HP w/ Celeron 900 mgz - Overclockable?

[Gr8Scott]

Little brother got nailed at Computer Expo. He spent $700 for a celeron 900 mhz with 128 megs of ram. I haven't had time to check out the specs such as the power supply or the chipset on the motherboard etc, but I was wondering if you folks could suggest some things to do to improve the performance of this thing. He paid too much for this thing considering the other options out there. I'll get more specs when I can later. All I know now is it has 900 mhz celeron, 30 gig hd, 17" monitor, polk audio speakers, 128 mb ram. It's an HP 7XX? I'll try to get more specific info when I get back from an errand I have to run right now...

I know the first thing to do would be to improve the RAM and at least give it 256 to 512 megs so it has a little room to breathe. I am thinking that he could get a different celly chip and install it (start out with a 1.2 instead of a 900 mgz) and then overclock it after installing a better heat synch and fans. I guess I could try the 900 mgz chip first, but why try to gain 30% just to get to the 1.2 when you can get the 1.2 and go from there...

Thanks to all who respond. Any help would be immensely appreciated.

 

[asw7576]

Hewlett Packard 900mhz

Well, I guess you could buy Celeron Coppermine 1.2GHz and forget overclocking. This option is less headache than trying to overclock the current CPU from 900 to 1200. You need new PC133 memory.

Just a precaution that, buying a Celeron Tualatin 1.2GHz probably does not work with your mobo due to lower voltage limitation. Celeron Tualatin 1.2GHz is rated 1.5volts default and I don't know the lowest voltage your mobo could support. If you insist to buy it, then you need to research more on:
- Tualatin's Voltage Identification Pins to simulate the desired voltage. See Celeron datasheet at Intel's website. You could cut the copper lining on the back of mobo and solder the correct pin to simulate a desired voltage. ( I tell you, it's a lot of work and risk. Don't do it if you don't understand what I'm writing ).
- Voltage Regulator chip on your mobo, and find the datasheet at its website. It is useful information to determine the lowest voltage your mobo could support.

Good Luck.

 

[Sir-Epix]

Little brother got nailed at Computer Expo. He spent $700 for a celeron 900 mhz with 128 megs of ram. I haven't had time to check out the specs such as the power supply or the chipset on the motherboard etc, but I was wondering if you folks could suggest some things to do to improve the performance of this thing. He paid too much for this thing considering the other options out there. I'll get more specs when I can later. All I know now is it has 900 mhz celeron, 30 gig hd, 17" monitor, polk audio speakers, 128 mb ram. It's an HP 7XX? I'll try to get more specific info when I get back from an errand I have to run right now...

I know the first thing to do would be to improve the RAM and at least give it 256 to 512 megs so it has a little room to breathe. I am thinking that he could get a different celly chip and install it (start out with a 1.2 instead of a 900 mgz) and then overclock it after installing a better heat synch and fans. I guess I could try the 900 mgz chip first, but why try to gain 30% just to get to the 1.2 when you can get the 1.2 and go from there...

Thanks to all who respond. Any help would be immensely appreciated.

First off, this machine probably will not be overclockable. The only way to overclock this through windows, if by some devine chance a program exists that is able to overclock that particular board. Going thru BIOS will not work for it is an HP and don't have those options available. Try softfsb or softcpu. As for the RAM if price is a factor do not have more then 256, because for typical users this is enough. *I run this amount in all my machines, which I put under plenty of stress. As for upgrading to the 1.2Tualtin make sure the board can take that processor, because I am not totally sure that board will take that chip. Hopefully this helps. PM if you have more info/questions.

 

[Gr8Scott]

So you folks think I should just help him get a decent celly 1.2 and slap that baby in there and forget about O/C. That probably sounds like a sensible option when one thinks about whether the ram/hard drive/power supply would be able to withstand O/C. Given that everything is probably bottom of the barrel in terms of performance, I guess he should be happy that we can at least give it a little more juice with a 1.2 and leave it at that. The likelyhood that I can get the specs for the mobo are not too good, so I'll avoid the tualatin unless I know that I can alter the voltage to match it without breaking out a microscope and tweezers.

Thanks for the info and I will try the SoftFSB and SoftCPU out to see if they will work. If they do, I will probably experiment and see if we can make this pig squeal just a little.

He's not looking for anything that will set new processor speed records anyway, but he did want a good value for his $ and a good game machine. It's my duty as his bro to help him gain a little more speed out of this thing so it won't become obsolete until at least a month from now. It's too bad he got sucked in by the salesman and gave away his hard earned cash for this cute but slow HP.

Thank You Sir-Epix and ASW7576 for your invaluable advice.

