478 socket @800 Mhz @3GHz or better I might see noticeable improvement over the 3.0 1MB I have now. I see 478 to 775 socket adaptors but not vica-versa. I see 775 P4's with 64 bit capability but not 478. Heard there are 478 P4's that run 64bit. Havent found the number of them yet. My chipset is 865GV. Not sure it runs 64. Interesting little puzzle to figure out..

If you still insist on making a mistake, at least minimize the mistake: Virtually every single OEM back then and even today locked the BIOs of their motherboards. As such, just because the 865GV chipset itself may support higher-end CPUs, HP may have actually locked the BIOs to support only certain lower-end CPUs. So find out exactly what CPUs your HP actually supported when it was released.

No, you're not going to see any sort of noticeable performance between a 1MB and 2MB cache. What exact CPU do you have now?

2.Have 4 1GB stick PC3200 400Mhz. This fully loads the memory slots to rated maximum memory. Have heard there is only so much recognized ... or "needed" by Windows 3.2GB? so any more doesnt help anything, maybe slows it down?.

It's Windows 32bit. Extra RAM does not slow down the PC. It just doesn't help if the system is incapable of seeing/using that RAM.

3.Want to install Win 7 on this XP machine hoping it will at least be supported for awhile longer, and need machine to be up to the task. Not sure whether to it will be 32 or 64 bit I guess thats dependedent on processor I end up with. If the same socket processor will run 32 as 64 then additional pins for the 32 extra bits must not be necessary or there are unused ones in 32 bit mode ??

Huh? No, it's not a matter of extra pins whether or not 32bit or 64bit is supported. It's a matter of the chipset, the CPU architecture, and the CPU instructions.

 

[keithnh]

Thanks for input, I appreciate it. Just got Gateway. Nice looking box though vent holes have alot of dust buildup. Supposed to be SATA drive and socket 775 processor. Will at least learn how to id those from this exercise hopefully. Also supposed to have Win 7 Ultimate on the hard drive only ... so I dont know if it can be put on auto upgrade like I had my XP on the HP. Also dont know if there is a way of backing up. There is no COA unless on hard drive. Hopefully I will at least get to see how it works to see if I like it. Would like to know the in's and outs of newer limited install versions of Windows and other Microsoft programs. Have my own xp and office 2007.


My HP processor is a Pentium 4 3.0E per my purchase order. Was thinking that meant Extreme but now see I may be wrong from Wikipedia which ID's that nomenclature as a Prescott 90 nm HT but NOT Extreme socket 478 processor. I havent found code but should be like sl8jz or sl7e4. The dx2000 sheet shows the motherboard as having 865GV chipset and allowing Celeron,Celeron D, Pentium 4 and Pentium 4 Extreme processors , FSB 400,566 or 800 MHz processor dependent. 2 Gallatin Extreme processors in 478 are sl7aa and sl7ch, found one on ebay , not cheap. Over my budget. Found cheap Extreme 775 tho. Gateway might get one.

Will still do these boxes just for kicks ... both boxes with a nice pci wireless card. Does Broadcom mean anything good?

I do have an HD tv I still do not have the blue ray box and sound bar hooked up on. Vizio. What exactly does a computer do in this arena??? Not sure what it would be used for? Getting tired, not much time during wek. Thanks again. Keith

 

[keithnh]

PCI-e video cards supposedly replaced AGP which is dead according to wikipedia. Used on legacy pci bus they are supposedly superior ?? Asus/Radeon 1MB 38$ Not sure these will work on my boxes, or with my monitors. Maybe need new BIOS or something.
I need to get basics down like what involved in matching BIOS chipset processor and mobo, where to find info and understand it. Verifying I can install an upgrade processor and new heat sink assy and then mobo. Understanding I/O differences (drives,etc), while these things change somewhat I dont agree experience on my P4 mods will be worthless. I may waste a little money but will consider it "tuition". I dont intend in these being the only computers I ever mess with. I was a component-level tech many moons ago on 8085 systems. Still have my Tek 466B downstairs waiting to be used again.

 

[Dangman]

Thanks for input, I appreciate it. Just got Gateway. Nice looking box though vent holes have alot of dust buildup. Supposed to be SATA drive and socket 775 processor. Will at least learn how to id those from this exercise hopefully. Also supposed to have Win 7 Ultimate on the hard drive only ... so I dont know if it can be put on auto upgrade like I had my XP on the HP. Also dont know if there is a way of backing up. There is no COA unless on hard drive. Hopefully I will at least get to see how it works to see if I like it. Would like to know the in's and outs of newer limited install versions of Windows and other Microsoft programs. Have my own xp and office 2007.

The COA should be somewhere on the back or the side of the case. If there's no COA, then there's a good chance that it was an illegal copy of Windows or it was ripped off and used somewhere else. Either way, double check.

My HP processor is a Pentium 4 3.0E per my purchase order. Was thinking that meant Extreme but now see I may be wrong from Wikipedia which ID's that nomenclature as a Prescott 90 nm HT but NOT Extreme socket 478 processor. I havent found code but should be like sl8jz or sl7e4. The dx2000 sheet shows the motherboard as having 865GV chipset and allowing Celeron,Celeron D, Pentium 4 and Pentium 4 Extreme processors , FSB 400,566 or 800 MHz processor dependent. 2 Gallatin Extreme processors in 478 are sl7aa and sl7ch, found one on ebay , not cheap. Over my budget. Found cheap Extreme 775 tho. Gateway might get one.

Again you have to find out from Gateway or HP what the highest-end CPU was available for those PCs when they were released. Like the actual specific models rather than generic brand names like "Pentium 4" and "Pentium 4 Extreme" as dozens of CPUs share those brand names and have a good chance of not actually working with your parts. Otherwise, you're just incredibly wasteful upon wasteful with your money.

Will still do these boxes just for kicks ... both boxes with a nice pci wireless card. Does Broadcom mean anything good?

If you have money to waste, then go for it. If you actually want to be smart with your money, then don't buy anything else for those PCs unless you have an immediate use for them. Not for fun but an actual use.

I do have an HD tv I still do not have the blue ray box and sound bar hooked up on. Vizio. What exactly does a computer do in this arena??? Not sure what it would be used for? Getting tired, not much time during wek. Thanks again. Keith

Basically, you use it as a Home Theater PC when a PC is hooked up to a TV where you can watch TV shows, play music, and other media from the comforts of your couch

PCI-e video cards supposedly replaced AGP which is dead according to wikipedia. Used on legacy pci bus they are supposedly superior ??

Yes PCI-E replaced AGP. However, your HP does not have AGP which means it's even more out-dated. Just to be clear: PCI-E is faster than AGP which is faster than PCI. If you want to watch HD content, then your HP will not work no matter how much money you waste on it. The hardware is just too old and incompatible to watch HD content.

Asus/Radeon 1MB 38$ Not sure these will work on my boxes, or with my monitors. Maybe need new BIOS or something.

That's stupid expensive for old hardware like that. The onboard video of the Dell I posted earlier is faster than any 1MB piece of shit PCI video card out there. Not to mention that there are brand-new PCI-E video cards that are faster than those old PCI or AGP cards.

I need to get basics down like what involved in matching BIOS chipset processor and mobo, where to find info and understand it. Verifying I can install an upgrade processor and new heat sink assy and then mobo. Understanding I/O differences (drives,etc), while these things change somewhat I dont agree experience on my P4 mods will be worthless. I may waste a little money but will consider it "tuition". I dont intend in these being the only computers I ever mess with. I was a component-level tech many moons ago on 8085 systems. Still have my Tek 466B downstairs waiting to be used again.

