Replace Northwood Celeron with Northwood Pentium 4?

[mikey100tv]

Evening, one and all.

Please excuse me if I'm asking something that appears obvious to you experts..!

I'm running a 2.2 GHz Intel Celeron.

After using CPU-World's CPU identifier, I've discovered I'm running a Northwood-128 Celeron, with the NetBurst architecture. The initial two digits, "F2", prove this... Data is as follows:-

CPUID: F29
Family: 15 (0fh)
Model: 2 (02h)
Stepping: 9 (09h)...


and I assume I'm right in thinking, after reading through various pages here on the site, that it's probably in Socket-478 format.

Now, my question is this (and bear in mind I'm still quite new to all this):-

Is it possible to swap this for a Northwood Pentium 4 (again in Socket-478 format) running , oh, say, 2.8 or 3.2 GHz (since I would like the HyperThreading to be active)? Would it be possible to go for a Prescott P4, since I understand some of these were also manufactured in Socket-478 format...?

Which would give me the best increase in performance, bearing in mind that I'm currently running 640Mb of RAM, which was increased from an original 128Mb of RAM less than a month ago. It's definitely speeded things up on my Dell Inspiron, as I don't do a lot of surfing, but I DO do a lot of photo-editing (and I like to listen to internet radio while I'm doing so...)

Trouble is, it's a bit like the girls with their handbags; the bigger the bag they have, the more stuff they seem to find to fill it up with!

I'm thinking I could do with yet another half-gig of RAM, and I think the CPU upgrade would probably help in this respect, as the extra L2 caches on the P4 must SURELY help speed things up.

What else is involved...does the BIOS need upgrading? I'm running the RAM at 266MHz, as that's the clock speed on the original 128Mb RAM module which is still in place...so the additional 512Mb module which went in 3 wks ago was kept at the same speed. Everybody said "upgrade the BIOS", but it seems to work fine as it is.

I intend to take the 512Mb module out, and just replace it with a 1 Gb 266MHz module...which will give me, leaving the 128 Mb module where it is, a total of 1152 Mb of RAM. I'm assured that Windows XP will handle this comfortably (and I don't want to change the OS, 'cos I LIKE XP!)

Any thoughts, boys & girls?



PS:- Sorry, Moderators, I'm pretty sure I've got this in the wrong forum! Would you be good enough to relocate it in the correct one, please? NOT deliberate...still finding my way round this site ( and trying to figure out which forum is which!!) Apologies...

[CPUShack]

Your limited to a 400FSB P4 unless your board can do a 533

That means you top out at a non-HT 3GHz P4

[Neon_WA]

[mikey100tv]

Thanks for getting back to me so promptly, guys.

OK; that's fair enough. The HyperThreading's not essential, but it would be nice to have, obviously. I freely admit to not knowing enough about this stuff to be able to say what board this thing is running...and for you, Neon, it's a 2002 model Dell Inspiron 1100 series laptop; forgot to mention that bit! It's also only running a fairly meager 20 Gb ATA-100 IC25N020ATMRO4-0 HDD, if that tells you anything...

All I know is that I'm using a 1Tb portable HDD through a USB hub these days for my main storage...which frees up the local disk to carry on running XP & my installed programs, since the space they occupy is fixed, & won't change.

When you say "533", I take it we're talking about the slightly higher FSB again, yes?

[mikey100tv]

Off to bed...it's past 1.30am over here, and I'm YAWNING..!

Catch y'all tomorrow.

[Neon_WA]

first release was 2.0GHz Celeron
yours 2.2GHz (should be SL6VT TDP 57.1 watts)
also came with
2.4GHz Celeron (TDP 59.8 watts)

so as a start point it should take a 2.4GHz Northwood P4 (TDP 57.8 - 59.8 watts)
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Pentium_4/Intel-Pentium%204%202.4%20GHz%20-%20RK80532PC056512%20(BX80532PC2400D).html

edit.. the 1100 has been successfully upgraded to a 2.8GHz Celeron & 2.4 Nothwood P4
The 2.8GHz Celeron has a TDP of 68.4 watts.. so will run hotter

Probably worth trying to get a 2.6GHz Northwood P4.. TDP 62.6 watts
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Pentium_4/Intel-Pentium%204%202.6%20GHz%20-%20RK80532PC064512%20(BX80532PC2600D).html

from all info you need to have bios version A32
http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/19/DriverDetails?driverId=R87514

and it is confirmed the 1100 will NOT run Prescott Celerons or P4s

[mikey100tv]

Thanks for that, Neon.

I'm glad you brought that up about the TDP. Since Dell made such a hash of the cooling system on these old Inspirons, it doesn't take a lot of multi-tasking to get the fan running flat-out...and it's not the quietest fan on the block, by a long way. It's intrusive, to say the least...

So if I do make the move to a P4, there's no sense encouraging it to run much hotter than it does already. Hmmm...

Sounds like I ought to think of making it the 2.4 GHz then!

Appreciated.

PS:- If you know about Dell's history, this 1100 is related to the ill-fated 5100...same casing, same cooling system...need I go on?

[Neon_WA]

[CPUShack]

[mikey100tv]

Goodness me, Neon...you HAVE been a busy boy!

Don't tell you've got nothing better to do over there in Oz?

I DO appreciate the effort, though...

By the way, I've already got the A32 on CD; downloaded it about a month ago...just in case I needed it...

[mikey100tv]

Believe it or not, my nephew used to call the Pentium the Pendulum. Swing first one way, then the other...shall i? shan't I?...shall I? shan't I?...

He used to build his own systems, but I think this was back in the days of the original Pentium...