I have inherited an EMachines t5212 with the Intel Pentium D processor, 2 gigs of RAM and Windows XP home. I’ve ordered a $20 480 watt power supply from CPUtopia and a $20 Radeon 5450 video card from Tigerdirect. Any way to upgrade the CPU or motherboard in this aging beast?
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Even with a 3.2Ghz CPU and 2GB Memory, it is borderline for Windows 7 usage..
As riider says, save your money for a new build, you will be happier with the end result for much longer.
http://support.gateway.com/s//PC/eM…
http://www.ascendtech.us/gateway-gr…
Looks like the Pentium D is as good as it gets. You could probably get a better one, but I doubt it would be worthwhile. The board supports up to 800MHz FSB but only up to DDR2-533 RAM, so if you were to upgrade the CPU, the RAM might bottleneck the system somewhat. If you’re going to replace the board & CPU, you may as just build a new system from scratch & keep the eMachines as a backup.
“I’ve ordered a $20 480 watt power supply from CPUtopia”
Let me guess – Bestec? eMachines are notorious for using poor quality PSUs. If you were to do a search in the Hardware forum, you’d find numerous reports of eMachine PSUs burning out, almost always Bestec units. eMachines cases accept standard PSUs so you could have bought a replacement from just about anywhere. For example, here’s a high quality Corsair 430W unit for just $25 after rebate:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ…
“and a $20 Radeon 5450”
I’m guessing the choice was based on price. It’s not much of a gaming card.
If you still want to upgrade the CPU, you’re going to have to find out which ones are officially supported. Here’s a couple of places for cheap Pentium D’s:
http://www.starmicroinc.net/cgi/com…
http://www.geeks.com/products_sc.as…