Dude, it's still a waste of money even if you want to learn. My current job involves me building PCs that range anywhere from $1,000 to $10,000. I've been building PCs since late 2004 which is roughly when Pentium 4s were still big. I can tell you without a doubt that my experience building those old P4 system doesn't help all that much with current LGA 2011 and LGA 1150 systems. At best, the P4s taught me how much force to use when installing RAM. Even then that's not worth spending money to learn. Even the heatsink installations are different: The P4s uses a completely different heat-sink installation and design than what the LGA 1150 and LGA 2011 CPUs uses. Then there's the possibility that you may have of gotten one of the BTX Pentium 4s or the many custom designs that many manufacturers back then like to use.

Again, we're talking $250 for a brand new PC with significantly faster parts and a legitimate Windows 8.1 key which alone costs $100. Now if you actually want to learn how to build a modern PC, then just actually just buy parts for a modern PC! This $57 Intel Pentium CPU will utterly destroy any Pentium 4 CPU in existence:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EUVG3P6/?tag=extension-kb-20

See what I mean by "waste of money"? If a $57 brand new CPU can outperform every single Pentium 4 CPU in existence, then spending any sort of money to upgrade a Pentium 4 system is not a financially sound plan. Not to mention that onboard graphics alone is going to be far far more suitable for watching HD content and streaming video than any AGP or PCI video card you find. So again, don't waste your money on doing anything with those P4 boxes: That's money you can spend on a brand new PC.

$53 - Intel Pentium G3220 CPU
$51 - MSI H81M-P33 Intel H81 mATX Motherboard
$76 - Kingston HyperX Blu KHX1600C10D3B1/8G 8GB DDR3 1600 RAM
$53 - Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s Hard Drive
$21 - Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD Burner
$43 - Corsair 430CX V2 430W PSU
$50 - NZXT Source 210 Elite Black ATX Case
$95 - Windows 8.1 64bit
-----
Total: $442 shipped

So for $442 shipped, you can get a system that's significantly faster (we're talking roughly 75% to 100% here) than any P4 system out there.

 

[keithnh]

I drive a truck now ... more hours than I like. Responding to you from my Gateway Celeron M 1.5Ghz lappie which Ive been on for a couple years now. Still works fine. I know it would be sensible to buy the latest thing. It usually is if you've got the money. I need 2 cheap desktops that will be ok with the net for the time being and somewhat longer and have new parts for the HP already. Was thinking about processor upgrade but know mine now and its not worth upgrading unless I can find one of those Gallatins for a song. Im not going to junk the computer without using the new parts because its not the latest thing. The techie in me just cant do that. I said before I dont need the fastest computer and am not an ugrade all the time for no good reason kind of guy. That said I would like to see what I can do with these and will. I think processors are still much faster than downloads from any source I can afford but need to get my bearings somehow with speeds of things, and what really matters.That Asus board was not the cheapest and said worked on legacy pci bus. Do you hook your terminal to that board and is there an adaptor plug or do you need a different terminal style?

Thanks for input ... Im not ready to buy new yet tho Keith

 

[keithnh]

Just ID'd the hard drive is a SATA in the Gateway and processor is 775LGA, has IO controller SL7AG . See different cable for SATA ... strange no ribbon to drive Lots of numbers on mobo will see what more info I can get. Maybe a dual-core will work on this. It does have a dual layer rw drive ... dont know what use to me. Curious. Gotta work tonite time for zzzzz.

 

[Dangman]

I drive a truck now ... more hours than I like. Responding to you from my Gateway Celeron M 1.5Ghz lappie which Ive been on for a couple years now. Still works fine. I know it would be sensible to buy the latest thing. It usually is if you've got the money. I need 2 cheap desktops that will be ok with the net for the time being and somewhat longer and have new parts for the HP already. Was thinking about processor upgrade but know mine now and its not worth upgrading unless I can find one of those Gallatins for a song. Im not going to junk the computer without using the new parts because its not the latest thing. The techie in me just cant do that.

That's not what I've been saying: It's more cost-effective to buy brand new than to continually upgrade old hardware. I have no problem with you reusing your old hardware. If that's all you can afford, that's fine. However, I do have a problem with you actually spending money, presumably hard-earned money, on wasteful and worthless upgrades for those old hardware. It's just plain poor use of money, no question about it.

Finally, on HP's own website, they show that the CPU you have now was the highest-end P4 CPU that system could handle:
http://h20566.www2.hp.com/portal/si...et.endCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken#N10010

So no CPU upgrade for the HP since you already have the fastest P4 that HP PC can support.

I said before I dont need the fastest computer and am not an ugrade all the time for no good reason kind of guy.

But you're doing exactly that: You're upgrading your old hardware for no good reason. None of the upgrades you've proposed would meet your stated goals. Unless you've changed your stated goals to "wasting my money", if you actually want to meet your smooth web browsing goals, you basically just need to buy that Dell that I linked above. Again, that's $250 for a full PC with Windows 8.1. Compare to your HP which only has Windows XP which is no longer being supported by Microsoft. So that's endangering your online security. Not to mention that the cost of a Windows 8.1 or Windows 7 Home Premium key is about $90 to $100 alone. Again, that Dell is $250 with the OS included. That makes it an utterly fantastic deal for someone who's on a P4. There's no way you can upgrade your HP PC that would make it just as cost-effective as that Dell.

I think processors are still much faster than downloads from any source I can afford

Huh? This sentence doesn't make any sense.

but need to get my bearings somehow with speeds of things, and what really matters.

What do you want to know exactly?

That Asus board was not the cheapest and said worked on legacy pci bus. Do you hook your terminal to that board and is there an adaptor plug or do you need a different terminal style?

Huh? You've lost me. Are you talking about the Asus video card or the motherboard? FYI, when you say "board", it generally means motherboard. If you're talking about something from an eBay link, just post that link.

Also, PCI-E does not work with PCI. Nor does AGP work on PCI. All three interfaces are completely incompatible with one another. Also, the old AGP and PCI video cards won't do a thing to smooth out playback of flash content like Youtube or Silverlight content like Netflix or HD content like downloaded movies or blu-ray DVDs as the technology to do so did not exist when those two interfaces were dominant. It's only with PCI-E video cards where we began to see the real beginnings of that technology.

Just ID'd the hard drive is a SATA in the Gateway and processor is 775LGA, has IO controller SL7AG . See different cable for SATA ... strange no ribbon to drive Lots of numbers on mobo will see what more info I can get. Maybe a dual-core will work on this. It does have a dual layer rw drive ... dont know what use to me. Curious. Gotta work tonite time for zzzzz.

What's the actual model number of the Gateway? There's something very suspicious here. Dual Layer RW drive means you can burn DL DVDs with it. DL DVDs hold more data than regular DVDs.

EDIT: Ahh the wonders of privacy on the internet. Found your other thread here. Yeah you have an illegal copy of Windows 7 on that Gateway there unless you can show that you have the COA or some document showing that it's a legitimate key. Here's the deal: That Gateway was released around December 17, 2004 and came with Windows XP. Windows 7 was released in 2009. In other words, that Gateway did not come with Windows 7 at stock. Someone had to to install Windows 7 on that Gateway. Now you have to find out whether or not it's a legal copy. If not a legal copy, now you have to buy a legal copy of Windows 7.

Which then leads back to my earlier point: It's more cost-effective to buy that Dell: $250 gets you a full PC with new hardware and a legitimate Windows key.

EDIT 2: If you're wondering about CPU upgrades for that Gateway, don't bother: Gateway was well known for locking their BIOs. So that means that you won't be able to upgrade to a different P4. Even then, there aren't any worthwhile CPU upgrades for that Gateway since the Pentium 4 515 is only 137Mhz slower than the highest-end Prescott Pentium 4 5xx series CPU, the Pentium 519. You're not going to notice that 137Mhz difference. Nor will the HT feature that's part of the Prescott Pentium 4 HT CPUs going to make any sort of difference.

