After trawling the net for several weeks, I finally took the plunge and went ahead. The initial strategy was to discover and find my motherboard serial number and computer version. Secondly, with a general PC by major computer companies HP, Dell, Packard Bell, you may find accessing all options in the BIOS on startup severely limited, as they are re-written to accommodate the different motherboard chip configurations influenced by the different models issued. So an update may be necessary allow dual core use. This is determined to function as case here. More on this later.
By far the easiest way to obtain the serial number, is always to delve inside the PC, always taking the precaution of removing all the ability cables and ancillary add-ons. Additionally, wearing an anti-static wristband to’earth’yourself is very important to safeguard your new CPU and internal semi-conductors investment. The motherboard serial number is found, usually involving the PCI slots or around the edge of the board. These details may be obtained by utilizing various software packages and the windows system info option, but we want to keep this’bombproof’and cheap don’t we? Visually checking the hardware is going to do this and provide practice in overcoming driving a car of’operating’on your own PC. Only at that stage we’re only looking aren’t we? The manufacturers website is normally forthcoming with hardware information when you have pinpointed your model, and this is crosschecked with your physical findings. The old addage’measure twice – cut once’is extremely apt in doing anything to your PC. Now finding your BIOS chip can be useful, taking note of the manufacturer and serial numbers HDPE blue drum scrap suppliers. You could have a paper label which needs to be gently peeled back to reveal the information.
Ok, so another stage was to obtain the fastest CPU recommended by HP in this case, for the motherboard. The single core AMD 3700+ had never given me problems previously but I discovered it increasingly difficult to utilize Photoshop CS5 (32bit) with any speed. The setup was OK in preferences, CS5 Bridge however, was taking forever in opening images from my external hard drive. Keep your irreplaceable files off the main PC! The fastest CPU readily available for the motherboard was an AMD x2 4800+ (socket 939, check always your socket is compatible!) Having read very favourable reviews on the CPU (top of the product range on release, but price prohibitive originally $1001) I endeavoured to get one on Ebay. Low and behold, several used and new items were available at a tenth of the initial price and one was secured. I know a lot of you might think these are old chips now and do not hold their particular compared to the state of the art CPU’s currently on the market. Financial firms an update for an ageing PC (5years old!) remember, and for anyone on a small budget, the good qualities of upgrading outweigh the cons of purchasing a fresh PC.
Armed with the newest chip I eagerly placed on my wristband, removed the ability supply plug, removed the medial side panal, located the fan and heatsink spring and removed them. Good opportunity to give them a good clean using a quality decorators brush. I removed the CPU after releasing the retaining arm fully and dropped in the newest CPU. Job done I believed, now we see if the BIOS really does need an upgrade. Power cable inserted, monitor attached, and fired up. Oh dear! Fan on overdrive, blank screen, would not even POST. Pulled the ability and replaced the CPU with the’old’one and reassembled. Just a note here, there was plenty of heatsinking paste left from the past installation. This is re-applied in most cases with an old credit card to make sure a slim film and correct heat dissipation. The heatsink clip was fiddly- the rule- don’t force anything! You can damage the motherboard. Deep breaths and patience required.
BIOS update. The words themselves bore deep into the soul and promote fear at the very thought. If anyone has done this before and killed their PC then I can understand the trepidation. If it’s not broken, don’t correct it’is a good rule but in this case, there’s no option. I have been there 4 years back and luckily the PC was still under warranty. New motherboard and CPU. Now, I was on my own. However, I had just bought a CPU, so I was out of pocket there. I had downloaded what I deemed to be the proper BIOS update from HP. I had also thought better of it and downloaded two bios updates from BIOSAgent.com for a demand of $37. Surely they’d sent me the right one ?.I had given them the serial numbers and my upgrade intent. Was it actually the BIOS or had I bought a duff CPU? Only one way to find out. There was no way out, short of heading back, and I’d committed myself. An update would not give my old CPU a challenge, installing the incorrect BIOS though, would completely screw the whole PC. I sat on the idea for at least 3 days. It all boiled down to this. Can I live with the fact that I could have a desktop doorstep, or perhaps a great PC upgrade for the employment I wanted. For a few inexplicable reason one friday night, the decision was made. I could live with the decision.
I had the decision of 3 updates. I dismissed my own download free because it couldn’t be verified. From the 2 purchased, I clicked on the HP BIOS. Before I had possiblity to doubt the chance of updating through windows XP, the job was done! A restart proved an update from phoenix award (vers 6.00PG) 3.4 to 3.47, no problems whatsoever. I couldn’t believe it!
So now, after replacing the old CPU with the newest dual core, everything worked beautifully. BIOS recognised the CPU, and CS5 was better.’Let’s push things only a little further’I thought. I’ve recently purchased a laptop for work and have already been very impressed with the 64bit Win 7 OS. Imagine if I upgraded the old desktop OS? Afterall, it have been gathering god knows what rubbish on the’C’drive and the majority of the programs weren’t used. A spring-clean was needed, and a clean drive would have been a great start.
I had been diligent in keeping my PC regularly defragged, registry cleaned and generally up to par, but I hankered after 64bit CS5 and the ability of an increased workflow. I debated using windows transfer, but I would only be transferring garbage, wouldn’t I? I used it to backup to an ext. drive, it took forever (4days!) but didn’t transfer the files back. A clear install of windows 7 64bit from a purchased disc, was so clean I hardly remember it. I are in possession of only the programs I need. Gather your discs and any download.exe files and reg. keys beforehand! All of them run beautifully. I make use of a 16GB’ readyboost’flash stick, have 4GB ram installed and the whole system runs almost as fast as my new laptop AMD Turion II N530. Photoshop CS5 runs so quickly, the opening images in bridge are almost instant and I can utilise the ram to render in record (for me!) time. I utilize the empty internal partition’D’drive for the CS5 scratch disc use.
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