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Upgrading my e510, what can i upgrade
It appears I have a Dell E510 with a Pentium 4HT which I've already updated the RAM and graphics card, and added a usb wireless adapter. I really like the case on this desktop as it opens easily and everything seems to fit into place like a puzzle. I'd hate to get rid of this case. It there a way for me to remove some older slower hardward and replace it with new faster hardware such as the mother board, Pentium chip etc. If anyone has any idea's can you let me know.
Thanks,
Mike.
rdunnill
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October 11th, 2013 19:00
I upgraded one of these a few months back. The biggest single improvement that can be made is installing an SSD as the boot drive, and the results are akin to having a new computer. If you do buy a new computer, the SSD will move over (and note that most new computers are not so equipped).
Philip_Yip
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October 12th, 2013 12:00
The SSD as mentions and while you are at the Operating System to Windows 7 or Windows 8.1. See Windows Reinstallation Guide/A Clean install of Windows 7/8:
http://philipyip.wordpress.com/dell-community-forums/
rdunnill
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October 12th, 2013 13:00
It's pretty easy to install Windows 7 or 8 on an E510, as all the motherboard drivers are present on the install disk. The chore is migrating data over from the existing XP install.
Windows 8 Professional upgrades are only $85 on Amazon and they qualify for free upgrades to Windows 8.1 (after it is released).
MChiocca
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March 27th, 2017 20:00
Definitely concur on the installation of an SSD. I installed a 960 GB SSD from PNY. It came with a limited use copy of Acronis True Image software that made cloning my old HDD to the SSD effortless. And, the performance of an SSD far outshines any traditional HDD. The Windows Experience Index subscore for the SSD data transfer rate rose to 7.2.
A new processor also can be worth the money and time and effort it takes to install it. The best you can do in an E510 is the Pentium D 945 running at 3.4 GHz. That's what I have. You have to watch though. Some motherboards complain about an "Incompatible CPU" when you boot your machine. You have to press F1 to continue. Fortunately, my motherboard doesn't suffer with this problem.
Make sure you upgrade the BIOS to A07 before you attempt a processor upgrade.
As for memory, a 2x2GB configuration is best, for a total of 4 GB. Only 3.5 GB is actually usable though. The rest is system reserved.
I did a bunch of other stuff to my E510 as well. I installed a new audio card, upgraded the video card, and installed a gigabit Ethernet card. After upgrading all of the system components I installed Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit as an upgrade from XP SP3. Windows recognized all of the system components, whether they were ones I installed or came native with the system.
My E510 is from circa 2006 and, with all of the upgrades I've done to it, it's like a totally different system. At this point though, I've pretty much maxed out everything so there is very little left for me to do to try and improve the system. I was considering installing Windows 10, but I'm not really sure how well that will go, even with all of the upgraded components. It's running 7 pretty sweet right now.