Not to mention that the first dual-core Pentium D CPUs came out 5-6 months after the release of that Gateway. Barely any OEMs back then, hell even nowadays, releases BIOs updates for newer CPUs.

 

[keithnh]

Lost my last email. Didnt have time to redo that day..

Both boxes have XP keys on stickers. The Gateway has a white sticker that says "420GR -RS42915036028. It is 775LGA and SATA hard drive. 2 conventional white card slots, one longer skinnier black slot and one much shorter skinnier black slot. It is dual layer drive system with nice card reader and front connections via trap door. The jack for video is identical to the HP ... if the oddball connectors allow a PCI-e board to be a substitute video output the BIOS would have to be modified? (The ASUS board I was referring to is the PCI-e board not mobo.)

Not sure the HP specs you refer to are indicating what options were available from them or what will actually work. I have a 64 GTO that would not have showed 455SD as an available option only because it wasnt designed yet. Really I was hoping for a new unused processor figuring heat might have removed a major portion of its life cycle. Then again I remember building burn in racks for motherboards to cycle them and help eliminate infant mortality field chip failures. I guess a toss-up there.

Processors are operating at 3.x Ghz my wifi is 24MHz quite a speed differential. I remember comparing download speeds with a well groomed 486 and Pentium 3 and the speed 486 was faster. I was just saying the limit on internet speed is pretty much dependent on the source of that info not the processor because processors are not the limiting factor.

Speeds was processor clock,fsb, actual throughput of standard pieces of information to hard disk and video. Actual so I can really see how fast any box is at standard tasks. Maybe get a measurement. Box A performs video task X in 3.2 seconds at a processor clock speed of 3x Ghz with a 400 mhz fsb speed hard drive speed of 100mhz etc. etc.

My objective is not just a fast box today ... I was trying to learn something as I go and either of my 2 boxes will cream the little Celeron lappie Ive been on and tolerating for several years. Like I said , a few bucks for "tuition" is considered money well spent by me. Had been considering a HP "Phoenix" system to get the newest and juiciest box but I like to tinker and will settle for what I end up with AFTER souping up what I have to the best of my ability.

 

[rhansen5_99]

Kudos for trying to learn some stuff from your old computer. I would say that one area an upgrade will really help is power consumption. Here is an article from tom's hardware that compares the p4 630 basically what you have to the c2duo. So jump a few generations forward and you can get about the same performance you had in that p4 in a power envelop that would probably be 1/10 of what you were using. I am not sure about you by my electricity is pretty pricey here at say 15c/kWh.

On a side note you might be able to try out the pentium4D processors in that board but no guarantees. I had an old dell workstation at work I was able to install the processor into and while the bios threw a fit, windows worked fine.

If you wanted to build a machine and are happy with the speed you could always get one of the new baytrail j1900 quadcore Atoms for like $70 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157497)
You would need to add some laptop ddr3
And you might even be able to drop it in one of your old boxes as long as your optical drive and hdd are sata. If you were to go this route you would only draw 23ish Watts from the wall versus 250+ Watts.
As far as wiring up the front connectors, there are basically led's and momentary switches for the power and reset. These are pretty easy to fire up with a little patience and some splicing and tracing of where the wires go.
The next step I would encourage you to explore would be to try out an ssd as they make a huge difference in perceived computer speed.

Also look for a tool called magic jelly bean, as it can recover your operating system license key, and you should be able to download a windows 7 install disk from Microsoft somewhere to reinstall.

 

[Dangman]

Lost my last email. Didnt have time to redo that day..

Both boxes have XP keys on stickers. The Gateway has a white sticker that says "420GR -RS42915036028. It is 775LGA and SATA hard drive. 2 conventional white card slots, one longer skinnier black slot and one much shorter skinnier black slot. It is dual layer drive system with nice card reader and front connections via trap door. The jack for video is identical to the HP ... if the oddball connectors allow a PCI-e board to be a substitute video output the BIOS would have to be modified? (The ASUS board I was referring to is the PCI-e board not mobo.)

You would just have to go into the BIOs and tell it boot from the PCI-E slot and not the onboard video.

Not sure the HP specs you refer to are indicating what options were available from them or what will actually work. I have a 64 GTO that would not have showed 455SD as an available option only because it wasnt designed yet. Really I was hoping for a new unused processor figuring heat might have removed a major portion of its life cycle. Then again I remember building burn in racks for motherboards to cycle them and help eliminate infant mortality field chip failures. I guess a toss-up there.

This isn't a car where mechanical and engineering ingenuity can overcome limitations and deficiencies provided by the original manufacturer. When it comes to PC hardware, short of being some of the most talented programmers and hardware hackers available, generally you can't modify a motherboard's BIOs. Like I've said multiple times, HP and Gateway as well as other OEMs out there tend to BIOs lock their motherboards. As such, they generally don't support newer CPUs. So whatever CPUs their websites listed for that particular PC model were generally the only CPUs they could actually work with. I've seen this first-hand with customers' computers and with my own laptop when I attempted to upgrade its CPU. There are, of course, exceptions but those are generally rare.

Nor is your concern about heat being a major killer of the life inside the PC particular valid per se. Rarely do you see outright CPU failure these days as a result of death/age. However, it's the other parts inside of a PC that one should focus on if longevity is a concern.

Processors are operating at 3.x Ghz my wifi is 24MHz quite a speed differential. I remember comparing download speeds with a well groomed 486 and Pentium 3 and the speed 486 was faster. I was just saying the limit on internet speed is pretty much dependent on the source of that info not the processor because processors are not the limiting factor.

Did you mean 2.4Ghz? 24Mhz doesn't sound right. Source of what info? Are you trying to say that internet speed limits are primarily determined by your network equipment (NIC, router, modem, switch, etc), ISP, and servers rather than the CPU itself? If so, you're technically correct. However, note the part about the "network equipment". Note that older computers tended to have their NICs and other hardware connected to the internal PCI bus. However, the bandwidth for PCI is shared among all devices. Thus, if you had an extra NIC on one PCI slot, it would limit the bandwidth for any other device on the other PCI bus. The theoretical max speed of the PCI bus is 133MB/s but due to overhead and other factors, the real world speeds tended to be around 100MB/s. Now if no other device is

Speeds was processor clock,fsb, actual throughput of standard pieces of information to hard disk and video. Actual so I can really see how fast any box is at standard tasks. Maybe get a measurement. Box A performs video task X in 3.2 seconds at a processor clock speed of 3x Ghz with a 400 mhz fsb speed hard drive speed of 100mhz etc. etc..

Not necessarily. If you plan on comparing CPUs of different generations, you also have to factor in CPU architecture and design as those are great influences on the actual performance of the CPU. An improved CPU architecture and design is what allowed 1.86Ghz Core 2 Duo CPUs to dramatically outperform 3.6Ghz Pentium D CPUs.

My objective is not just a fast box today ... I was trying to learn something as I go and either of my 2 boxes will cream the little Celeron lappie Ive been on and tolerating for several years. Like I said , a few bucks for "tuition" is considered money well spent by me. Had been considering a HP "Phoenix" system to get the newest and juiciest box but I like to tinker and will settle for what I end up with AFTER souping up what I have to the best of my ability.

The problem is that you're not proposing a "few bucks". You're talking a decent chunk of money that can easily be saved up for a new PC. Not to mention, you're not even learning the right things either. So how is that well spent tuition if you're not learning anything that's actually useful and pertaining to modern hardware? Especially considering that you're using an illegal OS key with that Gateway.

