Dell OC

[richy19]

hi this is just copyed and pasted from a nother forum i wrote this on so some things might not be gramaticly correct but im gonna try and change it
this is basically for anyone that has a PB computer but wants to get the most out of it

well at first i was happy with my 1.8ghz and my 256mb igc
until one day along came this



yes 4fps :kookoo: and thats with low settings and at 640x480
ughhh it just sickens me anyway i thought to my self noo biggy i have a spare Gcard from an old pc so i took it out and wile i was at it i though hey my pc could do with a ram upgrade so out came them aswell.



and heres the Gcard its a NVidia GeForce fx5200 256mb not too bad



while i was taking them out i noticed this



hey its never bad to have wifi right? lol
anywho i open up my pc (which to make things worse is BTX wich means its hell to find a gd graphics card that will fit but il get to that later)
so while i was at it i though id overclock the CPU now i knew it couldnt be done by bios but i though id give it a go with some software so i go in the search for the Fsb code thing



i found it started up and looked on the program and BAM!! not supported so ok lots of motherboards arent suported no biggy next the ram
and 2º BAM!!!! gwess what
the ram was the rong type mine uses DDR2 and the other one was DDR so now im like hmmm ohh well things could be worse so i go to put in the Gcard and again BAM!!! (yes thats the 3º one )gwess what the video card is... yep AGP so no Far Cry 2 for me (at least for the moment)



ps. by now im like: mother****
anyway i fit the wifi



and after it now working the stupid thing just showes the wifi signal with a red cross and im like ***?? yet i can get on the internet with it, so i leave i as it is.

anyway i found on the net a mod that you can do to E4300 wich consists in joining to of the pins to increse the fsb so i got on the pcworld website and ordered the ram and the cpu thermal paste cleaner as i had some vouchers to use and i really wanted to get it done soon so i took out one of the ram cards to check what to get and it was your basic pc5300 so i ordered it
couple hours later im at pcworld and ofcourse they mucked up my order

they had run out of pc5300 and they never have stocked the cpu cleaner
BUT my luck changed as he bought out a pc6300 and charged me for a pc5400 while i was there i got the thermal paste 2





so i got home ready to mod the hell out of my computer but i still hade a problem no cpu cleaner so looked in the garage and i hade a choice



dont ask xD
as i didnt know wich one was worse i though id do a test first so i got abit of a pcb board i had lieying around and put half and half



bout half hour later both halfs are more or less the same but i had been digging up the net and found that the spirit was better due to the high alchohol percent so i open up my cpu carefully and took out the cpu



with a special pen for soldering and stuff like that i joined the pins that you have to join



next i cleaned the cpu and the heatsink with the spirit mmmm nice and shiny



ok so i wasnt going to wast one load of thermal paste (i mean 1 aplication of it) for it to not have touched or something so i fire it up with out the heatsink on and get into the bios wich says its still a 1.8ghz
but hey the bios could be rong right?? so i go to launch windows up to test it with cpuz or everest
boy was that a bad idea as soon as windows started loadin the fan went mad so i quickly switched it off to not overheat the cpu lol well atleast i hadnt broke it so i put everything back together



and the ram



and start it up again, well the fans acting normal so atleast i didnt do the thermal paste thing rong so i get into windows dreading the worse fire up cpuz and everest and this is what it sed



SCORE it worked now i got a 2.4ghz yiipeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
lol next is the new Gcard after searching and searching i found a saphire hd4650 for 45quid including shipping not bad at all and it comes with 2 year garanty.

i havent managed to do any benchmarking but i have got some pics of the score that windows gives your system and of farcry2





thankyou for reading this and remember no computer is a bad one

[Marvin Martian]

Hi Richy,

I've got a 5 year old Dell Dimension 5000 and I've just built a new PC because I didn’t think there was any hope for the Dell, other than for accessing the internet. Two computers would be better than one (and might keep my two sons happy).
My old Dell takes about 20 minutes to boot up and barely manages to play Call of Duty 2 (the lag is killing us).

My specs are: 3.2GHz processor, P4, ATI Radeon X300 video card (PCI-E), 3GB RAM, 160GB hard disc (only 23GB free, I’ve no idea what takes up so much space, must be games, all my music & photos are on an external drive), 19” monitor (1024 x 768), 305 watt PSU and 10Mb/s internet connection.

So what I’m thinking is:
1- I need to do a serious clean out - any suggestions? Is it worth trying System Mechanics 30 day free trial?
(I scan weekly using McAfee & Malwarebytes, so I’m reasonably sure there’s no viruses etc)
2 - I need a new graphics card and
3 - I need to look into your pin mod – can you supply more details?

I'd welcome any suggestions.

Marvin

[pardal51]

Hi Richy,

I've got a 5 year old Dell Dimension 5000 and I've just built a new PC because I didn’t think there was any hope for the Dell, other than for accessing the internet. Two computers would be better than one (and might keep my two sons happy).
My old Dell takes about 20 minutes to boot up and barely manages to play Call of Duty 2 (the lag is killing us).

My specs are: 3.2GHz processor, P4, ATI Radeon X300 video card (PCI-E), 3GB RAM, 160GB hard disc (only 23GB free, I’ve no idea what takes up so much space, must be games, all my music & photos are on an external drive), 19” monitor (1024 x 768), 305 watt PSU and 10Mb/s internet connection.