 

[deez]

as mentioned above you will probably not be able to run a cele 1.2 in that machine b/c of the mobo. Also if you decide to get a Tualatin cele and overclock it then you will also need a new mobo. and probably a new case too depending on the rating of your power supply. You can get better performance with a better coppermine chip like a P3 1Ghz since your comp isn't very overclockable but it wont be a huge increase. The coppermine cele is a pretty good chip. I ran a 566@850 for a while and got nice performance on a budget.

 

[Gr8Scott]

HP Pavillion 7920

Here is the link to the spec sheet for my brother's HP-7920. This tells you the processor, the FSB speed (100 mhz), chipset, etc. I see a couple of issues that leads me to believe that my little brother might get a 1.1 at best for his system with no voltage changes. The stepping and the voltage are different for anything over 1.1. Are different steppings a problem if one wanted to switch their cpu to something a little more modern? The voltage switch seems to be a little less of an issue for the new 1.3 celeron (up to 1.5v instead of 1.475). I'll continue to research it...

Intel spec sheet

As always any insights from you guys with experience is greatly appreciated. Folks like you are a boon to us newbies that are still learning this "black art" .

 

[deez]

The Cele 1.0A and above require a different mobo than Coppermine Intel CPU's. Basically the voltage requirements are different and the older boards cant support the newer CPU's.

The highest P3 coppermine is the 1100E model (which is a 100FSB chip so you wont need new RAM) but as I mentioned before the performance increase won't be much...about 20% over a cele 900. Most 810E chipset boards support 133FSb chips (auto-detection) but you will also need new RAM if you get a 133FSB chip b/c your RAM is PC100 according to the spec sheet.

 

[TUK101]

You will most likely not be able to OC that computer. HP's do not like to OC, they dont provide you with that option in the bios. What I would do, and have done with similar comps is first to get it up to 256 megs or ram. No need for any more. Then I would disable the onboard video card and put in a descent agp one, if there is an agp slot, and if there isnt get as good of a pci video card as you can afford. An MX-400 pci video card would do pleny well enough for that machine. And if there is another open pci slot, then get a descent sound card too. Both of those things will free up that 900 from the onboard garbage that they load those things with and let that cpu run pretty well. There should be jumpers on the mobo to let you disable the audio and video. Also you will want to disable them in the device manager as well. Good luck and hopefully you will be able to help your brother to make that machine run games descently.

 

[Gr8Scott]

I'll keep all that in mind. I'll see if I can help him round up some more ram and maybe a decent AGP video card. He does plan to do some home recording using cakewalk, so maybe an audio card might be in order regardless of system performance.

 

[Sicco1]

I say: Try to sell this one, lose a few dollars

and get a new mobo and proc. (like a P3 coppermine) and a MB that has a AGP slot. Don;t use the onboard video, it sucks.
I think you'll get more value for your money this way (and you're brother learned a good lesson.)

good luck

 

[Sicco1]

oh and don't get the AGP card yet!!! your brothers mainboard does NOT HAVE AN AGP SLOT!! (according to the specs you posted......)
See ya

 

[deez]

Yep I pretty much agree if you have a bit of extra cash to spend and you want a decent gaming system then sell the puter for $400-500 and but a Tualatin mobo along with a cele 1.0A-1.2A and a good heatsink. Also get one good quality stick of PC133 256Mb cas2 (Micron or similar quality) and an AGP vid card. You will also need a case, CD-ROM, NIC, and soundcard.

Here is a good place to start http://www.newegg.com/index.asp?DEPA=1

Check out the Chieftec case for $49.00...the Radeon wth DDR for $42 the mobo will be around $100 and the Abit, ASUS, and Gigabyte Tualatin boards are all pretty nice. The cele 1.0A will do 1333 for sure for $66 and the stick of RAM will cost about $70-80. Cd-Rom drive is $25, Dlink 530TX NIC is $10, SB-16 soundcard is $16

Thats less than $400 then add whatever shipping coast and you've got a nice system for under $500

 

[Peter007]

I agreed with Deez

You're better off selling the Entire Computer and rebuild one by yourself.

The Chip 900mhz Celeron is a great chip.
I was able to overclock my to 1200mhz at default voltage, and
1333mhz post/Windows, but no 3D Games.

You may want to sell everything and keep the cpu, since that CPU is a very good overclocker. But I think it is easier to just sell everything

 

[Gr8Scott]

I don't think I can get my brother to sell it. He thinks he did well and I don't really have the heart to tell him he didn't. I was hoping that we could polish this turd a little, but it looks as if that isn't gonna happen.

I'm not gonna devote any more time to this given that it is a lost cause. I'll spend that time researching what equipment to buy to make my dream system. (It seems to change every week)

You folks have been great and I thank you for the time you have invested in helping me make this determination.