Hello. I'm not the most computer-literate person around, so bear with me if my questions seem BASIC (pun intended).

I have a Compaq Presario S5100NX with an ASUS P4G533 motherboard and Celeron 2.6GHz P4C processor. According to SiSoftware Sandra's analysis of my system, the processor socket/slot is a PGA 478, has a ZIF socket (whatever that means) and supports speeds of over 3.2GHz.

The board has only two DIMM RAM slots presently holding DRAM 256MB/64 and DRAM 512MB/64. Compaq says that the max memory for my board is 1GB, but Sandra says that 2GB is the max.

It's my understanding that a P4 chip will fit my mobo. I'm assuming that a P4 is superior to a Celeron brain.

Soooooo, the big question is will my mobo accept a P4 chip? And if so, what mods or changes to the BIOS or RAM or whatever needs to be done (if any) with a P4?

Thanks.

Go to the ASUS website & see if they list your board...if they do, look for what CPUs are supported, don't just guess. Not all S478 CPUs will work on all boards due to limitations of the motherboard chipset. Don't trust SANDRA

This space for rent

What are you needing to do that your present processor cannot handle?

As above, I would trust Compaq more than Sandra on this issue.

The ASUS Web site doesn't list the exact number of my board. There are several P4G boards listed (P4GD1, P4GE-MX, P4G8X, P4GE-V, P4GE-VM, P4GPL-X) but none ending with the number 533. Also, there are several boards ending with 533 (P4B533 with various letters following, and P4S533 with various letters following), but none beginning with P4G.

I didn't know how similar boards in the P4G were. Any idea why my board isn't listed? I got the number from Compaq's specs as well as Sandra's analysis.

I'm wondering how much this Compaq can be upgraded, if any. I've been told that Compaq machines are very proprietary and that you're stuck with what you've got. It's two years old and works fine, but I'm wondering what I can do with it two years from now.

It works fine but I don't do any hard-core gaming yet. I'd like to start playing games, though (Star Wars Battlefront II). I'm wondering how a Celeron processor handles games like that versus a P4.

Thanks for the info!

Compaq's are not meant to be upgraded. The boards are made by ASUS o COmpaq specs, so you usually can no find info about that specific board at Asus website.

Let it be what it was meant to be and if that's not enough then get another machine.

Again, trust Compaq specs. They are the ones who know the details about that board.