It would be simpler and far more effective for you to actually to ask any question you may have about modern computer hardware than to actually spend good money on old hardware that yields relatively useless information. What exactly do you want to learn?

At the very most, the only upgrade I would propose would be for your Gateway: It does have a PCI-Ex16 slot. However, the included PSU and the overall system is not something I would trust with any GPU higher than a low-end GPU, mainly due to quality, age, and the fact that the Pentium 4 would prevent you from getting the full performance out of anything higher than a low-end GPU in modern games. So I recommend this video card:
$30 - PowerCOlor Radeon HD 5450 1GB PCI-E Video Card

That shorter black slot is the PCI-E x1 slot. Whatever wifi adapter you get should use that interface. With those two upgrades, you would be ok for the internet as the HD 5450 does have the ability offload the decoding of HD content and streaming content.

 

[keithnh]

Fired up Gateway today. Win7 Ultimate comes up and is installing 135 updates right now. Installed 2cnd of 3 Norton 360 5.0 scrips successfully. Had a little trouble with Dlink usb Wifi. It would not fire up on same wifi my lappie's working on right beside it. It did say connected but there was Explorer wouldnt do any exploring. Tried my Sprint hotspot and now its online but slow as molasses. Slower than the lappie in non-internet actions and less crisp display as well. Lappie is continually groomed with updates and used frequently however. Tried to download a new browser as Google said I needed to and I think I got a bunch of junk,now freezing up and Norton said threats detected and not removed "Civaboot" or something like that.May have to call Norton support on that. Had shopped for video card and found a 30$ 1GB pci-ex16 will compare it to what you recommended. Didnt know the wifi would use small slot. Are the boards with the V-antennas that stick out better than my USB Dlink in any way? Bought a bios book today ... found P4 3.8 570J 775 for 8$ @ StarMicro, not sure it will work there are other 775 P4 in that price range.

Thanks again for input Keith

 

[Dangman]

Fired up Gateway today. Win7 Ultimate comes up and is installing 135 updates right now. Installed 2cnd of 3 Norton 360 5.0 scrips successfully. Had a little trouble with Dlink usb Wifi. It would not fire up on same wifi my lappie's working on right beside it. It did say connected but there was Explorer wouldnt do any exploring. Tried my Sprint hotspot and now its online but slow as molasses. Slower than the lappie in non-internet actions and less crisp display as well. Lappie is continually groomed with updates and used frequently however. Tried to download a new browser as Google said I needed to and I think I got a bunch of junk,now freezing up and Norton said threats detected and not removed "Civaboot" or something like that.May have to call Norton support on that.

Just do a fresh re-install. When viruses gets through, they can screw up the system pretty badly where even after you clean it up, there's still lasting damage to the system files.

Again, that's an illegal OS install unless you can find the COA sticker or a document showing that the OS key was legally bought.

Had shopped for video card and found a 30$ 1GB pci-ex16 will compare it to what you recommended.

What card did you find?

Didnt know the wifi would use small slot. Are the boards with the V-antennas that stick out better than my USB Dlink in any way?

Yes as the larger antennas means a better chance of getting a clearer wifi signal as well as improved speeds. Assuming of course that you actually get a good PCI-E x1 wifi card since a bad PCI-E wifi card would be worse than your D-Link USB wifi adapter.

Bought a bios book today ... found P4 3.8 570J 775 for 8$ @ StarMicro, not sure it will work there are other 775 P4 in that price range.

Again, BIOS locked. I doubt that book will help. Money spent on that book could have gone towards a new PC, dude. Especially considering that most new motherboards from 2009 and on uses UEFI, not BIOS. Similar functions but very different methodology, design, and UI. As such, that BIOs book may be of little help with a modern PC.

Thanks again for input Keith

Would you mind answering my last question in the post right before yours?

 

[c3k]

^^^

TL;DR.

A -lot- of good advice being given to you. At some point, an abacus is just a pretty coffee table knick knack. So too, the P4. Put it on green felt behind glass and hang it on the wall over your new rig.

The amount of money and effort required to update a P4 is much greater than the cost of buying a new machine which is far better and far less expensive.

Shrug.

 

[keithnh]

Tried magical jelly bean as suggested on my lappie came up with correct COA numbers for my XP and Office on that. Was going to try it on the new Gateway but loaded all new Norton and Windows updates supposedly successfully then no restart.Looks like Im stuck there for today. Did order a Win7 Startup repair disk today for 8$. If that doesnt help me figure out issue I may just reload XP on this machine. Had noticed Win7 product for sale in ebay 114$ that said intended for end user or someone building pcs for sale which led me to think there might be some deal going on where a builder can legally install on more than one, was thinking that might be what I have. COA hiding where mjb can find it.

Card was ATI Radeon 4650 1GB PCI-EX16 24.99 shipped.

Had noticed a few v-antenna wifi some whole v some 1 side. Not too many said broadcom, those a few $ more not much. Is there nomenclature(specs) to look for? I guess pci-e x1. Found PCI-e info in the BIOS as well as USB 2.0 ... didnt find 3.0

Well BIOS book was 9$ UEFI must have a similar function, the end results are still close to the same if not faster. Im waiting for pc's to be like in star trek "Computer, what is the best course of action for me to get a and b done quickly today and plot me this or that as well as the best possible course to this location" etc.The day will come, no more typing.

I used to be a tech, component level on microprocessor boards as well as varied others, was maybe not the best but I didnt give up. I have several older machines I would like to extract various information out of in various stages of disrepair. In doing so I will possibly be able to follow pc evolution to a degree and learn to at least make good choices for myself, maybe fix for others. Might become a part time business ... Banging my head today abit but at least know a few things I want to get down, what section doing what in what time frame during startup ,Fkey list ... what they do when, what Advanced boot options as well as main section do exactly by doing them, how to keep a magical jelly beaner from stealing my passwords .. or if thats not a real liklihood. what is CMOS (used to be a type of transistor Etc.

 

[Dangman]

Tried magical jelly bean as suggested on my lappie came up with correct COA numbers for my XP and Office on that. Was going to try it on the new Gateway but loaded all new Norton and Windows updates supposedly successfully then no restart.Looks like Im stuck there for today. Did order a Win7 Startup repair disk today for 8$. If that doesnt help me figure out issue I may just reload XP on this machine. Had noticed Win7 product for sale in ebay 114$ that said intended for end user or someone building pcs for sale which led me to think there might be some deal going on where a builder can legally install on more than one, was thinking that might be what I have. COA hiding where mjb can find it.

COA is a sticker that has the serial number on it. Or some other document or receipt showing purchase. So your use of "COA numbers" is incorrect: You're referring to the serial keys. So when I said "go find the COA" I meant the actual sticker or any sort of physical or digital document showing that the serial key was purchased and used legally.

DUDE STOP SPENDING MONEY! That Windows 7 Startup disk was a total waste of money considering that there are actually free software that does exactly what the disk does. Not to mention, you're spending MONEY to repair an ILLEGAL OS install. Do you not see the issue with that?

What you saw on Ebay was something called an OEM or System builder Windows disk/key. They're generally only meant for the end user or OEM. However, you can only install and use that key on one PC only. In addition, you technically can't move that key to another PC so it basically lives and dies on that PC. Technically anyway. AFAIK, the only legal way you can install and use one Windows key across multiple PCs at once is through the Microsoft's Volume Licensing setup which is generally only for businesses and only suppose to be used by that business. Once the PC leaves that business, that key is no longer valid.

