dell optiplex intel processor upgrade

[mikesw]

I just bought my companies mini-tower Dell Optiplex GX280 with an Intel lga775 3.0ghz 530 processor.

It has the Intel 915G chipset.

I'd like to upgrade to the Intel lga775 3.6ghz 661 processor. The earlier (B1,C1) stepping is 86 watts for this

processor; however, my current processor (P4/530) is 84watts, so the heat sink shouldn't have a problem with these extra

two watts and it is the performance heat pipe kind that Dell installed. The later (D0) steppings for the intel 661 are at

65 watts. The other differences are the (B1) operates from 1.25-1.4 volts which is what my current intel 530 uses, but

the (D0) operates from 1.20- 1.325 volts. I'm not sure if the motherboard will either drop down in voltage to 1.325 maximum,

or whether the extra 0.075 volts (or in other words 1.4 volts) will damage the (D0) stepping processor.

So the heat sink problem is solved.

If I get the proper stepping, I'll be able to match the current motherboard voltage range or assuming the other voltage doesn't

damage the processor.

The only other thing is the Intel 64 capability since my 530 doesn't support it nor does the BIOS know about it. Thus, this

may confuse Windows 2k , XP or Vista.

FSB speed of 800mhz for either processor is the same.

One possibility is to find a Dell BIOS that supports the 65nm cedar mill processor and find a program that will force the BIOS to be

upgraded to support it, but it may not have intel 915G support though.

Any thoughts on this.

[mikesw]

Well, I found the answer....

Although the processor socket type, power and processor family type are within

the acceptable limits, Intel states that EM64T processors must have a BIOS that

is aware of 64-bit. Of course Dell doesn't provide a BIOS upgrade for the GX280

or any other computer they sell that could be upgraded since this would

undercut their product line.

[j5689]

Well, I found the answer....

Although the processor socket type, power and processor family type are within

the acceptable limits, Intel states that EM64T processors must have a BIOS that

is aware of 64-bit. Of course Dell doesn't provide a BIOS upgrade for the GX280

or any other computer they sell that could be upgraded since this would

undercut their product line.

Would this stop it entirely from working?

I bought a 3.6GHz Cedar Mill thinking it would work in this GX280(tower version) and now when it's in, the power button light turns orange and nothing happens on the screen.

If this ends up being the case, the best anyone can possibly put in a GX280 would be a Prescott 570J

Edited October 20, 2008 by j5689

[mikesw]

Well, I found the answer....

Although the processor socket type, power and processor family type are within

the acceptable limits, Intel states that EM64T processors must have a BIOS that

is aware of 64-bit. Of course Dell doesn't provide a BIOS upgrade for the GX280

or any other computer they sell that could be upgraded since this would

undercut their product line.

Would this stop it entirely from working?

I bought a 3.6GHz Cedar Mill thinking it would work in this GX280(tower version) and now when it's in, the power button light turns orange and nothing happens on the screen.

If this ends up being the case, the best anyone can possibly put in a GX280 would be a Prescott 570J

Alot of people on websites say it just won't boot which apparently is the case for you. I presume

if you put the old processor back in it will work. Moreover, the GX520,GX620 are the same BiOS'

and the BIOS has been updated to the newer processors which includes 64 bit EM64T. Thus the Cedarmill

will work in this (or it should since both the dell tower and processor type came out around the same timeframe).

The other difference is the chipset. Mine is a 915G which is limited to 533mhz to RAM whereas the Gx520,620

has the 945G (if I recall) which can go higher to 800mhz/1066mhz. If you should upgrade to the 570J

(mine is 530) it should run since I'm planning on doing this in the near future. The 'J' for no-execute bit

shouldn't matter to the BIOS since the BIOS was written in the time period the "J" and "non-J" processors

came out. If DELL's BIOS for these different processors was important then DELL would have a BIOS

for the "J" and another for the "non-J" processors types. Also since the 530 is 84W and the 570J is around 115W

(see wiki) you'll probably have to upgrade to a bigger heatsink. The original heatsink for 84W is G8113 which has four

heat pipes and the new one is W4254 which is for performance per DELLS part list for the GX280 boxes , and

from what I see on the net it has 6 heat pipes. I guess because there was a 50% increase in power, this means each

set of heat pipes can get rid of 40-50 watts of heat. The original power supply is 250Watt, I presume one

must upgrade to 305 Watts which is the biggest DELL makes for workstations. Why do I say this? Well the

heat for the faster processor increased 35-40 watts, thus take the old power supply and add this on as

250+ 40 = 290 watts, plus a few extra 15 watts for extra measure. I presume because 95% of 305 is

290 watts. One doesn't want to run the PC at the full load of the supply but to have some reserve left over

just in case.

