is it worth the upgrade

[mr. Strawberry]

ok so my mum has a ACER aspire L320 and wants to know if i can upgrade it
all i know from cpuz is that it specs are
intel Pentium E2140 @1.6GHZ (slow)
1GB of DDR2 PC2-5300
946GZ express chipset graphics
vista HP
unsure on budget atm. but is there anything i upgrade

[Martini1991]

More RAM.
Change to Linux/Windows 7/XP.
Bout it.

[IainK]

to make it faster for general use? upgrade the ram and mobo (a cheapie mobo) and overclock the CPU, should be fine for internet etc with a G31/41 and the processor clocked to about 2.4Ghz and 2-4GB ram

[Mr Grapes]

*IF* the CPU is socketed, you can probably swap that out (I've just done that on my Dell), apart from that, only the RAM and HDD will be changable

edit:
sorry, thought it was a laptop. disregard!

[mr. Strawberry]

well the board i don't know alot about
i won't risk OCing it as it has no fans at all and is passively cooled
CPUZ give board model as
FI946GZG

[IainK]

probably not overclockable, hence the new board ;) see if you can pick up a second hand MATX G31 in the MM and a heap HSF for overclcoking, the chip runs very cool and will OC to about 3.0GHz on pretty much any aftermarket HSF, even the dirt cheap ones

[Mr Grapes]

ok, had a look, it's a SFF with proprietary MOBO and stuff.

found this pic online:
http://www.abload.de/img/14-04-08_1823kh4.jpg

so my original laptop comments are still valid.
you'll be able to change the CPU within the same thermal spec, but overclocking will not be an option as acer's bios on whole systems are locked down in that regard, and you can't change the mobo as it's custom.

so we're back to HDD, RAM and that's it. not even space for a GFX upgrade by the looks of it

[mr. Strawberry]

well this is one of them super small pc the case is around 3 inches wide
it has 2 60 gb HDDs atm

[Mr Grapes]

what does she need to do that requires upgrading? a dual core e2140 is fine for browsing and email... I'd go so far as to say an atom would be fine! she's not likely to be running crysis is she? probably RAM is the best upgrade for it, or storage if she's running out

[system7]

My BSEL pinmod on a 945G board. This gets an E2140 running at FSB 1066 or 2.13 GHz. :xgrin:

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/4908/bselpinmod945g.jpg (http://img204.imageshack.us/i/bselpinmod945g.jpg/)

Very good for boards with no bios overclock. :thumbs:

[Mr Grapes]

well pinmod is a bit extreme, esp for his mum's machine... bet she wouldn't be pleased if he borked it

that's a very tidy looking gas soldering iron you have there S7 :)

[Andrew Moore]

lol thats mad! I wouldnt bother with that.. only ever did this kind of thing on a 8800ultra a year or so back. Was fun :D

Andy

[scrivz69]

If it ain't bust don't fix it.:rolleye:

[mr. Strawberry]

well it is that it is really slow and she wants it to be faster :D

[Mr Grapes]

If it ain't bust don't fix it.:rolleye:
^^^ what he said

but you can probably go any 65nm 65w TDP C2D with a 800FSB. so quite a few options really
if you're really lucky, with a bios update, you might get a 45nm chip in, but prob still limited to 800 FSB
just no overclocking

[mr. Strawberry]

lol immature :D
although i was waiting for that to happen

[Mr Grapes]

try the RAM upgrade first, and see how that goes. an extra gig in my lappy made a huge difference as access time while it was continuously swapping really slowed it down.

then try the CPU

[mr. Strawberry]

ok now i just need to know what the board is so i know the max speed of thr ram supported :/
can't seem to find it anywhere

[Mr Grapes]

it's proprietary ACER, probably limited by the chipset, so investigate from that point of view (the 946GZ that is)

but i wouldn't bother going past DDR2 800. may well be Laptop SO-DIMMS though so use SISOFT Sandra to find out (or just open up and have a look)

[mr. Strawberry]

open it up later :D will it deffently support DDR2 800?
i may need to do a hard drive update because it makes a high pitch squal when it spins to fast :/

[Mr Grapes]

If it takes DDR2 then you can put DDR2 800 in, wheather it'll run at that speed is another story. and also, sisoft sandra will tell you how many mem slots it has and what its max supported amount is without opening it

[mr. Strawberry]

i know it is 2 slots and has 1gig in one of them :/

[system7]

I'm pretty sure I've run the highly compatible Geil BD DDR2-800 on a 945G/946GZ cipset, but it does only run at DDR2-667 speed max.

FWIW, I very nobly checked your latest available 946GZ bios date which is December 2008. FSB800-1066 Dual Cores: E2140-E2220, E6300-E6700 and those E4xxx jobbies should be supported, power and cooling permitting.

[mr. Strawberry]

well cooling and power would stay the same. i will open it up and take a pic when i get the time :/