IN addition, $114 for a Windows 7 key is a bit of a ripoff from eBay. You can get WIndows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Pro, and Windows 8.1 for $100, $120, and $95 respectively right now on Amazon.com. With the eBay route, there's always a good chance that you're getting an illegal key. The Amazon route generally guarantees a legal key.

Card was ATI Radeon 4650 1GB PCI-EX16 24.99 shipped.

Overpriced and outdated. The HD 5450 I recommended is better because A) it's newer which means better chance of driver support from AMD and B) slightly better HD video hardware acceleration engine.

Had noticed a few v-antenna wifi some whole v some 1 side. Not too many said broadcom, those a few $ more not much. Is there nomenclature(specs) to look for? I guess pci-e x1. Found PCI-e info in the BIOS as well as USB 2.0 ... didnt find 3.0

You're not going to find USB 3.0 since that technology came long after the Pentium 4 came out. As for the wifi adapter, just read the reviews for it. Here's Newegg's top selling PCI-E x1 wifi adapters:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...0014297 8000 4802&IsNodeId=1&name=Top Sellers

If you want the latest in wifi tech and plan on upgrading your wireless router sometime soon, aim for an adapter that's 802.11ac compatible.

Well BIOS book was 9$.

$9 that could have been saved towards a new PC.

I used to be a tech, component level on microprocessor boards as well as varied others, was maybe not the best but I didnt give up. I have several older machines I would like to extract various information out of in various stages of disrepair. In doing so I will possibly be able to follow pc evolution to a degree and learn to at least make good choices for myself, maybe fix for others. Might become a part time business ... Banging my head today abit but at least know a few things I want to get down, what section doing what in what time frame during startup ,Fkey list ... what they do when, what Advanced boot options as well as main section do exactly by doing them, how to keep a magical jelly beaner from stealing my passwords .. or if thats not a real liklihood. what is CMOS (used to be a type of transistor Etc.

For practical use, just look up the study materials for A+ certification. That should get you up to speed on the current state of computers than the methods you're using now.

 

[defaultluser]

Dang, you know this is a lost cause right? Because I really appreciate what you do for the rest of the people on this forum, and I'd hate for a guy who will never listen to give you a sour taste in your mouth, and leave and feeling jaded

I just wanted to post, but I'm going to immediately unsubscribe because this is the most obvious slow train wreck, and I don't have the time or patience to endure it.

 

[Rody]

I feel trolled... hard

 

[keithnh]

Casey Jones, the trolling train wrecker back again "Drivin that drain ... high on ______ (not a druggie) Casey Jones you better watch that speed" . No Im not the same as everyone else, I do believe learning can be accomplished by fiddling with older stuff else every textbook would be worthless the day after it was printed. I dont really care whether anybody else respects that or not long as I do. I get something out of fixing things whether they're state of the art or not.
That said, there is something to the point you start at, especially in something that changes frequently you will never get really deep into. I did relook at my objectives which was to learn abit while bringing 2 boxes up to snuff to an OS that is current and will be supported for awhile longer. I had bought a Gateway box that was cute and had double layer drives which intrigued me. I really bought it for the Win 7 on the hard drive, which appears to have been an illegal and unsupportable installation. I am now in the process of trying to get the seller to either buy my Win 7 or take the box back. During this process I had gotten matching wireless Gateway keyboard/mouse combo and 20" flat screen... should be here today. Also today will be getting 2 copies of genuine Win7 Home Premium wi/keys and genuine Win XP media disk with no keys. My thought is get the OS's I want first legal beagle and make them portable. All my boxes have their own Windows XP keys on them on those Microsoft stickers so if I put Win7 and want to revert when I get something new I want to put my Win7 on, I should be able to.
The seller does have a Gateway 5450 Pentium D box that is the newer duplicate of this box I may be trading him for. Everything is faster in that box and it supposedly has win8 "permanently" loaded to drive. Not sure exactly what that means but have heard from a shop that people sometimes have 8 taken off and 7 put on because it is faster and more problem free.
I see that there are many here that are much more versed in the computer world than me. I certainly didnt come here to cause problems or irritate anyone. Id like to learn and appreciate any info people take the time to offer. Keith

Thanks Dangman for board specs and other info

PS I do see my 865GV chipset listed in Wikipedia "List of Intel Chipsets" as being used for the Pentium D. Dont see any socket 478 D processors tho. Wondering where the info resides to verify a particular motherboard will or wont work with a particular processor given its socket and chipset.

 

[keithnh]

Well things have changed a little, Im sending back 420GR and now own GT5404 Pentium D true 64bit machine in its stead. Same basic outline ... dual layer drive although I think its only one drive now, same front connections ,still cute. Much faster SATA HDD and ram, fsb is 1066. Whoopa Read this 2.8 D plain jane processor can be overclocked and cream the Extreme version. Maybe a better starting point for fiddling. Supposedly has Win8 but may change to Win7 as I have the legal beagle software, its supposed to be smaller and faster than 8, still an upgrade for me, and also this box as I think it started with Vista. I see sellers dont like questions about operating systems, this guy somehow puts a newer OS on to sell I think with no backup, wonder if unactivated copy. I dont know how it goes. I now have legal Win7 with key although says something about refurbished. Will see what happens when I install.
Noticed new 441449-001 HP Core2 mobo for 50$ was wondering if that would bolt right into my HP box and be ok with my power supply. Would change HDD looks like it still has pci connectors plus pci-e like Gateway, not sure my dvd would work.

 

[keithnh]

Put my 3.0E processor in new replacement mobo fired up with 4 1GB sticks ram and got same failure I had with original mobo. 5 red led flashes no post recurring ... Put 2 old 512 sticks in .... same. Pulled 1 of the 512 now 10 red flashes and system shuts down. Possibly a fans issue now and earlier either bad memory sticks or finnicky seating. Saw someone say they had video (Idont) and 10 beeps is fan not working. Mine all work but are not turning real fast. The 420GR fans sound like an airliner but the HP turn without making any noise. Possibly the voltage is low or they are worn out. Found a p/s check procedure for next wk-end I guess.Fan inside p/s is cruddy, so is case ... processor fan is new Cooler Master.

 

[Dangman]

I see that there are many here that are much more versed in the computer world than me. I certainly didnt come here to cause problems or irritate anyone. Id like to learn and appreciate any info people take the time to offer. Keith

Then take good advice when you get it if you don't want to be irrtitating. Again, just get a new PC. All this time and money you've spent on fucking around with some old outdated crap could have been spent on learning new technologies that actually matters.

Well things have changed a little, Im sending back 420GR and now own GT5404 Pentium D true 64bit machine in its stead. Same basic outline ... dual layer drive although I think its only one drive now, same front connections ,still cute. Much faster SATA HDD and ram, fsb is 1066. Whoopa Read this 2.8 D plain jane processor can be overclocked and cream the Extreme version. Maybe a better starting point for fiddling.

LOL, no it's not. You have an OEM PC. As such, you can't overclock them without having to buy an overclock non-OEM motherboard. Which would be a stupid fuckin' waste of money for an old platform. In other words, overclocking is out. Not to mention that case cooling is shit and the stock HSF is also shit for overclocking. So no matter what, you won't be able to overclock that CPU.

Supposedly has Win8 but may change to Win7 as I have the legal beagle software, its supposed to be smaller and faster than 8, still an upgrade for me, and also this box as I think it started with Vista. I see sellers dont like questions about operating systems, this guy somehow puts a newer OS on to sell I think with no backup, wonder if unactivated copy. I dont know how it goes.

Dude, I've already told you: More than likely illegal if you didn't get the COA sticker with it or documentation showing that it's legal.

