Upgrade CPU on Dell with 1.80A

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wrangler

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Hopefully someone can tell me for sure because Dell won't. My wife has a 2 1/2- 3 year old Dell with an 845 board with bios A03. Looking at bios and cpu-z I see that it is a 1.80A Northwood with 400Mhz fsb. Looking up the 845 chipset it says it supports either 400 or 533 fsb. I found a skt 478 Pentium 4 2.40A but it is a Prescott with 533 fsb.

Question is do I have to stay with a Northwood 400 or 533 fsb or can I drop this Prescott 2.40A (or faster if possible 3.0Ghz???) in and be fine including the use of CPU cooling setup on this Dell. I say that because the one I have looks like it has a duct bringing air to the heatsink from a fan at the back of the computer instead of a fan right on heatsink like I am used to.
 
wrangler said:
Hopefully someone can tell me for sure because Dell won't. My wife has a 2 1/2- 3 year old Dell with an 845 board with bios A03. Looking at bios and cpu-z I see that it is a 1.80A Northwood with 400Mhz fsb. Looking up the 845 chipset it says it supports either 400 or 533 fsb. I found a skt 478 Pentium 4 2.40A but it is a Prescott with 533 fsb.

Question is do I have to stay with a Northwood 400 or 533 fsb or can I drop this Prescott 2.40A (or faster if possible 3.0Ghz???) in and be fine including the use of CPU cooling setup on this Dell. I say that because the one I have looks like it has a duct bringing air to the heatsink from a fan at the back of the computer instead of a fan right on heatsink like I am used to.
Click to expand...

I don't see why not, I've installed prescott-based cpus into i845 motherboards before
 
W4ngsta said:
HOW??? I thought that i845 chipsets can only handle a max fsb of 533! please tell me how!
Click to expand...

They do, but several chips on the prescott core use the 533FSB rather than the 800FSB of which you are more than likely thinking :cool:
 
Now we're getting somewhere!!

Does the CPU control whether the system runs at 533 or 400....................I ask because this Dell controlled Intel motherboard allows for the adjustment of NOTHING...RAM timings, voltages, fsb speeds........NOTHING. If I drop in a 533Mhz based chip does the system just automatically "know" and begin to operate as 533 fsb. Also, I've noticed that the Prescotts require 1.525V and the Northwoods were only 1.5V. I'm at work so I can't be sure but I think the date on the A03 bios was early 2003 and I'd bet my left nut it was a cpu support update but you can't get that stuff from Dell. They absolutely will not tell you anything that will help you upgrade the CPU in order to try to force new computer purchase. Everything I know I googled or yahooed. But I can find nothing that says this motherboard "Dell version" absolutely supports this or that CPU.

Being able to use a Prescott would be GREAT..........only because I can actually find them, you can't buy a 400 fsb Northwood anywhere. I was originally looking for 400 fsb plain vanilla 2.40 northwood but they are no-where and I don;t trust e-bay CPU purchases.

Thanks for taking the time to look at this. Any help would be appreciated as I NEED to get another year and a half out of this computer. A 2.4 or better with a Gig of RAM and a new 6800 (gotta be agp) should get me there. It's going to be my son's first computer so he can play CS and other fun stuff.................plus I just don't want Dell to beat me out of upgrading!!!!!!!!

Thanks again!!
 
if you go to dell support you can look up your system specs, this will include the range of cpu's your mainboard will facilitate.

http://support.dell.com/support/

and they have a community forum.

I've used it to find info on my Optiplex 260 workstation, and there are several tidbits on problems that are quite common but are rarely publicised, like the heatsink problems with some of the GX270's

and the recent bad cap problem with the GX270's
http://search.dell.com/results.aspx...0&ira=False&s=dhs&ec=&l=en&cat=sup&cs=19&c=us
 
If you have not purchased the P4 2.40A yet, check out Power Leap for their upgrades to your Dell. I used them on two separate occasions on older Dells (BX440 mobo) with great success. One system is still running at a friend's house (other system had a mobo failure).

