Dimension 3000 cpu/processor upgrade

Ok, Thanks VERY VERY MUCH!

Personnaly, I would gut the thing and replace the motherboard, CPU, Memory and power supply. On the motherboard, just pay attention to the number of PCI slots (2 or 3) and get a mini-ATX board with DDR2 and on-chip video and sound

I inadvertently purchased a Dell Dimension 3000 last week on Ebay. I had less than 2 minutes to decide if I wanted it - based on the item description - it was only $116. Here's what the description said:

Only thing I saw was that it was a P4 2.4ghz, perfect for what I need, as I already have a Dell GX260 2ghz and it works great. After the auction ended, I then searched on Google and found out it was a Celeron and I was bummed. I'm HOPING that this PC will meet my needs, which is to play downloaded movies and surf the web. I have another Dell that I brought home from work that was decommission that uses a PIII 500, and it's doing an 'ok' job playing downloaded movies, however, it gets choppy during some parts, pauses during others and Youtube is basically non-playable. I had upgraded that PC's video card to a GeForce 5200 PCI with 128mb of RAM. I really like that video card as it has the HD resolution needed for my 42" LG TV, so I'm going to pull that out and put it in the Dimension 3000 and e-waste the PIII 500. Like I said, hopefully the Celeron 2.4 will be good enough, but if I ever needed to upgrade, it's good to know that I can swap the CPU out.

My question, if I ever upgrade to a P4 3.0ghz chip, will I need to adjust any jumpers or other settings? Or is it plug & play ? I do know I will need to upgrade the memory to 800mhz from the current 400mhz and get a decent heatsink and fan, too.

Look on eBay for a 478 processor for a Dell Dimension 2400, 3000, or an Optiplex 170XL They should work, and will be cheap. See them all the time. Have purchased a few.

Thanks for replying, but you know darn well that if I created my own thread I would have gotten the old "USE THE SEARCH NOOBIE!" response. Can't win for anything I guess. My question was along the same line as the OP so that is why I posted here. I even waited about a week before asking this question for fear that I would get some negative response. But thanks man.

Thanks. I understand which chip to get, I just wanted to know if I needed to set any jumpers or would it just be plug and play. The other person answered this question for me. Thanks again.

In regards to the 2.4ghz -- I believe it is not a P4, but a Celeron 2.4, because I checked the sellers other auction and he has more of them but is now advertising that they are celerons and they are going for far less now, around $60. The guy is using deceptive marketing.

Why not download CPU-Z or SIW (system information for Windows) Here; http://www.techspot.com/downloads/155-siw-system-info.html , and know for sure.

I thought that was the reason for Ebay

RE: captaincranky"Why not download CPU-Z or SIW (system information for Windows)"

(I'm only at 3 posts and unable to properly quote posts) I stated in my initial post that I had not received the PC from Ebay yet, and when I tried previewing the post, the board stated that I wasn't logged in. I logged in, and I lost the post, so I just pretty much summarized it above. I will be receiving the PC next week.

Thanks for the info guys. Perhaps it might be a 2.4 P4, instead of a 2.4 Celeron, that would cool, I guess I'll found out when it arrives, it's just that I had wanted to know about the upgrade, but it would appear that all I need to do is swap the CPU and get a good fan.

The PC arrived today. I added 1GB of ram and swapped the video card with a GeForce PCI card. Quite honestly, this PC is good to go. It is the 2.4 Celeron but it's faster than my HP P4 1.7GHz I use at work and my Dell GX260 at home. I went to the Dell support site to download the drivers for the NIC and audio and found a bios update. The update changed the bios from A01 to A03 and this will allow the use of larger P4 3+ GHz CPU's.

Those socket 478 P4s are getting harder and harder to find. Actually, as you pointed out, the faster Celerons aren't exactly slugs, but they don't mulit-task that well, partly due to the smaller caches. Plenty of memory should help big time.

Anyway, here's two at Newegg; http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010340343 1051707443&name=Socket 478
The cheaper "Northwood" would be the better buy (IMO), let's see what the others say.

Thanks for the link. I stopped building PC's back in the old AMD K62 days, so I lost track of the technology. But back on track of the link you supplied, isn't that 3.0 chip the same as this one Click Here?

I like Newegg and have ordered many times from them, however, I'm curious to know why their CPU is close to $25 more? It says OEM, so I don't think it comes with a heatsink and fan.

I believe this is the same as the chip you posted, too Click here

I just found these 3.2GHz for under $80 on Pricewatch Click Here

I'm a little anxious to swap out the CPU, but like I said earlier, the Celeron is good to go (at least for what I'm using it for) for now.

Some people like the "Northwood" line of P4s better than the Prescott P4 by virtue of running somewhat cooler. That would be the 2.8Ghz I linked.

The 3.0GHz P4s are "Prescott" cores, and your 2 links to this PN# RK80546PG0801M is indeed the same as Newegg's offering.

No, OEM processors DO NOT come with a HSF, just the CPU, nothing more.

As to your issue with price, Newegg is not always the cheapest guy on the block, but they are reliable beyond reproach. I do not know anything about the Etailers you've mentioned. Personally, I would buy the parts from Newegg anyway, since I believe that an extended ordering history might be valuable in the event of a problem. "Well, he's been our customer for years", like that.

I'm certainly not pressuring you to dump the Celeron, I have a box ,(at my son's house at the moment), With a Cedar Mill Celeron 356 (3.33 GHz) which flies, probably even with the wrong BIOS in the board it's on.

Anyway, I would caution you that these CPUs are disappearing rapidly, and it won't be very long before you'll be lucky to find them. But who knows, someone else may have a different belief system than myself, in which case, ring in.

THanks C.C.


BTW, I ran a benchmark utility called NovaBench 2. Here's the results of the 2.4 Celeron vs my 1.7 P4 I use at work:





Granted, I'm not sure what the rankings mean, but I ran it again and it was in the 90's. I had even closed out all applications and it was now slower. Later that night, I ran the benchmark again and got a 120, but I wasn't able to save the file to the website because it recognized the system configuration.

That 109 score bested some P4 2.8's and P4 3.0's, check it out:

http://novabench.com/scores.php?p=108


Here's the link to download the software: http://www.download3k.com/System-Utilities/Benchmark-Utilities/latest.html

I got 316...

You must be running a quad-core.

Your 316 inspired me to test out our Core 2 Duo PC that we got several months back (I'm at work).
Here's the results:

Click on the blue "system specs" on the right side of my posts

Ahem......TMagic.....

Isn't that sort of like cheating?:rolleyes: