Friend trying to upgrade newer gateway with mobo and cpu

[Jules]

My friend is trying to upgrade his computer from a 3.4 p4 2gigs ddr to a dual core 920 but he trying to buy another mother board. i told him it might not even work. he found out that mother board that fits is a micro atx motherboard. will any new micro atx board work in a dell casE??

 

[imported_Kiwi]

Originally posted by: MyStupidMouth
My friend is trying to upgrade his computer from a 3.4 p4 2gigs ddr to a dual core 920 but he trying to buy another mother board. i told him it might not even work. he found out that mother board that fits is a micro atx motherboard. will any new micro atx board work in a dell casE??

First, WHICH brand abomination is this thing? Dell or Gateway? Dell has tended to be far more proprietary on the costly parts than Gateway. The main non-standard item in Gateway systems is very often the size, shape, and mounting patterns of various power supplies they use (often "Newton").

I've upgraded three Gateway boxes to more modern specs. Laborwise, using a nibbler and a Dremel to open the i/o panel area is the only heavy work. Modifying the power supply mount is a bit easier. Dell boxes aren't worth wasting time with. In my personal experience, swapping MB's in a Gateway is no big deal. Dell may have begun to be less proprietary about MB's and psu's, according to some second hand information passed to me here at AT, but their older stuff offered a lot of headaches!