You can't use any P4, but can use any Coppermine P3 (up to 1 GHz), or a Tualatin P3/Celeron up to 1.4 GHz if you can still find a socket adapter (www.powerleap.com).

Message Edited by jakelm on 08-02-200611:36 AM

Message Edited by jakelm on 08-02-200611:58 AM

A Taulatin Celeron (within the 1.3GHz-1.4GHz range) would actually be better than the 1GHz PIII becuase the Taulatin core is so much better the Coppermine core. The price often makes an upgrade requiring the adapter not worth it though. The CPUs are often rare and expensive, there's the adapter of course, you'll often need to flash to an Intel BIOS, and that would require a new Windows purchase (the Dell specific one needs the Dell BIOS so flashing to an Intel on would make the Dell CD think it's no longer a Dell system).

That being said, the 1GHz PIII would be better than the 1GHz Celeron in there now. If I remember right, the Coppermine Celeron's had a 66MHz FSB (the PIII had 100 and 133) and only a 128k L2 cache (the PIII had 256). Those two things will hurt gaming bad. I had a Celeron twice the speed an older game required but due to the lacking FSB and L2 cache, I couldn't play. Not sure if you'll be able to find it past eBay but a 1GHz on eBay was rather cheap last I looked. Out of curiousity, what video card do you have in it? Good luck.

Message Edited by Bobman101 on 08-02-200612:25 PM

Message Edited by jakelm on 08-02-200611:10 AM

Message Edited by jakelm on 08-02-200612:04 PM

I guess I should have posted all of this in the upgrade section...My appologies

 

 

Jake

The second one you linked to won't work without the adapter. Flashing to the latest Dell Bios is fine, but to use a Taulatin CPU, you'd need to flash the motherboard BIOS to Intel. Dell's use Intel motherboards, they're just custom versions so when you erase the Dell custom BIOS and replace the normal Intel one, it's no longer a Dell, just an Intel in Dell's clothing and casing. The first one is 1GHz but I notice it has the larger heatsink and I'm pretty sure that means it's Taulatin too. If you want a drop and go, it has to be coppermine. Coppermine's have the smaller core without the large heatspreader like the following

PIII Coppermine

As for the fan, I'm not sure but people have upgraded Dell's with 1.xGHz with higher 2.xGHz processors using the same heatsink. No guarantees but I would assume it would be enough unless it's very small and underpowered. The lockups, if happening in games, are probably due to the fact of it being a Celeron (the cut corners in the FSB and L2 cache I mentioned earlier).

The video card is good. I was just suspecting one of the GeForce4 MX's. Many people buy them seeing the "4" when it's really only comparable to a GeForce2.

Message Edited by Bobman101 on 08-02-200607:52 PM