Noticed new 441449-001 HP Core2 mobo for 50$ was wondering if that would bolt right into my HP box and be ok with my power supply. Would change HDD looks like it still has pci connectors plus pci-e like Gateway, not sure my dvd would work.

No. Jeez, dude, that's money that can be spent on a new platform. Not to mention that the included PSUs inside many Gateway PCs were pieces of shit. Combine that with age and you have a recipe for dead PCs if you use them for long periods of time.

Put my 3.0E processor in new replacement mobo fired up with 4 1GB sticks ram and got same failure I had with original mobo. 5 red led flashes no post recurring ... Put 2 old 512 sticks in .... same. Pulled 1 of the 512 now 10 red flashes and system shuts down. Possibly a fans issue now and earlier either bad memory sticks or finnicky seating. Saw someone say they had video (Idont) and 10 beeps is fan not working. Mine all work but are not turning real fast. The 420GR fans sound like an airliner but the HP turn without making any noise. Possibly the voltage is low or they are worn out. Found a p/s check procedure for next wk-end I guess.Fan inside p/s is cruddy, so is case ... processor fan is new Cooler Master.

Ditch it.

 

[keithnh]

Hi, just wanted to say I do appreciate the info that has been offered and have taken several suggestions and made purchases from them. I own but havent installed a Radeon 6450 video card, the one that uses less power. A wireless card from New egg and an older but thorough A+ Certification Text by Peter Moulton. 2cnd edition but I see it ends in P4 and socket 478. I enjoy fiddling with older computers tho and the text should cover most but not my 2 D's. My plan is to do my own little home college and actually make it through that text book and the chapter quiz's and do a book report on it. I will then follow with Office 2007 and Quick books 2009. I have had trouble getting myself to read, pretending Im back in night school may help. Along the way I will also fiddle with my 4 boxes, and groom them to the best performance level I can without cracking the bank. My OJT for the A+ course. Im starting by returning each box to its original OS and maxing the memory with exactly what it can use reliably. I have found that getting memory to work properly is not as easy as it would seem. My Gateway seller did not want to pay return postage for the 420GR so he sold it to me for that price ... <40$. I have both Gateways now. I wasnt sure my DX2000 would live again and had found a DX2400 for 26$. It has legal Vista Business (box sticker) and now is my favorite computer. All matching HP stuff with a new(used) wireless HP keyboard and mouse. 2.0 D with 2 512 sticks DDR2. Had to print manual out to find that the 4 memory slots were limited to 1 GB each. The Gateway GT 5404 has an E2180 that is limited to 2 GB with only 2 memory slots. I had ordered 8GB non-ecc unbuffered 240 pin Crucial DDR2 2GB sticks(4) to share between the 2, probably the largest expense thinking I could 4GB each and then sell off the one I dont like and 8GB the other but the memory didnt work in either machine. I had used CNET and found the Model # but not found processor specific specs. Had to dig to find the HP limited to 4GB as it only can recognize 1GB sticks and the Gateway is limited to 2 GB. Both of these may only be because of BIOS program and not hardware but I have yet to learn that. Both can be flashed to change the BIOS program. Have another text "Breaking through the Bios Barrier" I will try to get most of, the little Ive read is helping.
I was successful at returning my DX2000 to life. The 5 flash POST code was it didnt like the memory. Somehow I had ordered ECC memory when I needed NON-ECC. I found by reinserting the 2 original 256 in an she went to 10 flashes which was the fan as I returned the original fan and up she came with that nice single beep and green light. With the brand new mobo and my old processor. Noticed my memory error (they were HP sticks !!) and got new memory and now she is faster than ever before with 4GB maxed. I do get a "CMOS settings wrong" message but press F2 and it bypasses. Had cleared CMOS several times and inserted new battery I tested. It is a new mobo and so a new BIOS for the old processor. I will have to get to that one.
All these boxes will initially be using Wifi Hotspot internet connection and hopefully be switched to ethernet cable modem in the fall or winter. Once I finish my "course" and have groomed all 4 plus my laptop I will build one for kicks. But not until Ive learned alot more.

Have 3 slightly different approaches to returning the 2 Gateways to their original OS.
All CD's

1. Genuine Microsoft XP SP3 "For Refurbished PC's" the CD only no sticker ... the clamshell backpage references an additional sticker to be added to the box whose key must be used. This wasnt mentioned when I bought the cd online for 5$. My thought was/is that the original key on the Gateway 420GR box would be usable with the correct media. The 420GR will still not boot to windows .. I formatted from command line (after several clean chkdsk/f then a /r) ... with a /g I think.

2. Figuring I might not get it done without the sticker I ordered a set of backup disks from Restore.com who identified by Model #only but I did find it. It was 26$ but the disk is bootable with the OS included and a procedure, this would be to me anyway a nice addition to the box from a sales standpoint.

3. Genuine Gateway OS disk Vista Home Premium 32-bit 8.99 which Im hoping will basically be #2 from the actual PC mfr and be a bootable os that works with box key for the GT- 5404.

Not sure how activation goes but in my mind any one of these methods ought to return the original os legally. Havent spoken with MS about it. I have years ago with something like this and they didnt seem too friendly in addition to the time lost waiting on hold.

So thats where Im at. I may have chosen the wrong forum to post in and dont wish to waste anyone's time. Im sure newer stuff is probably more pleasant to talk about. If so I will post elsewhere. If thats not the case I would enjoy any input and say to those who dont like what Im talking about not to bother reading it.

 

[Dangman]

Wow, what a colossal waste of time and money.

I passed my A+ certification test (you know, the thing you have to pay for) without doing anything remotely similar to what you're doing. Not to mention that the A+ certification test does include stuff from modern systems like Windows 7, Windows Vista, SSDs, etc.

Also, unless you're a qualified firmware hacker, you're not going to be able to make any of your HPs or Gateways be able to use that 8GB of RAM.

Well I'm out. It's clear to me and everyone here that you're not going to listen to good advice and only want to hear what you want to hear. It doesn't matter what sub forum you post your thread in: Everything you've doing to learn more about PCs is a horrible waste of time and money that could have been used towards an actual new PC. How this is not clear to you is beyond me.

 

[keithnh]

Well thanks for your positive input. Guess you know what you can do with the negative. I came here for discussion and hopefully to learn things ... not to explicitly follow someone's orders on how to spend my money. 2cnd ed Moulton will get me back in the ball-park to be able to absorb the newer information for a current A+ . DX-2400 with the right processor does take 8GB, look it up. Wikipedia info tells me from XP thru 8.1 4GB is about the max I would need or use anyway. Was to be a bit of overkill as Im not a gamer. I do have (2) 7 refurb disks with coa to use and do need help with that but a local shop is probably better than a forum. Better than this one apparently. Guess Im confused how you dont see what Im doing will help me and Ill learn from it. All told it will be less than a course and I may sell some of the computers to recoup the expenses. Everything new today will most likely be old news in a couple of years. I said from the outset my goal was to learn and not to have the latest whiz-bang computer. Maybe you should reread the title of this thread.

 

[Dangman]

Guess Im confused how you dont see what Im doing will help me and Ill learn from it. All told it will be less than a course and I may sell some of the computers to recoup the expenses. Everything new today will most likely be old news in a couple of years. I said from the outset my goal was to learn and not to have the latest whiz-bang computer. Maybe you should reread the title of this thread.

Again, all of the money you've spent so far could have been used towards building a brand new PC that would have allowed you to become far far more up-to-date in the world of computer hardware than learning from older PCs ever would. All you will accomplish is wasting money learning about outdated hardware that is of little help for learning about newer PCs.