Here's the part numbers for the mini tower and tower - not the slimline ones,

W4827 Mainstream Power Supply, 250 Watt, PFC, Dual Serial ATA, TMST

Y2663 Performance Power Supply, 305 Watt, PFC, Dual Serial ATA, SMT

If the BIOS doesn't support overclocking (or the ability to change the voltage), then you are stuck at the 1.8v

DDR2 Ram chips. To get improved CAS one needs to increase the voltage typically around 1.9-2.45 V from

what I've been seeing from RAM manufacturers. Some start at 1.8-2.x volts and the DDR3's start round 1.5v

although DDR3 won't go in a GX280. What I bought, was crucial DDR2 CAS=7 1.8v 1066mhz 1 GIG chips

in a two pack since the Gx280 can go to 4gigs , I bought two of these packs (cheap). They work, but they'll slow

down to 533mhz due to the 915G chipset ram speed ,and the BIOS will tell you so too. Dell put in the cheapest they

could find at the time, and since the GX280 is dual channel they put in two 400mhz which 2*400mhz equals 800mhz when interleaved to match the processor FSB. These are my thoughts on why they chose 400mhz. Why did I buy these

1066mhz ram chips? well, because they are the fastest for DDR2 in terms of mhz and in the future when I buy

another used PC which should be faster, I can move these ram chips over to the new PC and put the old ones

back in before selling the old computer. I haven't seen DDR2 memory for sale that goes faster than 1066mhz,

at least crucial doesn't sell it at 1333mhz+.

Edited October 22, 2008 by mikesw

[puntoMX]

The other difference is the chipset. Mine is a 915G which is limited to 533mhz to RAM whereas the Gx520,620

have the 945G (if I recall) which can go higher to 800mhz/1066mhz.

Just to put that better:

The 945G series supports officially 667MHz of RAM and a 800MT/s bus. Since Dell isn´t using high-end components and just basic motherboards it´s unlikely you can do anything more than the basic specs.

Remember that out of specs RAM (voltage over 1.80-1.85) needs a motherboard that can give a bit more power to the chipset as well else it will drop the timing of the RAM but rise the timing of the chipset.

[j5689]

Well, I found the answer....

Although the processor socket type, power and processor family type are within

the acceptable limits, Intel states that EM64T processors must have a BIOS that

is aware of 64-bit. Of course Dell doesn't provide a BIOS upgrade for the GX280

or any other computer they sell that could be upgraded since this would

undercut their product line.

Would this stop it entirely from working?

I bought a 3.6GHz Cedar Mill thinking it would work in this GX280(tower version) and now when it's in, the power button light turns orange and nothing happens on the screen.

If this ends up being the case, the best anyone can possibly put in a GX280 would be a Prescott 570J

Alot of people on websites say it just won't boot which apparently is the case for you. I presume

if you put the old processor back in it will work. Moreover, the GX520,GX620 are the same BiOS'

and the BIOS has been updated to the newer processors which includes 64 bit EM64T. Thus the Cedarmill

will work in this (or it should since both the dell tower and processor type came out around the same timeframe).

The other difference is the chipset. Mine is a 915G which is limited to 533mhz to RAM whereas the Gx520,620

have the 945G (if I recall) which can go higher to 800mhz/1066mhz. If you should upgrade to the 570J

(mine is 530) it should run since I'm planning on doing this in the near future. The 'J' for no-execute bit

shouldn't matter to the BIOS since the BIOS was written in the time period the "J" and "non-J" processors

came out. If DELL's BIOS for these different processors was important then DELL would have a BIOS

for the "J" and another for the "non-J" processors types. Also since the 530 is 84W and the 570J is around 115W

(see wiki) you'll probably have to upgrade to a bigger heatsink. The original heatsink for 84W is G8113 which has four

heat pipes and the new one is W4254 which is for performance per DELLS part list for the GX280 boxes , and

from what I see on the net it has 6 heat pipes. I guess because there was a 50% increase in power, this means each

set of heat pipes can get rid of 40-50 watts of heat. The original power supply is 250Watt, I presume one

must upgrade to 305 Watts which is the biggest DELL makes for workstations. Why do I say this? Well the

heat for the faster processor increased 35-40 watts, thus take the old power supply and add this on as

250+ 40 = 290 watts, plus a few extra 15 watts for extra measure. I presume because 95% of 305 is

290 watts. One doesn't want to run the PC at the full load of the supply but to have some reserve left over

just in case.

Here's the part numbers for the mini tower and tower - not the slimline ones,

W4827 Mainstream Power Supply, 250 Watt, PFC, Dual Serial ATA, TMST

Y2663 Performance Power Supply, 305 Watt, PFC, Dual Serial ATA, SMT

If the BIOS doesn't support overclocking (or the ability to change the voltage), then you are stuck at the 1.8v

DDR2 Ram chips. To get improved CAS one needs to increase the voltage typically around 1.9-2.45 V from

what I've been seeing from RAM manufacturers. Some start at 1.8-2.x volts and the DDR3's start round 1.5v

although DDR3 won't go in a GX280. What I bought, was crucial DDR2 CAS=7 1.8v 1066mhz 1 GIG chips

in a two pack since the Gx280 can go to 4gigs , I bought two of these packs (cheap). They work, but they'll slow

down to 533mhz due to the 915G chipset ram speed ,and the BIOS will tell you so too. Dell put in the cheapest they

could find at the time, and since the GX280 is dual channel they put in two 400mhz which 2*400mhz equals 800mhz when interleaved to match the processor FSB. That is my thoughts on why they chose 400mhz. Why did I buy these

1066mhz ram chips? well, because they are the fastest for DDR2 in terms of mhz and in the future when I buy

another used PC which should be faster, I can move these ram chips over to the new PC and put the old ones

back in before selling the old computer. I haven't seen DDR2 memory for sale that goes faster than 1066mhz,

at least crucial doesn't sell it at 1333mhz+.

