Hey kids, upgrade questions

Dove

Dove

Half-way Through My Half-life
Orderite
This is going to be my first foray into massive system upgrades since upgrading from x386 to x486.

I currently have an AMD Athlon 3500 939 socket, and I can't get a definite answer from anywhere. Will an AM2 socket processor work, and will it be efficient enough?

If it is not, I need suggestions for an AM2 socket motherboard with at least two PCIE 3.0 slots. That will fit inside an HP Pavilion a1210n case.

I can finger out everything else, but suggestions always welcome. Except "throw away your HP and build a real computer" and "PC's r 4 fags, buy a mac lol :):):)"
 
What you need to do is go to a warehouse-type computer shop, locally we have a place called CBiT, effectively I've always played by the rule of thumb that when you get a processor, you buy a new board with it, pure and simple, that way there's none of these compatibility problems with the different sockets.

As far as an AM2 socket to a 939, I can almost guarantee that won't work, you've already stated that the processor is a different socket from your motherboard in your own post, if memory serves the AM2 has more pins than the 939 but I could be mistaken.

Cases are cheap however, why limit yourself to the HP pavilion case unless you're doing that to prove a point, or hiding it from your significant other that you got an upgrade. :D :P

The problem with using a proprietary case for a mod-job is that you can't change the back-plates easily, on frankencases you get a back plate with every motherboard you buy, and it pops into the back of the frankencase, however proprietary models are made with the back-plate built in with plastic normally and does not facilitate easy removal.

If you are stuck on using the HP and not willing to chop out a hole for the new backplate you're going to not only have to match the board size, also the layout because of the power supply location, the back-plate positioning for the on-board ports, and half a dozen other concerns regular comp builders wouldn't be bothered with.

A new case is 30-70 bucks, you don't need something fancy, and it'll save you a tonne of headaches instead of trying to force a board in there that was never designed for an HP...
 
If you're looking for a good socket AM2 CPU, I'm currently on an X2 6000+ ($112.99 on newegg, 1195 reviews: 89% are 5star). Doesn't run hot, although the power draw is fairly large if you've got a low end PSU.
 
1) buy a real case. either your case is proprietary, or else its just a baby tower. if its a baby tower, ignore that but you may want to look into a full tower case.

bigger towers give you more room to add/subtract and more room to grow.

2) cpu/mobo/ram all must be compliant with each other. not all ram goes with all mobos, and not all mobos go with all cpus. not all mobos work with all custom cards.

for instance, i have a hard time finding a fully compliant SCSI card mobo. most mobos say they are compliant, but i have a hard time finding a manufacturer outside of ASUS that lets you boot to a device on the SCSI card without any problems.

3) get a good powersupply. the CPU may be the brain, the mobo the body, the ram your memory, but if you dont make sure you are eating good food the rest of it doesnt matter. get something with active not passive. make sure you get one that has OVER 20a on the 12v rail for video cards. if your psu doesnt even have an active/passive rating, replace it because its too old.

most video cards nowadays require 26-28amps on the 12v rail, my active 1kw psu only passes 24 ( which i hope is good enough ). but my psu is very high quality... it doesnt even have the 120/220v selector, it does it automatically.

another thing, if you dont feel comfortable "building" your computer, what you can do is buy the pieces, and then take it to a computer store and have them put it together and install the OS. generally its like 20-40$ for the install and 1-2 hrs labor to put it together.

its just sad but i can never do this because every computer store i go to or even mom&pop style places wont touch mine because of the SCSI.
 
Phil the Nuka-Cola Dude said:
If you're looking for a good socket AM2 CPU, I'm currently on an X2 6000+ ($112.99 on newegg, 1195 reviews: 89% are 5star). Doesn't run hot, although the power draw is fairly large if you've got a low end PSU.
Click to expand...

Perfect. I picked up two of those and have not been steered wrong.

But, we can't upgrade a mobo, processor, video and perhaps RAM without a good power supply!

For a great power supply, no one can contend with PC Power Cooling. They have been MaximumPC mag's power supply of choice for nearly a decade.

http://www.pcpower.com/index.html

I picked up the Silencer unit as it matches my color scheme and we are talking a true 750 watts. I have an older 512 watt PSU powering my secondary rig thats running an AMD6000+ nVidia 7900, 4Gigs of ram and a few hard drives.
 
intel processors are the shit. why stick with AMD now? only the lowest of the low AMD processors are worthwhile due to price constraints.

HP case? seriously man, get some entry level decent case. doesn't have to be a fucking Lian Li, but hell, Antec and such have decent cases that aren't overly expensive. a decently designed case makes a HUGE difference when it comes to temperature. and temperature translates into reliability, noise ratio and performance.
 
1. you need a new case
2. a socket 939 cpu and am2 cpu are completely different and do not go in the same type of motherboard
3. if your going with amd, make suke you go with a am2+ motherboard with an am2+ cpu, hyperTransport 3.0 is supposed to be very nice.... use it.
 
I'm going for the Phenom X4.

I was trying to just upgrade, but it's looking like the only thing that will be the same parts is the LAN card I have and my multi DVD drive...

Damn.
 
its REALLY hard to upgrade either of: cpu/mobo/ram and not have to upgrade the rest.

if you do, you could end up with the situation that your computer wont boot at all because of hardware incompatabilities.

plug & play has fixxed lots of hardware-software conflicts, but there are still tons of hardware-hardware conflicts.


that being said, even though i spent like $350 for my lian li case, i love the sucker. its so huge it holds all my 8+ HDs, and when people see it for the first time, the reaction people have is just funny.
 
I don't need 8 hard drives. I only need two.

A fast 200 gig and a big ass 1 TB. My RAM is of date, so that needs to be replaced eventually, X1300 just doesn't cut it anymore, my mobo is a socket 939 with one PCIE 1.0 slot. 300 w PSU. So on and so forth...

But I like the little goodies I got on this thing. The memory card readers, assload of USB connections etc. I'm going to look around a bit before getting rid of the case, but it may have to go as well, no room for extra cooling at all. Which I'm going to need crossfiring 4870's.

/edit: Hmm. I have an Asus mobo in it, and looking at theeir site, one of theirs might fit in the case. Has 2 PCIE 2.0 slots, AM2+ socket. I'll have to look at it a bit more later after my date.
 
Just get one of those 42 in 1 card reader doohickeys, you can get them either in IDE or in SATA it's up to you and they go right into the floppy slot on the case and you'll have every card you need right there.
 
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