Upgrading Cpu-will I need a new fan?

A

Audiophreak

Geek Trainee
OK, so I'm a total newbie, had my pc for 6 months and haven't touched the hardware.

Now I want to upgrade some stuff. I have an Intel Pentium 4 1710 Mhz cpu and want to go to a 2400 Mhz in the same brand.

I have 252 Mb RAMM and want to add 512Mb more.

Motherboard is Asus P4B.

The question is will I need a new cooler fan?

I have some software to tell me about my hardware, Belarc and Aida32, but they don't seem to cover the cooling system. I don't really want to open up the case as I'm too inexperienced, I'll get someone to install the upgrades when I buy them. Is there any software or any other way that I can tell what kind of fan I have without taking the case apart?
 
Nope. You have to look. Software can't tell what you have since it can physically look and see for you. My guess is that you've got a stock Intel heatsink. While stock heatsinks have been generally just enough to get by, the P4 stock cooler is quite good.
If you're worried about your current CPU cooler not being enough, just get a retail P4. You can buy the P4 CPU itself, but that's all you get. The retail package costs a little more usually, but you get a heatsink/fan combo with it and a 3-year warranty.
The P4 heatsink doesn't require any tools to install, and is really something you can do yourself very easily.

Which P4B do you have? Is it the P4B266 or P4B533? If it's one of those, you can get DDR, but if it's just the plain P4B, you've got plain SDRAM, and this is going to be a little harder to find and pricier than DDR since there is less demand for it.
 
Thanks

Thanks a lot for the reply. Well, I'm confused because Aida32 says I just have the plain Asus P4B, but Belarc Advisor says that I have 5 memory slots, three DIMM and two DDR. I'm using just one of the DIMM. I've read the DDR is better, but I've also read that DIMM and DDR are not compatibile to use together. So If I get some DDR it's a bit wasteful financially because the DIMM that I've already paid for will become useless. So I guess I should get 512 DIMM in the second slot, do you agree?

About the cpu and cooler, what you said makes a lot of sense, I'll just make sure I get a heat sink device with the new processor.
 
It's not really wastefull because 512mb of DDR will still be faster than 768mb of SDRAM.

I suggest you get DDR because it will make your system faster, and likely costs quite less than SDRAM.
 
Also, any upgrade you do with DDR is going to be useful if you want to go to a newer motherboard.

A side note: if you have both DDR and SDRAM slots, you cannot use them both at the same time. I would not invest anymore in SDRAM since it's no longer a used standard on anything new.

Just pop off the side panel and take a look. You don't have to do anything---well you may need to push aside some cables if they did a poor job on routing the cabling---but that's it. Software is no match for actually looking at it.
 
Ok

Wow guys, I'm so glad I found this place. I didn't even know SDRAM was not used anymore. I will definitely buy the ddr then. Excellent advice.
 
Just make sure your motherboard supports it. Asus did have a P4B that was simply SDRAM only. SDRAM and DDR are not compatible. If you somehow manage to make them fit in the wrong slot, you've broken something and voided your warranty on the busted part.
 
Look in the general thread

Hi, if you look at my thread in the general hardware forum you'll see my questions about whether or not I can put in ddr and a new drive. Thanks again.
 
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