People are telling me it's more worth it just to save up for a new rig completely rather than keep bothering with P4s that are ridiculously overprices to the point where it would get me a low end Core 2 that would smoke a 570. I like to have all my machines running at their maximum hardware potential though, like the HP Pavilion 750n that I had before this.

This is the RAM I bought for it:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820134181

Kingston(how fortunate) is the only one that sells that sells this variant of 400MHz sticks, which is the same kind that the GX280 comes with. But I am wondering if I should've bought a 533MHz set instead of this one, would I see that much difference in my apps(games) with 533MHz over 400MHz, or even a little bit of difference? I know that this also would offset the 1:1 FSB ratio in favor of the RAM but I'm not sure if that matters much. It seems strange in the first place to be running top-end DDR speed on DDR2, which is the minimum speed for DDR2 so I'm essentially running much cooler and more efficient DDR with no speed increase. :/

If 533MHz isn't much better, then I might just get another set of these for 4GB (3.5 really with the OS) since they are about 10 or 15$ cheaper than when I bought the first set.

[puntoMX]

But I am wondering if I should've bought a 533MHz set instead of this one, would I see that much difference in my apps(games) with 533MHz over 400MHz, or even a little bit of difference?

Yes there is a big difference in speed when you use the onboard Video but only if your BIOS can "see" the actual speed and always use dual channel...

[mikesw]

But I am wondering if I should've bought a 533MHz set instead of this one, would I see that much difference in my apps(games) with 533MHz over 400MHz, or even a little bit of difference?

Yes there is a big difference in speed when you use the onboard Video but only if your BIOS can "see" the actual speed and always use dual channel...

Since the 915G is the intel graphics processor, I thought it had it's own onboard video memory which is separate

from the system memory on the board although the system memory would have the graphics drivers loaded into

high memory. Are you saying that the 915G uses regular system memory as video memory?

NVidia has it's own video memory separate from system memory so system memory speed shouldn't have to much

affect here I'd think since the NVIDIA onboard memory would need to be fast for gaming.

[puntoMX]

Yes, the 915G has a GMA900 onboard and uses some RAM for 2D graphics (1 or 8MB I think, like the 945G series) but can share up to 128MB of RAM, all this memory is taken from the system RAM.

[j5689]

I don't use onboard, I use an 8600GT w/ 512MB DDR3 instead. Would I still see a difference in anything with 533MHz RAM?

And you are correct about the GMA900, it has options for 1 or 8 MB in the BIOS.

[puntoMX]

I don't use onboard, I use an 8600GT w/ 512MB DDR3 instead. Would I still see a difference in anything with 533MHz RAM?

And you are correct about the GMA900, it has options for 1 or 8 MB in the BIOS.

When you use an add-on video card then you won´t see much difference, if there is any besides in benchmarking.

[j5689]

I just looked more into what would be required for the 570J btw. Based on the information you posted on heatsinks, I already have the right kind to support a 570J

The 6-pipe W4254

I'm wondering just out of curiosity if it was supposed to come in mine because my processor is a 540. Everything processor-wise right now was on the computer when I got it. Perhaps the Navy is responsible for this or something as this computer was a Navy computer before it was given to me.

Btw, this is where I would get it from unless I or someone else can find it cheaper:

http://www.starmicro.net/detail.aspx?ID=567

Edited October 28, 2008 by j5689

[puntoMX]

Perhaps the Navy is responsible for this or something as this computer was a Navy computer before it was given to me.

It just Dell´s way of keeping thing cheap for them, so, a foxconn cooler on a tray-CPU (not boxed, CPU only, thus 1 year of warranty).

[j5689]

Sorry to revive, but I got the 570J for Christmas and it didn't work. But at least it gave me a message:

Incompatible processor found. Processing halted

or something like that. So what can I possibly upgrade this thing with, if anything?

[mikesw]

Sorry to revive, but I got the 570J for Christmas and it didn't work. But at least it gave me a message:

Incompatible processor found. Processing halted

or something like that. So what can I possibly upgrade this thing with, if anything?

Hmmm, I wonder if you have the latest BIOS for your computer flashed? Is your computer

a dell gx280 computer? The A04 and A07 BIOS updates updated for newer processors. I have the

A08 which was just a fix release.

Here's what I read on the net.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/218957-2...lder-dell-gx280

heatsink too.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/219099-2...el-570j-cooling

which points to this article although they mention the intel 570 P4 and not the intel 570J P4.

http://www.hardwarecentral.com/hardwarecen...cle.php/3486711

So it could be that the BIOS doesn't support the no-execute bit????

There are references on the net that the 570J is used in Dimensions and XPS dell computers.

Edited December 29, 2008 by mikesw