GX280 Upgrade

[ajkochev]

Been running Win 7 on a refurbished Dell GX280 tower for a few weeks now. The Windows Experience shows that my processor is the weakest point on my system. I found a few places that sell a 3.4Ghz 800fsb 1m cache Socket 775 processor for not to much. Will this processor work in my system with a 2.6Ghz processor? All other specs are the same. Anyone have experiences upgrading this system?

[CCT]

ajkochev, some general advice.

It is my understanding that that basic unit has some variations, and thus they may differ in chipset limitations AND particularly in Dell Bios attributes (many companies have limited Bios' built into their products).

One Dell link said their Dell Optiplex GX280 came with the Intel 915G chipset and could support an Intel® Pentium® 4 processor with 800 MHz front side bus and Hyper-Threading and 1MB L2 cache.

http://www.dell.com/downloads/global...x_gx280_en.pdf

Intel says the 915G chipset could support a number of different cpu's - http://ark.intel.com/chipset.aspx?familyID=5341

You will note that Dell specifically said 1 MB L2 cache and a number of the listed cpu's have larger.

SO, what I am suggesting is that you check Bios version (displayed on boot or through a computer System Information search).

Then, check your particular unit using the Service Tag number at Dell and see what info (if ANY) you can glean.

Gotta do some leg work.

[Guts3d]

I put a 3.2 into a few units here. The GX280's are decent little stations.

[ajkochev]

Thanks for the info everyone. Station already has the most current BIOS issued by Dell. I have 4 gigs of memory comming for it. I will hold off for another month and do a bit more research and then see about a 3.4ghz processor I found for relatively cheap.

[ajkochev]

Update: I installed a new processor on the GX280. Got one with all the same specs as the old one just an increased speed to 3.4Ghz. Been running for almost two weeks now with no issues.

[techbug157]

Yes it will run smoothly and just as you have cross verified that instead of 2.6GHz processor you replaced 3.4Ghz and its working fine so you already got your answer