So what I’m thinking is:
1- I need to do a serious clean out - any suggestions? Is it worth trying System Mechanics 30 day free trial?
(I scan weekly using McAfee & Malwarebytes, so I’m reasonably sure there’s no viruses etc)
2 - I need a new graphics card and
3 - I need to look into your pin mod – can you supply more details?

I'd welcome any suggestions.

Marvin

20 minutes to boot up. There must be something wrong with HDD. Run a chkdsk
Why not do a fresh install of the OS again? Anyway, you can use treesize to find out what is taking up space in the HDD - http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml
With another graphics card and maybe a juicer PSU you should have a decent machine to play games.

[Marvin Martian]

Thanks Pardal, I'll run chkdsk & try treesize when my new network adapter arrives. As to the OS, I didn't get any disks with the computer! Maybe I could system restore to day 1?

[richy19]

hi here is more or less were i got my info but that is specific for that processor(might work on others)
http://www.techspot.com/gallery/show...0/ppuser/25139
i would google the processor model and BSEL mod see if that comes up with anything or findout what CPU model it is (try CPUz or something like that) and i will have a lok for you
in reference of the lag trust me i can relate xD but a new graphics card should fix that as your processor is good enought to run most games im not sure if it is considered spam to post a direct link to were i bought it so i will send you the link as a message how ever if you have a bigger or smaller budget then let us know and il see if theres anything better (ortho i mist say the one i got is a pretty sweet deal) just some simple specs: i can run COD4 with max settings on a 1024x768 resolution at around 50fps and farcry2 with same res at around 30fps (drops abit if theres fire on the screen but i aint complaining xD) and fallout 3 gets around 40-50fps all games with out anti-alising
id be surprised if you didnt get around the same resaults maby abit slower as you have a single core CPU but not too diffrent
the RAM i wouldnt touch as you wont get much more than 3gig from a 32bit system and its more than enought for games and such
and as pardal says you need to reinstall the OS it will do it the world of good

edit: just realised i dont know how to send you a PM as it doesnt say it on your profile
so i will add the link here but in white hopefully that isnt considered spam
http://www.misco.co.uk/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=367157&CatId=2910
thats the link if anyone wants me to remove it just say

[Marvin Martian]

Chkdsk never got past stage 2 but I think I'll reinstall the OS anyway (made a recovery disc) and see what it's like. The Mod looks easy enough, but if I can have a half decent system without modding then all the better (chicken!). Don't even know if it's possible. Scan are selling the 1GB XFX version of HD4650 including Farcry II for £41.92 although it's a pre order. Budget wise, if there was something a lot better for a bit more, the I'd be interested!

[richy19]

well i looked around and i found this
http://www.dabs.com/products/sapphire-technology-ati-radeon-4670-hd-750mhz-1gb-ddr3-pci-express-2-0-hdmi-657K.html
its the next version up from mine and its 1gig not that that really matters as you will probably be running 1024x768 but its always nice to have the option
how ever if your thinking of getting far cry 2 in the future id go with the one you have commented

[richy19]

i just checked out the scan ofer you say and it looks nice but you want to check if it will fit in your case as mine only just fitted (the cards about an inch away from the black cpu plastic cover)
also before messing around with the cpu id get the grafics card and see if those resaults are good enought with out moding the cpu

[Marvin Martian]

I'm not bothered by Farcry, my boys play COD (2 so far, but they're gaggin' for 4&5). If Dabs sizes are right 4650 & 4670 both fit - I have 17.6cm from the CPU cover. I think I will shortly be eligible for free postage from Scan although their version of the 4670 looks slightly different:- http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-S...I-I-D-Sub-HDMI and they don't give sizes. Any advice welcome.

[Marvin Martian]

OK guys, reinstalled OS, now boots in a couple of minutes - I'm impressed!
However I may have done something stupid.........
I reinstalled as NTFS (both my new PC & my external drive are NTFS) and, well, my hard drive is just as full. My old C drive is still there, only hidden!
Do you think I can just pull programs into the non hidden part then delete them? OR, Should I reformat the C drive then reinstall the OS again? I thought it was all going to easy!

[richy19]

???
what OS are you running?
did you do a clean reinstall or did you put the cd in wile in windows and click re-install from that menu?

[Marvin Martian]

Going with the reinstall, doing it just now. Think I needed to reformat and repartition as I went along before reinstalling. I did put cd in while in windows as I couldn't find the option to boot from cd, well I can in the bios but it just runs windows anyway.

[Marvin Martian]

Damn, it won't let me delete the partition as it has some temporary setup files in it. I'm stuck!

[Marvin Martian]

OK got it: press F12 at startup then change the boot drive to CD-ROM, then insert the "Backup CD" and delete and reinstate partition. Easy when you know how, hope I remember for next time!

[richy19]

how did it go marvin?

[Marvin Martian]

Reinstall is great - I'm now going to do it to the laptop as well!
I've ordered the 1GB XFX HD4650 with Farcry II as the HD4670 gets real bad reviews for fan noise.
I'll post my framerates when the GPU arrives (what did you use, Fraps?).
Thanks.