Again, I build computers for a living. BARELY ANYTHING learned from building a Pentium 4 PC back in 2005 is helping me build a X79 based system in 2014. The difference in technology is that great.That is why I don't see what you're doing will help you in the long run. You're basically trying to learn about how a horse-drawn carriage work in order to help you buy a brand new car in 2014.

If you actually wanted to learn about computers, then learn from the latest as that will be your most effective use of time and money. You'll end up with a significantly faster PC and a better basis for understanding future computer hardware trends in the near future.

It's just utterly insane to me seeing a person wasting time and money learning about horse drawn carriages in order to get better acquainted with modern cars circa 2014.

 

[ssnyder28]

It probably would have been a better idea to ask for advice before dropping money on an ancient system (many people literally give stuff this old away). The company I currently work for has me stuck on a IBM P4 3.0 based system with 1gb ram pc and it is awful! For $100 you coulda got a decent core2duo laptop that would have been substantially faster than a Pentium4/D.

 

[keithnh]

Obviously we have different opinions on what will help me learn. Since I am more of a goat (have a 64 convertible in the driveway ) than a sheep I will follow my own tack on that and appreciate any help offered as I said before. Im not a total moron and not a young whippersnapper either Im 57. Worked several electronics jobs civilian and military and came close to an AS degree in Industrial Electronics then a BS in Techni-Business with all the dinosaur languages, C, Cobol, Fortran,Pascal, PDP 11 etc. Pursued those while working full time using the knowledge I gained at work. Didnt finish my final project that was really over my head at my knowledge level but really cool ... still havent seen it done. Laid off before I finished the BS. Driving a truck since then. That was many moons ago ... I bring it up to clarify my position and that my intent is to dust off the knowledge I did gain then and add to it. I was a tech in a mfrg plant that made 8085 based mobo's for burner management systems. Actually jumping over the in-betweens would be counter-productive in my case, I believe. Not sure I see horse vs car between ddr2 and ddr3 ... or ddr1 for that matter. Basic elements are still similar to the 8088 I bought in 1986.

I have all nice peripherals I like that match the 4 boxes Im working. Was thinking 2 decent computers and a backup box in case one goes sour. One for my workshop one for my study. Can replace them with the latest whiz-bang from either company later and still have a matched set. To me each box is a little puzzle to figure out as each has their own little issue. Its fun for me as an ex-tech. BIOS issues too I wanted to dig into.

In what way would I notice the speed difference between a Core 2 and a Dual core on a wifi or ethernet internet connection? Would it be twice as fast downloading? Was just curious.

 

[Jorona]

Obviously we have different opinions on what will help me learn. Since I am more of a goat (have a 64 convertible in the driveway ) than a sheep I will follow my own tack on that and appreciate any help offered as I said before. Im not a total moron and not a young whippersnapper either Im 57. Worked several electronics jobs civilian and military and came close to an AS degree in Industrial Electronics then a BS in Techni-Business with all the dinosaur languages, C, Cobol, Fortran,Pascal, PDP 11 etc. Pursued those while working full time using the knowledge I gained at work. Didnt finish my final project that was really over my head at my knowledge level but really cool ... still havent seen it done. Laid off before I finished the BS. Driving a truck since then. That was many moons ago ... I bring it up to clarify my position and that my intent is to dust off the knowledge I did gain then and add to it. I was a tech in a mfrg plant that made 8085 based mobo's for burner management systems. Actually jumping over the in-betweens would be counter-productive in my case, I believe. Not sure I see horse vs car between ddr2 and ddr3 ... or ddr1 for that matter. Basic elements are still similar to the 8088 I bought in 1986.

I have all nice peripherals I like that match the 4 boxes Im working. Was thinking 2 decent computers and a backup box in case one goes sour. One for my workshop one for my study. Can replace them with the latest whiz-bang from either company later and still have a matched set. To me each box is a little puzzle to figure out as each has their own little issue. Its fun for me as an ex-tech. BIOS issues too I wanted to dig into.

In what way would I notice the speed difference between a Core 2 and a Dual core on a wifi or ethernet internet connection? Would it be twice as fast downloading? Was just curious.

No and Yes. Will it be faster downloading, technically no. The internet connection will still be slower then the PC. However, you'll see a difference in speed on the actual rendering of the page between the two systems. Pentium 4 and Pentium D are based around a microarchitecture called Netburst. Netburst had a deep pipeline which resulted in large performance losses with a branch misdirection. So while that P4/D may be higher clocked, it is still slower then a Core processor. Back when Core first came out, it was approximately the same performance at half the clock speed. So a Core 2 Duo at 1.6ghz was as fast as a Pentium D at 3.2ghz.

So while the actual download speed will still be bottlenecked by your connection, the rendering of the page graphics/scripts/etc will be fasted on a Core processor.

 

[Flogger23m]

This thread makes me feel bad.

Should've listened to the guy above and spent $250-300 and got a slow PC that would have been much faster than those ancient PCs listed in the OP. And there isn't much to learn when dealing with outdated tech. Will be worse when some component in these ~7 year old junkers dies and will push the cost in upgrades/repairs well above $250-300 for a new PC.

 

[Shotglass01]

It's just utterly insane to me seeing a person wasting time and money learning about horse drawn carriages in order to get better acquainted with modern cars circa 2014.

We've got a few of these in our office. Sometimes, associations with what we do mean HAM radio operators. They can get by on P2's. But, I feel the same way. Gives me a headache every time one of these guys wants to add RAM to a P4 system. Just makes me want to rampage.

 

[Deleted member 147607]

Looking through your thread here. Found it quite entertaining....

I have HP dc5100mt's(with P4 3.4GHz) that I still love to use. These have no pci-e x16 slot, just an x1. I usually throw in a sub $10 NVS quadro video card for the best bang for the buck in 2D. Nothing else needs to be done to them.

You should have mentioned the model numbers of the HP and the Gateway in your original post...that would have saved you the most money...because you're sporadically buying crap with no game plan. That leads to a waste of hard earned cash...

I'd throw the Windoze discs in the trash and load up Xubuntu = free. It runs beautifully on a P4 with 2GB's of ram.


Again...A project can easily go from a good idea to a good lesson if you don't plan before you purchase.


Liquid Cool

 

[keithnh]

To each his own. My boxes will do what I need them to quickly on legal OS's that update and are still supported for awhile in the case of the D's and if my XP machines go down possibly the 7 refurb programs. When they go down I will repair them or replace them at my discretion, for peanuts. I have learned that Windows XP thru 8.1 are NT rehashed and were designed to use a maximum of 4GB of memory which all but one machine take right off. Not sure how they differ in capabilities that relate to me but will work that to see what I can find. Dont like the 8 user interface and have heard from my local pc wrench that people still revert to 7 on newer machines as there are "problems" with it ?? and 7 will do just fine for them. I havent tried MGADiag.exe yet on the Windows 8 product that is loaded on the GT-5404, if I do and it says "Genuine" I will log the numbers and put it to work to see if I can figure out just what different it actually does and whether I want to keep it. If it says anything else I will just remove it. I have an actual Gateway OS disk with Vista Home Premium that matches the box coa. I like Vista Business alot on the DX2400.

When I see someone deriding someone else they dont know for upgrading a machine that works perfectly well for them I wonder what their motivation is really. Selling new machines? Not having discussion of older equipment clog the board? Not having to face a question they dont know the answer to? Trying to control or dominate someone else? I use my computer 90% for internet and 10% for regular office programs that run fine on a 486. Im not a gamer and would try one just to see if I can identify actual speed differences. From what I see the speed increases you reference between my ancient boxes and a new i7 or whatever are split seconds. Not full seconds. I dont care about that.

