A Few Computer Upgrade Questions...

[D See 2]

Alright, I was looking into getting a new processor. I currently have a 1.1Ghz AMD Athlon Socket A. Can I just buy a better processor like this one and basically plug and play? http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...item=6744380555
I currently have 896Mb of RAM, but I am not sure what kind or which motherboard i have. Does it matter?

 

[asmallsol]

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[phunky.buddha]

Look inside your case and get the motherboard's manufacturer and model number, then look up the specs for your board on the manufacturer's web site. You need to see what types of Athlons your board can support. Chances are that if your board came out when 1.1GHz Athlons were popular (usually Thunderbird core), then it's not going to be able to support the Barton core (the one in the eBay auction).

 

[Citizen_Insane]

Yeah, between generations, the number of pins on CPUs change. So, you need to make sure what max processor you Motherboard can handle.

 

[phunky.buddha]

Originally posted by ktanaka@Feb 21 2005, 03:02 PM
Yeah, between generations, the number of pins on CPUs change. So, you need to make sure what max processor you Motherboard can handle.

[post=464052]Quoted post[/post]​

No, all the pin counts were the same for all Athlon, Athlon XP, MP, and XP+. Socket A physically supported all those chips- but the BIOS may not be able to support the different microcode changes on certain cheap revisions.

 

[Citizen_Insane]

Really?!?! Wow, I guess I don't know that much about AMD! I'm an Intel guy myself...

 

[phunky.buddha]

If you're an Intel guy, you should know better too- just because a board has a 370 pin socket on it doesn't mean that it will support a Tualatin core. The same applies to all processors, no matter who makes them- just because a chip will physically fit in a motherboard, it doesn't mean the board will be able to use it.