They should have a good upgrade path for you with the engineering work already done.
 
i highly doubt that the prescott will work in an i845 board wtihout some sort of bios support - even some i865 boards dont work with prescotts (the P4P800 being an example). also, prescott runs hotter than Northwood and the cooling system in that dell was designed for northwoods - so i would really try to find a northwood based processor. I have purchased CPU's off ebay and theyre all fine, just buy from someone with a good rep, its very very rare that a chip will just up and die. also, try the FS/FT forums here, im sure someone has a 2.4B sitting around (2.4 w/ 533). im not sure if the i845 supports HT (dont think it does) but if it does, try to get teh 3.06. it was the first chip with HT and it has the 533 bus.

edit:
These i845's support HT: 845GE, 845GV, 845E and 845G
http://developer.intel.com/products/processor/pentium4/index.htm
try to get one of these: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=80143&item=6778551089&rd=1


edit2: according to intel, i845 is supposed to support prescotts - so you might be in luck. you might want to try to pick up a celeronD chip, that would be your cheapest upgrade path and it gives decent performance.
 
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lithium726 said:
i845 is supposed to support prescotts - so you might be in luck. you might want to try to pick up a celeronD chip, that would be your cheapest upgrade path and it gives decent performance.
Click to expand...

It works...
celeron.jpg


(Note the 0.09 process... it's prescott-based)
 
ScHpAnKy said:
It works...
celeron.jpg


(Note the 0.09 process... it's prescott-based)
Click to expand...
thats what i just said. but without a BIOS update, it might not work. like i said, i865 is supposed to support prescotts too, and the P4P doesnt.
 
lithium726 said:
thats what i just said. but without a BIOS update, it might not work. like i said, i865 is supposed to support prescotts too, and the P4P doesnt.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying you lied or anything, but that's an old board (<2000?) and it didn't require anything, so there's definately the possibility that it will work right out of the box
 
i dunno about you, but i dont buy things on "possibility"... if im buying something i make damn sure itll work, cuase returning/selling is a PITA.

both of us are arguing on the possibility that the board, in its current state, may or may not work - that is true for any board... i dunno why the p4p doesnt work wtih prescott, but it doesnt, so there could be some reason why your board works and his wont. or it will, we dont know. i still think a cheap celeronD would be the best bet.
 
Hey guys,

MD_Willington
I had to search and search but DEEP within the bowels of Dell is some generic information about processors that a particular board will support. It looks like a regurgitation of an Intel info sheet and it says that it will support up to 2.80 533 P4. No mention is made of whether it has to be a Prescott or Northwood. But it does specify 512 cache which pretty much seals the deal at a Northwood. I found a 2.80 533 fsb with 512 cache chip BUT it says it needs 1.525 volts. (I REALLY wanted to try that cpu but it was at a no-name company I found on Pricegrabber and they have a no return policy for cpu's) My current 1.80A is running on 1.5 volts. My biggest fear all along has been that there is no way to make alterations to the bios settings with this board so I wanted to stay with a cpu that closely matched the specifications of the cpu I have now. I still don't know if it will just up and automatically start running at 533 fsb when I slap this thing in because I have no way to change fsb from within bios.

So!

I found a 2.53Mhz 533 fsb that runs on 1.5 volts and has the same B0 stepping @ ZZFly who DOES take cpu returns provided you make arrangements in 15 days and since I plan to do this experiment before the fed-ex driver can get back in his truck I should have plenty of time. I figure worst case is if it runs at 400 it will be a 2.4 and I was ready to settle for that anyway.

I will report on success or failure for those of you that have kindly shown an interest and who attempted to be and have been of assistance.

I really hope the chipset detects automatically and fires up at 533 cause that should take memory speed to 333 instead of 266 and that will be a nice boost also.

Cpu will be here tuesday or wednesday I'm thinking.
 
voltage is controlled by the CPU. the BIOS on teh board wouldve read the correct stock voltage settings from the 2.8.
 
lithium726 said:
im not sure if the i845 supports HT (dont think it does) but if it does, try to get teh 3.06. it was the first chip with HT and it has the 533 bus.

edit:
These i845's support HT: 845GE, 845GV, 845E and 845G
http://developer.intel.com/products/processor/pentium4/index.htm
try to get one of these: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=80143&item=6778551089&rd=1


edit2: according to intel, i845 is supposed to support prescotts - so you might be in luck. you might want to try to pick up a celeronD chip, that would be your cheapest upgrade path and it gives decent performance.
Click to expand...

I should note that the HT performance on the older CPU (P4 3.06 GHz) is spotty. YMMV. I have the same one and HT simply didn't work smoothly.

-J.
 
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GeForceX said:
I should note that the HT performance on the older CPU (P4 3.06 GHz) is spotty. YMMV. I have the same one and HT simply didn't work smoothly.

