Upgrading an HP Computer?
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DanMXP writes in with a question for us:
I have an HP Machine with XP Installed and I am thinking of upgrading it I can install vista on it. I am looking looking for a new processor, which is currently a 1.8 GHz Pentium 4.
I have the HP Pavilion 403. Do you have any recommendations or tips for finding the best processor to upgrade with?
(note: quote edited, spirit of the question has remained the same)
Dan, the first thing that really comes to mind is: don’t bother upgrading the processor. While you might be able to squeeze Vista onto that machine, you’re going to be pushing the upper limits of your hardware, and I doubt your machine would be very responsive. Taking a look at the compatability sheet for your motherboard, you’re limited to:
- Socket 478 Pentium 4 Processor, <= 2.66 GHz Northwood Chipset
- 2GB PC2100/Pc1600 RAM
- AGP 4x Video Card
To run Windows Vista comfortably, I’d highly recommend at least 4GB of RAM and a PCI-Express graphics card. Something your computer really isn’t capable of, unfortunately. So, long term, I’d recommend saving your money for a new machine from HP.
In the short term you could upgrade your processor; however, I was only able to find one processor that would work with your motherboard: Intel Pentium 4 2.4B Northwood 2.4GHz Socket 478 Processor.
(note: the linked processor does not include a cooling device. While your current solution will probably work, we make no guarantees that you won’t need to find a new cooling solution for this processor)
Since you do have an older machine, your choices for upgrading are very limited, really. Your money would be best served in a savings account, waiting to be spent on a new machine, rather than pumping life into an old one.
3 Comments
dabrace1984
December 12th, 2007
at 10:46am
The only issue I have with your suggestion is the amount of RAM that you recommend for Windows Vista. 4GB in theory is awesome, except that 32-bit processors, like the one he would upgrade to, are only capable of between 2.75GB and 3.5GB (http://blogs.msdn.com/hiltonl/archive/2007/04/13/the-3gb-not-4gb-ram-problem.aspx).
Plus Windows Vista will run fine on with 2GB of RAM. I do video encoding in Adobe Premier all the time and have no problems with a 2GB of RAM and single 3Ghz Intel processor. Of course you won’t be able to multi-task while encoding but you shouldn’t do that anyway.
The only reasonable way to force Windows to recognize the maximum amount of RAM is to do the following:
Windows XP
•press “Windows Key” and “R” at the same time to activate the “Run” dialog box
•type “msconfig” and press “Enter”
•click on the “BOOT.INI” tab
•click on the “Advanced options” button
•but a check box in “/MAXMEM=” and put in the correct amount of MBs of RAM that you have installed (1024 = 1GB)
•but a check box in “/NUMPROC=” and select the amount ofcores/processors that you have
•click “OK”
•click “OK”
•restart (after restarting and logging in, uncheck the ability to have msconfig boot at startup)
Windows Vista
•press “Windows Key” and “R” at the same time to activiate the “Run” dialog box
•type “msconfig” and press” Enter”
•click on the “Boot” tab”
•click on “Advanced options” button
•but a check box in “Number of processor” and select the correct amount of cores/processors
•but a check box in “Maximum memory” and put in the correct amount of MBs of RAM that you have installed (1024 = 1GB)
•click “OK”
•click “OK”
•restart (after restarting and logging in, uncheck the ability to have “msconfig” boot at startup)
starvinmarvin
December 12th, 2007
at 11:57am
You suggest no less than 4GB of RAM, but isn’t it true that most Windows Vista versions will not recognize or use that much memory? Don’t you need the 64-bit version of Vista in order to utilize all that memory?
danmxp
December 16th, 2007
at 10:48am
Thanks LordKaT