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Breathing more life into an "old" PC

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As part of this weekend's fun improving the performance of my aging 3-year old machine at home, I found that I could upgrade to modern day CPU performance for not that much $.

My main machine at home is a 1.4 GHz Dell Dimension 8100. Apparently these machines were built with pretty good componentry, including PC800 memory. Unfortunately, the CPU was Intel's 423 "Willamette" version, which was quickly replaced my a new incompatible form factor (the 478 pin "Northwood".) If I were to stick with the 423 form factor, I'd only be able to go to 2GHz, the fastest Intel made in that form factor.

However, Google quickly lead me to PowerLeap, which offers an upgrade kit consisting of a socket converter and 2.8GHz 478 pin CPU for only $249. A 2.6 GHz upgrade is only $219. Doubling my CPU speed for $250 sounds like a heck of deal. I have it on order, and I'll post here what my experience with it is.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    October 18, 2004
    I recently installed one of these and it works well. I even managed to keep my Zalman "flower" heatsink. It works great, and running temperatures have gone way down. All in all, its a great buy thats enabled me to postpone buying a new machine for a year or more.

  • Anonymous
    October 18, 2004
    PowerLeap adapters work great. I used one to convert a Pentium II 350 Mhz machine to a 1.2GHz Celeron. Used it without any problems.

  • Anonymous
    October 19, 2004
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 19, 2004
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 20, 2004
    Instead of $250 for a new CPU, why not spend a few bucks more and get a whole PC?

    The Dell 400SC (2.8GHz) is often available for under $300 after rebate. It's dead silent. 2x SATA. 6 USB (+2 more available). 1000Base-T. And more....

    Watch techbargains.com for the rebate, and http://www.aaltonen.us/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8 for the tweaks.

  • Anonymous
    October 20, 2004
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 20, 2004
    This leads to my question: how do you guys handle the spare computer parts? I have a few parts that don't really fit into anything and simply gather dust in the corner.

  • Anonymous
    October 21, 2004
    The comment has been removed

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