-J.
Click to expand...
that seems odd as HT had been on xeons far before it ever hit mainstream desktop...
 
Odd, but true. I have a dual 2.0 GHz XEON workstation with HT and it doesn't feel quite as smooth as my 3.2 GHz P4 with HT. But, then again, there are many other factors, such as the FSB, which would be affecting my experience.
 
Well, more specifically that there are "bugs" in the desktop counterparts. Those got fixed however with the newer 3.2+ GHz and new core CPU's. Such "bugs" would be that a game would run erratically, crackling sound would occur, etc...

-J.
 
Northwood (and prestonia, by relation) had lots of inefficiencies in how HT worked. Prescott has a much better implementation of HT. If anyone else has read Xbit's tech article about how netburst works they'll know what I'm talking about. What happened on northwood/prestonia is that if one of the two threads starting having lots of cache misses, the other thread would suffer a huge (like 20-40%) performance decrease. In prescott the second thread is pretty much unaffected by cache misses in the first thread.
 
wrangler said:
Hey guys,

MD_Willington
I had to search and search but DEEP within the bowels of Dell is some generic information about processors that a particular board will support. It looks like a regurgitation of an Intel info sheet and it says that it will support up to 2.80 533 P4. No mention is made of whether it has to be a Prescott or Northwood. But it does specify 512 cache which pretty much seals the deal at a Northwood. I found a 2.80 533 fsb with 512 cache chip BUT it says it needs 1.525 volts. (I REALLY wanted to try that cpu but it was at a no-name company I found on Pricegrabber and they have a no return policy for cpu's) My current 1.80A is running on 1.5 volts. My biggest fear all along has been that there is no way to make alterations to the bios settings with this board so I wanted to stay with a cpu that closely matched the specifications of the cpu I have now. I still don't know if it will just up and automatically start running at 533 fsb when I slap this thing in because I have no way to change fsb from within bios.

So!

I found a 2.53Mhz 533 fsb that runs on 1.5 volts and has the same B0 stepping @ ZZFly who DOES take cpu returns provided you make arrangements in 15 days and since I plan to do this experiment before the fed-ex driver can get back in his truck I should have plenty of time. I figure worst case is if it runs at 400 it will be a 2.4 and I was ready to settle for that anyway.

I will report on success or failure for those of you that have kindly shown an interest and who attempted to be and have been of assistance.

I really hope the chipset detects automatically and fires up at 533 cause that should take memory speed to 333 instead of 266 and that will be a nice boost also.

Cpu will be here tuesday or wednesday I'm thinking.
Click to expand...
Well I hope it works for you...good luck!
 
Well, I'm running my 1.5v P4 3.0c Northwood w/ HT @ 1.25v, and it's still Prime95 stable... even if you had to live with it (which you probably don't, as the CPU controls the voltage), I don't see why the smaller difference you're talking about would cause the CPU problems. Undervolting is actually a good practice, assuming you've got a fixed speed in mind, and you do thorough stability testing.

-SEAL
 
wrangler said:
Hopefully someone can tell me for sure because Dell won't. My wife has a 2 1/2- 3 year old Dell with an 845 board with bios A03. Looking at bios and cpu-z I see that it is a 1.80A Northwood with 400Mhz fsb. Looking up the 845 chipset it says it supports either 400 or 533 fsb. I found a skt 478 Pentium 4 2.40A but it is a Prescott with 533 fsb.

Question is do I have to stay with a Northwood 400 or 533 fsb or can I drop this Prescott 2.40A (or faster if possible 3.0Ghz???) in and be fine including the use of CPU cooling setup on this Dell. I say that because the one I have looks like it has a duct bringing air to the heatsink from a fan at the back of the computer instead of a fan right on heatsink like I am used to.
Click to expand...
You didn't specify the model but sounds like a Dimension 4400, and I have one of those. The first thing I would do is flash the BIOS to A06, which was the last 4400 BIOS.

Second the 4400 used the 845 PT mobo (micro-ATX form factor), and it was the plain 845 chipset. No "E" or nothing. The fastest 400mhz Northwood made was a 2.6 ghz, which i have in my Dell. The plain 845 is "supposed" to "unofficially" support 533mhz CPUs (this is from Anandtech). I can't verify this, I've never tried one.

I hate to be negative, but I seriously doubt it will support a Prescott CPU. A 533 Northwood, yes. But tha fact that Prescott has the larger cache might keep it from starting.

