Wife's eMachine

[LiquorDealer]

I realize this is way under where you guys usually operate but - My wife has an eMachine EL 1200 6 W. It has a 1.6 Athlon 2650e processor. Can I update it a bit by changing processors - is so - which one is a simple update.

Thanks in advance - I appreciate your help.

 

[Arkaign]

YES, you can update it a ton! The easiest would be to grab an Athlon X2 (not an Athlon II!) Socket AM2 processor.

http://www.emachines.com/products/products.html?prod=EL1200-06w
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103279

 

[tcsenter]

You should be able to use Socket AM2 models up to 45W TDP MAX. e.g.

Athlon X2 BE-2300
Athlon X2 BE-2350
Athlon X2 BE-2400

Athlon X2 3250e
Athlon X2 4050e
Athlon X2 4450e
Athlon X2 4850e
Athlon X2 5050e

Probably cannot use 45nm Athlon II models such as Regor, due to BIOS that predates the launch of these models by nearly one year.

Latest BIOS:

Version R01-A2 (12/8/2008)

 

[Arkaign]

You should be able to use Socket AM2 models up to 45W TDP MAX. e.g.

Athlon X2 BE-2300
Athlon X2 BE-2350
Athlon X2 BE-2400

Athlon X2 3250e
Athlon X2 4050e
Athlon X2 4450e
Athlon X2 4850e
Athlon X2 5050e

Probably cannot use 45nm Athlon II models such as Regor, due to BIOS that predates the launch of these models by nearly one year.

Latest BIOS:

Version R01-A2 (12/8/2008)

Happily I can say I've used an old X2-4800+ in one of those units before with no problem, so 45w is not the limitation. The board is a pretty generic Nvidia 6150, and 65w cpus seem to work fine. I also installed a 2x2gb DDR2 kit from Corsair, and it worked fine as well. This was at a law office, running XP Home and Office 07. Ran MUCH faster.

 

[thescreensavers]

You should listen to ran and get the Athlon II Pentium

just wanted to say this,


Out

 

[LiquorDealer]

Thanks a million for the advice - I'll order one tonight.

 

[Yowen]

You should listen to ran and get the Athlon II Pentium

just wanted to say this,


Out

Interesting

 

[SanDiegoPC]

Thanks a million for the advice - I'll order one tonight.

Order a larger/better PSU as well. The Power Supply is a real weak spot on the eMachines.

 

[tcsenter]

Happily I can say I've used an old X2-4800+ in one of those units before with no problem, so 45w is not the limitation. The board is a pretty generic Nvidia 6150, and 65w cpus seem to work fine. I also installed a 2x2gb DDR2 kit from Corsair, and it worked fine as well. This was at a law office, running XP Home and Office 07. Ran MUCH faster.

According to this page, the board's official limit is 45W:

http://www.e4allupgraders.info/dir1/motherboards/socketam2/boxer_WMCP61M.shtml

The board shown in the photo is SFF with 2-phase VRM. While 65W models might "function", its one of those dealios where it could result in instability at high prolonged CPU utilization (which business apps rarely place on CPUs) or early failure.

 

[slag]

You should listen to ran and get the Athlon II Pentium

just wanted to say this,


Out

Not a bad choice if you can get L4 cache at stepping 1 or L5 cache at stepping 2, but that was only on later production runs.

The athlon II pentium can usually be unlocked to a Celeron D