upgrading my CPU

swrobbie said:

I have a Compaq Presario 5838 desktop (purchased new in 1998). It came with a AMD Athlon K7 500MHz processor. I would like to upgrade the CPU to make it faster. I don't want to buy a new system. I spoke with HP and the mother board will only handle up to 1GHz speed. Would it be best to change the CPU to the AMD 1GHz "Thunderbird" or replace the mother board and faster CPU? I am currently running Win98 but will upgrade to XP in the near future.

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I've got a 750T-bird socket 7 variety, I cant even give it away, if you spend $175 on a old cpu youre nuts, I'm afraid with a old pc like that youre stuck with it the way it is, upgrades are just too expensive for what you get out of them. Your pc is just old, for $299 you can get a pc that would blow the friggin doors off of yours, its just a fact, some machines like fine automobiles can be thought of as classics when they age....computers just get old, period, you dont have wine, you got vinegar.

dustyjay said:

Another problem with a compaq that age is the power supply will not work on a newer ATX board period. THey have a proprietary power supply that has a different power plug than an atx power supply even though they indeed call thier motherboard an ATX motherboard it is not standard atx. So that case/power supply would be worthless with a new Mobo.

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exactly, so now youre talking new case, new psu, new mobo/cpu/ram a current gfx card, so basically a whole new pc, youre not goinging to want to run your old drives, a 5400rpm hdd, a 24x cd-rom etc. so either be happy with your "classic" Compaq pc or get a new one. Upgrading is one of those things that the window of oppertunity doesnt stay open forever, the technolgy is changing way too fast for that, and also a Compaq is the last pc I would buy if upgrading was even in my mind when I bought the darn thing. If you want to upgrade you have to buy clone, either build it yourself or have someone do it for you.