Thanks for the Xubuntu suggestion and the Netburst explanation. Limited reading I had heard about Netburst and I believe the fact that the Pentium D had 2 logical cores but not really 2 physical ones. It was an advance from the P4 iteration that had hyperthreading pursuing the same idea. Core 2 was the first Intel with more than 1 processor per chip. I did see speed tests single core vs multi core and read it depended on the workload which was faster (when that test was done some years back)

Learning from things that are not new. How many textbooks did you study in school that were printed the day you read them? Or contained information that was newly learned that day? None in my case. I couldnt just google my answers to questions either. I do try to learn from mistakes and from history if I can. I also try to keep an open mind. I also dont denigrate other people because they choose a different path from me. Maybe you have another forum category you could place this thread in so its not in the face of people who want to talk about the latest and greatest only. I do continue to get some helpful suggestions so may continue to post here. You could title it "Old farts talking about Junk" ... doesnt bother me. The unnecessary negative comments seem kinda 4yr-old to me tho ... not high tech.

 

[Dangman]

When I see someone deriding someone else they dont know for upgrading a machine that works perfectly well for them I wonder what their motivation is really. Selling new machines? Not having discussion of older equipment clog the board? Not having to face a question they dont know the answer to? Trying to control or dominate someone else? I use my computer 90% for internet and 10% for regular office programs that run fine on a 486. Im not a gamer and would try one just to see if I can identify actual speed differences. From what I see the speed increases you reference between my ancient boxes and a new i7 or whatever are split seconds. Not full seconds. I dont care about that.

The main reason why the majority of us are "deriding you" is because you came up here asking for advice but refuse to listen to any advice unless it's the advice you wanted to hear. Especially if the advice you wanted to hear was bad. At that point, you're straight up telling us that you don't care what we say and you're simply going to do whatever you want. Even when we do answer your questions in regards to proposed upgrades, plans of attack, knowledge acquisition, lines of thinking, or processes, you still continue down lines of thinking or process or plans that we've already told are wrong, poorly thought out, or just plain dumb. In other words, when we tell you that "fire is hot", you're still insisting on sticking your face into the fire to see if it's actually hot. I can point to numerous examples in this thread of you doing exactly that. If that's the way you learn (through trial and error), then why bother asking for advice and information in the first place?

Second reason is that it appears that you're trying to show off what limited knowledge you've learned in an effort to appear more knowledgeable than you've demonstrated. In your last two posts alone, there are at least a half dozen flawed and poorly researched/thought out responses in regards to computer hardware technologies and history. The fact that you could not make the connection between Horse drawn carriage analogy and computer hardware is a prime example of that. Another prime example is that your completely wrong statement in regards to the speed differences between your system. Especially considering we've already gone over why that statement is wrong earlier in this very thread.

Learning from things that are not new. How many textbooks did you study in school that were printed the day you read them? Or contained information that was newly learned that day? None in my case. I couldnt just google my answers to questions either. I do try to learn from mistakes and from history if I can. I also try to keep an open mind. I also dont denigrate other people because they choose a different path from me. Maybe you have another forum category you could place this thread in so its not in the face of people who want to talk about the latest and greatest only. I do continue to get some helpful suggestions so may continue to post here. You could title it "Old farts talking about Junk" ... doesnt bother me. The unnecessary negative comments seem kinda 4yr-old to me tho ... not high tech.

You'd still get the same type of responses in whatever subforum you go to since many of us use the "New Posts" link to see the latest posts in threads. So any time your thread gets a response, others can see it from that link. No, there's no way to disable that.

You need to work on your google-fu better. About 90% of all the questions you've asked in regards to computer hardware were more than likely answered by searches in google. The remaining 10% were from our experiences which you continue to ignore.

Whether or not you're consciously doing it, you are in fact denigrating others when you insists on paths that are flawed or wrong based on poor evidence despite being told/answered that those paths are not right. You're in effect telling them that their knowledge and experiences are not worth anything since you apparently know more about current computer hardware than we do when that's obviously not the case. It's akin to a patient telling a good doctor that WebMD is a better doctor than they are.

We generally don't have problems talking about old hardware. I do it all the time in General Hardware. I love going over the history of Intel and AMD CPU releases actually. But we do have problem when people insist on spending good money on said old hardware or trying to insist on different interpretation of old hardware history. Especially when they do so in horribly thought out and researched ways. I bet you wouldn't even get half the flack you're getting now in regards to your purchases if many of your purchases weren't just obviously bad. There are ways to make old hardware useful again if you do your research and planning RIGHT as Liquid Cool said.

 

[keithnh]

Dangman

Some people think a forum is where you come to share ideas and experiences. Not to direct the path of every person with less familiarity of a certain subject than themselves. Im on many forums with different subjects and use them to learn and document tidbits of knowledge I might otherwise forget. I do not always follow the suggestions given in them. I do when I see fit. I try to contribute in my own way if I can.

I found this forum googling a particular question ... I dont recall what. Have enjoyed some of the information gained and responses including yours previously. Im not going to tit for tat with you endlessly as that is less productive than what my efforts appear to be to you. I work almost 80 hrs a week and have little enough time to myself.

I thought someone would make a negative comment about my personal information when I went out on a limb and did so to clarify my starting point trying to get back into familiarity with computer hardware. I will be hesitant to do that again. Well done. I will say an A+ cert is helpful, but not a degree, and similar to a CDL. Anyone can read the book and pass the test. Finding a job usually takes experience and additional knowledge. Im not Albert Einstein and obviously have a smaller grip on current hardware familiarity than you and many others here at the moment. That said Im not going to depend on you to answer every question I have and direct every hardware purchase I make. I dont work that way. I will occasionally ask for help and report my results. I will try to learn and contribute as well if I can.

I believe I explained earlier that one chore I had was to restart all of my even older computers and place all the info on one hard drive, I would still like to do that even tho you think it a waste of time. It wont be to me, I will need to learn some to get there and it will be a victory for me when I do.

If I offended anyone by not following their suggestions I will just say thank you for them and the time it took to make them, I appreciate it, I possibly learned some from them, and I hope you can appreciate my freedom to use them as I see fit.

Your analogies and use of of colossal, insane, horse-drawn carriage, fire is hot, profanity etc. are childish to me, and do nothing productive or intelligent. Give it a rest.

 

[maademperor]

Looking through your thread here. Found it quite entertaining....

I have HP dc5100mt's(with P4 3.4GHz) that I still love to use. These have no pci-e x16 slot, just an x1. I usually throw in a sub $10 NVS quadro video card for the best bang for the buck in 2D. Nothing else needs to be done to them.

You should have mentioned the model numbers of the HP and the Gateway in your original post...that would have saved you the most money...because you're sporadically buying crap with no game plan. That leads to a waste of hard earned cash...

I'd throw the Windoze discs in the trash and load up Xubuntu = free. It runs beautifully on a P4 with 2GB's of ram.


Again...A project can easily go from a good idea to a good lesson if you don't plan before you purchase.


Liquid Cool

+1, I can accept spending a couple of bucks here and there on this old tech if you are going to do something with it that it can be useful for (donate to a church or something) or learning a different OS but all this random buying with no regard for the advice and information provided is sort of...strange? I thought this was a prank post when I first started reading.

when you think about it the hardware today isnt much different now than in the early 2000s...its faster and more efficient but its basically the same shit, so going backwards the way you seem to be determined to do is what seems to be ruffling feathers...There isnt anything to get from going back to the degree you want to at the basic 'tech' level (the engineering level is another matter all together). The thing is, this is an Enthusiast Forum, its hard for the members to understand your objective.

Also I wouldnt compare the technology to a horse and a car though...maybe like the original POS hyundai vs today's much more reliable and feature rich hyundai. Still a car, just a better one.