Squeezing a bit more life from an old, old system!

I have a very old Dell Workstation.
It's a 12 year old Precision 410MT with an Intel 440BX chipset motherboard.
The FSB runs at just 100MHz.

It currently has dual P3 Slot 1 550MHz processors, and 512Mb RAM.

The machine is only used as a media server and copes well, but I'm wanting to use it to do some video processing, (home video to DivX mainly).

To this end I want to max the system out on the cheap, to extend it's life another 12 months or so.

I can get some some registered DIMM SDRAM (4x256Mb) to up the RAM to 1Gb, but it is PC133 not PC100

I can also get a matched pair of P3 Slot 1 1GHz processors (also running at 133MHz).

My questions are all related to the 100MHz FSB and running the RAM and processors capable of 133MHz, and what this will mean.

Will it work as is? Do I need to Overclock the FSB? or Underclock the RAM? What about the processors?

I know the system is not exactly state of the art!! But if I can stretch a few more months/years out of it, I'll be happy!

All help appreciated Thanks.

 

Well the ram will work , it'll just run at the 100Mhz speed unless you can bump it up in the BIOS.

Not sure on the CPUs. If the bus speed isn't able to be bumped up, maybe the BIOS has clock multiplier options.

Sam

 

Hmm, video conversion is one of the most processor intensive things that one can do. I would say it depends on how much that upgrade would cost you as compared to just buying a dual cored machine, they're quite inexpensive these days. Be advised that transcoding on your present specs will render it useless to do anything else, do it overnight if you have to like I did with a much more advanced single cored CPU, some 5 years ago.

 

Hmm, video conversion is one of the most processor intensive things that one can do. I would say it depends on how much that upgrade would cost you as compared to just buying a dual cored machine, they're quite inexpensive these days. Be advised that transcoding on your present specs will render it useless to do anything else, do it overnight if you have to like I did with a much more advanced single cored CPU, some 5 years ago.

Oh, a current dual core CPU will transcode beautifully in the background while you do whatever else it is that you normally do.

 

The main thing is the RAM and Processors will cost me just £25 in total, whereas a new machine will be at least £350.

The PC won't really be doing anything else, apart from media serving to a PS3. It lives in a cupboard, and I remote on to it from my laptop, which I use for everyday tasks.

 

OK, that sounds reasonable for a new machine and parts. What OS are you running and will it support multi-processors? Someone else more qualified than I will have to answer that one. Good luck.

 

I'm running XP, and already have dual processors installed, a matched pair at 550MHz, so that bit is fine.

 

I agree, no problem using 133 RAM in a 100 slot. If your board and CMOS support the bigger CPUs, no problem there. But both upgrades will tax the PSU more, perhaps significantly. So you need to check that. Note a good graphics card will offer better performance too, but will definitely tax the PSU.

 

I was wondering about the board...

There are jumpers on the board for processor speeds between 300-450Mhz, but the existing processors are 550MHz, and run just fine with no jumpers installed. Not sure what will happen when I plug in the 1GHz processors though, but for the small amount of cash I will give it a try.

If the new processors are supposed to run at 1GHz on a 133MHz FSB, will they run slower on the 100MHz FSB?

Can I increase the FSB from 100MHz to 133MHz to fix this?

Can you explain a bit more about the CMOS and what effect it may have, as I am not sure about this.

As for the PSU, thanks for the tip, I'll keep my eye on the consumption, and if the system starts re-booting itself, that will be the first thing I think of!

 

FSB is different from clock speed. One will not affect the other.

Clock speed is the speed at which the processor can perform calculations. FSB speed is the speed at which the processor is fed the calulations to perform, and the speed at which it can return the results. Thus a 1GHz processor will perform calculations significantly faster than a 533MHz model, but it will still be limited as to the speed at which it transfers calculations.

 

Ah, OK. So in effect the 1GHz processors will not be able to perform to their full capacity, but should be better.

Is there any way to tweak this?

 

You've got to get a manual to find all that info out or find someone with a good memory. Try Dell's site.

 

No joy from the user or service manuals available at Dell's site.

Any other suggestions?

 

The best speed you could expect from the 1.1Ghz CPU's is 866Mhz, your 'board may not work with the 133Mhz RAM, though it should run with some early types of 133Mhz RAM - the best specs for RAM from a brief search are from Orcalogic(Transcend).

You may be able to find specific details via the Dell Support Forums.

 

Picked up 4 x 256MB Samsung PC133R DIMM ECC REG Registered SDRAM 1GB and a pair of Intel P3 Slot 1 1GHz CPU SL4BS 133MHz FSB 256KB L2 Cache processors.

All to no avail. Didn't get anywhere with either. So it's back to the drawing board.

Should have asked before, but would putting 2.0V through the processors (rated at 1.7V) do them any harm?