I really hope it works for you. please let us know.
 
Along the same lines as above, you would probably need a BIOS update to support a Prescott on that board, and knowing Dell like I do, they would probably not do said update so you would buy a newer model.
 
Man, I forgot to check that Fed-Ex could leave it at my door and now it will be friday before I get it. The board is a D845-EPT2 and the only bios available for my system, using the id number that Dell puts on their machines is A04 which I have updated to.

Some information I found after starting this thread leads me to believe that my board is a later version of the 845 (late 2002 early 2003) and will support the 533 fsb but I now firmly believe Prescott would be a failure although some people have stated that they got them to work in 845 chipset boards but I seriously doubt if were "Dellified" boards.

Signed the door hangy thing so Fed-Ex will leave it at my door and I will be slapping it in Friday 6/24/2005 in the PM (after 6:00 Central) and if she fires up I will check a few things and see if it runs a few benchies ok and then I will report here.

Thanks again all.

Wish I'd had the guts for that 2.80 533 1.525v :(
 
wrangler go to dell.com put in the code on your pc and let dell update your bios bye it self then run sandra and it will tell ya the max cpu u can use. it i diod it with my gx270 it went from a 2.8 to 3.6+ ghz cpu would work so its worth a shot. and i like the way dell does it bios update it idiot proof almost just dont touch the pc and go takes about 1 min to do and u dont have to do anything but run the program
 
Man, you guys finding stuff on Dell I aint never seen. I have been there on every page you can imagine and I put my machine number in so it could identify it but I've never seen an option for automatic bios update. I wish I'd heard that sandra tip before I purchased the 2.53. Now that I know what I know, I know it would have worked. I am more comfortable with this given I had to re-use the Dell heatsink cause I've heard the 2.8's run much hotter than rest of the Northwoods but if I wasn't such a gutless wonder I would have had 2.8 instead.

Anyway

It works. Fired up at 2.53 533 fsb with ram now running at 1:1. It was the easiest thing I've ever done. The way Dell does the heatsink is really weird but it made it a fast swap. I was prepared to have to do a real thorough cleaning of the heatsink and a reaplication of thermal interface but that is not needed. They have an extremely thin metal strip that touches the cpu with the thermal interface material inbetween that and the heatsink. It was literally less than 2 minutes to get the old one out, put the new one in and strap the heatsink back down.

With 9600XT video card 3dmark01 went from 9700 to 11600 and HL2 and CS:S are now really playable at 1024 with high detail.

Thanks again for all the help guys!! Anybody need a P4 1.80A with a brand new Intel heatsink/fan?
 
wrangler said:
With 9600XT video card 3dmark01 went from 9700 to 11600 and HL2 and CS:S are now really playable at 1024 with high detail.

Thanks again for all the help guys!! Anybody need a P4 1.80A with a brand new Intel heatsink/fan?
Click to expand...
Congrats! So does the system recognize the full 1MB of cache?
 
well, it'd be hard pressed for Dell to build their computers based on a single motherboard to cpu. They know that and I suppose thats why there is limited info on this kind of stuff. This might help other Dell owners now--cheap upgrade for them with a little research huh?
 
Yep! Got the 2.53 for $140 shipped from ZZF. Can't get any cheaper than that for adding a year or so to the computers life.Gonna try stretching it to 18 months which I think I can do when vanilla 6800's (or if I can find a cheap agp x800) get to rock bottom prices. Probably go with x800 agp cause I think they suck less juice and I gotta start thinking about the old power supply in this Dell.
My upstairs A64 has BFG 6800GT OC which I love but I gotta say that the best money I ever spent on a video card has been this 9600XT. Gotta be a year or so ago I picked it up for $150 and it's still chewing up the latest games at decent resolutions. At least now that it aint choked off by the cpu.
qdemn7- It is a Northwood. I didn't have the nuts to try a Prescott or even the 2.8 Northwood just because the voltage was different.
 
wrangler said:
qdemn7- It is a Northwood. I didn't have the nuts to try a Prescott or even the 2.8 Northwood just because the voltage was different.
Click to expand...
Ah well, better safe than sorry. Glad it all worked out. :)
 
Yep! Got the 2.53 for $140 shipped from ZZF.
Click to expand...
wow, can you return it? i have a 2.53 sitting here that you can have for much less than 140 shipped...

got some 2.4B's and 2.26's as well
 
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