i recently bought this computer and am wondering what the upgrade outlook for it is as far as ram and cpu, when i run aida32 it just tells me that motherboard is generic...can any experts point me somewhere i can findout how much ram i can max at and if i will be able to upgrade from the athlon 64 3500+ to something better someday, thanx for any help. and how can i tell exactly what brand of memory i have and what cpu i have...been reading thru some threads and see there are different types of amd 3500+
Hi basquiat, No, the A64 3500+ is unique - it has Venice core and runs 2.2GHz w/ 512KB cache. Check out CPU-Z: http://www.cpuid.com/download/cpu-z-132.zip There are many interesting tools available, but this one is a basic must-have. Lots of good-quality PC3200 (or PC3500) memory is the secret to top performance with your rig. 512MB is basic, but 2x1GB will get you happening if you want high performance :^) The question of your video performance is important to your PC's future... right lads?
thanx for the info...cpuz tells me i have 4 slots for memory right now just have 2 occupied with 512 pc3200 dual ddr-sdram, is that decent memory? and does this mean i can put 1024 sticks into each slot? thanx for the help!
can you recommend any other tools that might give me more info....like cpu temperature and hd temp and such?
Yes, try Everest Home Edition. The free Home edition has been discontinued from the manufacturer (lavalys) but can still be found here & there... Try here: http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4181.html Do you have 2 x 256MB? Too bad you don't have 2 x 512MB. If you purchase 2 x 1GB PC3200, you would surely want to yank the 2 x 256MB sticks... The increase from 2GB RAM to 2.5GB RAM would be offset by slower memory operation - I would rather have 2GB (fast) than 2.5GB (slow). You could, however, install 2 x 512MB economically and come out of it with 1.5GB total (which is lots of memory). What is your Video? L8R
thanx i will check out everest, and i do have 2 x 512 on dual channel for total of 1024, and i jus installed sisoft sandra and it tells me i have 4 slots and can max out to 16 gb, although that seems like overkill, video is NVIDIA GeForce 6100 with 256 mb memory. and to the first reply cpuz says my cpu core is winchester not venice...is that good/bad or are they the same pretty much?
ok i got everest and have had it running all day watching the cpu temp it never changes from 40 c, i have been encoding movies and copying files and downloading torrents between it all my cpu has been at 100 percent for awhile and no change...can this be right? btw the hd temp has flucuated between 35 ansd 42.
Hi, Those temps look nice and cool; the CPU very cool (almost suspicious eh?) But your harddisk is cool and that tells me you have good case cooling, and the CPU is believable. Yes Winchester core - identical to Venice; same 90nm process, same 1.4 voltage, same 512KB cache, just slightly older and without SSE3 instruction set (popularized by Intel). There is also older Newcastle core (1.5v, 130nm) too. Sorry! Venice is all that is available for purchase currently - hence the CPU-Z :^) You could install 4 sticks of 512MB RAM with a possible loss of speed; some motherboards slip back to PC2700 speed when a 4 banks are populated in dual-channel, you'd have to check that out. 2 x 1GB would be preferable, if you could sell your 512s to a buddy or something... But it's a pretty good computer, 2 x 512MB is lots, and the CPU is great. You might want to pickup a 'real' video board for it - yours is okay, but it is inexpensive. That's where your upgrade path leads I would say... Regards
hello there again, ok so i got paranoid about the static 40 degree temperature and decided to try something else, i downloaded a prog called speedfan (http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php) and what do ya know i think im getting my actual cpu temps now... the cpu temp has been bobbing from 58 and 61 which seems hot to me but is this acceptible? the ambient temp reads 33 celcius. and while i was playing with my n64 emulator the cpu temp hiked up around 66/67 but when i quit playing it dropped almost instantly to 60 and a minute later down to 58....so what do you think is she running to hot?
ok now im really confused i just rembered i can see the cpu temp in bios, so i rebooted into bios and looked, says 28 degrees...now im pretty sure there is no way the temp dropped 30 degrees in about 10 seconds or less....i wish there was an absolute way for me to figure this out, kinda pissin me off!
Okay, yeah thet's really weird. BIOS would show you an accurate temp. I'm checking out this speedfan now. 67C is hot. Your cpu should not get that hot. Hmmmm. hard to know whether or not to believe speedfan, but when you get numbers like that, you should play it safe. Don't want to overheat your processor.
well jus loafin around on the net speed fan stays around 57, motherboard monitor dosent support my board, everest jus dosent tell me anything (unless cpu temp is always 40c)...getting ready to pull my hair out, hopefully the bios temp was closer....but 28 is kinda low huh. edit- am interested if you get accurate temps with speedfan...lemme know.
It's funny. Everest got the maker of my MOBO wrong. Oh well. I also couldn't get any temps from everest, and the link at speeedfan isn't working for me. Oh well. I'll try back later.
I thought it was going to work there for a min. Maybe it's because I use opera. I'm not about to get internet explorer back just for speedfan though.
