Hello, it is my first time posting here. Looking to get a little help on the following situation:

I have an HP Pavilion XG843 PC. It has an Intel Celeron 800MHz Processor. From googling, I determined that the motherboard is a TriGem COGNAC. In The manual I found for this motherboard, it states that the Intel 810 chipset is used, and that it supports 66MHz and 100MHz FSB speeds. The CPU Socket type is 370. I am assuming that being 800MHz, the FSB is 100MHz. Please correct anything if I am mistaken. From another google search, I found that the fastest PPGA Celeron is a 533. So I am assuming my 800MHz is FCPGA, or FCPGA 2, I do not know which. I want to know what would be the fastest processor that I could put in this motherboard to replace my current Celeron. I have looked for Socket 370 processors, and found some Celeron 1.0GHz up to 1.3GHz. But they are FCPGA 2 and I don't know if my current processor is FCPGA or FCPGA 2, so I don't know if these 1.0GHz-1.3GHz processors are compatible with my motherboard.

Thanks,
Brian

800MHz can be either 8 x 100MHz or 12 x 66MHz. To check your settings & maybe get a little more info about your CPU, board & RAM, download CPUZ 1.31, unzip it & click CPUZ.exe:

http://www.cpuid.org/cpuz.php#download

This space for rent

Your board will take up to a 1.1GHz "Coppermine" Celeron. Just make sure that when you buy the chip it's NOT a Tualatin Celeron. These "Tualatins" are the FCPGA-2 chips that aren't compatible with your motherboard and chipset.

You want a Coppermine.
If you're buying the chip online, look for the following specifications. These will tell you whether it's a Coppermine or Tualatin.

Coppermine Celerons have 128K of L2 cache, while Tualatin Celerons have 256KB.

Coppermines run at 1.7V, while Tualatins run at 1.45V.

If the website shows a photo of the chip:
A Coppermine will be green, with a black square on it (the core). A Tualatin will be green with a bigger metal square. (called an integrated heat spreader, or IHS)

A Coppermine uses the FC-PGA form factor, a Tualatin uses the newer FC-PGA2.

A Coppermine is 0.18 mics, while the Tualatin is 0.13 mics.

Most Tualatins run at 1.1ghz-1.4ghz, while most coppermines run at 1ghz and below. However, there are 1.1ghz coppermines, and there are 1.0ghz Tualatins, so pay attention to the details I've listed above.

Hope this helps :)

Thanks for your information. Very useful.

1.1ghz Celeron Coppermines are rare, though. if you can find it, go for it, but if not a 1.0 is much more common.

also, given that it is only 128mb of RAM, an upgrade of that is in order, IMHO. open the system and see if it has a memory slot that is empty. if it does, just buy another 128mb PC100 memory stick and add it (or two if it has 2 memory slots free). a memory upgrade would be highly benificial.

The things that come to those that wait may be the things left behind by those who got there first.

The cost to improvement in performance ratio is non-existent. You will spend more than you will see improvemnt going from 800 to 1000 Mhz on a COmpaq. If you need faster, get a newer rig.

untrue. you are talking maybe 60 or 70 dollars, if done through eBay, for memory and CPU upgrades. definitely cheaper then a new system :-)

The things that come to those that wait may be the things left behind by those who got there first.

Not untrue. Going from 800 to 1000 on a Celeron is not worth the expense. Do you see that as some sort of multimedia potential machine? I don't believe the difference would even be perceptible. $60-70 on eBay would get you a whole PIII 500+ machine of that era, which would outrun the Celeron even at the higher clock speed because of the difference in cache. A new system would cost much more for sure, but that was never the question. And if the "upgrade" fails for whatever reason, he is just out the cash. Bad advice.

If you were going to do an upgrade, your best bet would be to get an FCPGA to FCPGA2 adapter , then buy a 1200 Tualeron. Or whatever you can get the best price on, but 1200 is a nice step up, and the price increases sharply as you get closer to the 1.4. I used one of these adapters on an Epox AT motherboard to run a 1.3 Tualeron, and it works great. The POST screen calls it a 533, but CPUZ recognizes it as a 1.3. A few hundred MHz, plus twice the level 2 memory cache would make a noticeable improvement.

And what would that cost do you think?

the T. core pentium 3s are very nice CPUs, and still worth a fair amount. $150-$200 for a 1.2/1.3 CPU and adapter. very significant performance boost. and in some benchmark tests a 1.4ghz T. core P3 outperformed a 1.8ghz P4! actually that was great idea, repo man, i didnt think of that!

The things that come to those that wait may be the things left behind by those who got there first.

The adapter is about $10.00. I know of one computer forum where a member has a 1.2 GHz Tualeron for sale for $25.00 shipped. I'd link to it, but you have to have 100 posts there to access the classifieds. I paid about the same for the 1.3 I have.

Similar deals can be found, but you have to shop for them. $35.00 to go from an 800 to 1200 is worthwhile, especially with the added L2 cache. Another 128 megs of memory, and you have a decent machine. Nothing earth shattering, but decent.

agreed

The things that come to those that wait may be the things left behind by those who got there first.