Upgrading a Packard Bell iConnect 1250

Hi. My girlfriend has a less-than-desireable Packard Bell
iConnect 1250 that is lacking in more ways than I'd care
to go into. (She bought it before she met me, which is an
excuse, I guess.) Anyway, I'm looking to upgrade the
Celeron 700MHz CPU in the thing and was hoping to get
some feedback from the community on this. If anyone
out there has any idea just how far the CPU of this particular
model can be upgraded then I'd greatly appreciate some
feedback. If I could throw a 2GHz+ Celeron in there I'd
be almost happy.

Oh, and the bloody machine doesn't support AGP, which is
a shame really because I've a spare GeForce 2 MX AGP
sitting around doing nothing. Hmm - if anyone has a GeForce
2 MX PCI that they want to trade, I'm all ears (UK only
though, chaps).

YavolGurrick wrote:
Hi. My girlfriend has a less-than-desireable Packard Bell
iConnect 1250 that is lacking in more ways than I'd care
to go into. (She bought it before she met me, which is an
excuse, I guess.) Anyway, I'm looking to upgrade the
Celeron 700MHz CPU in the thing and was hoping to get
some feedback from the community on this. If anyone
out there has any idea just how far the CPU of this particular
model can be upgraded then I'd greatly appreciate some
feedback. If I could throw a 2GHz+ Celeron in there I'd
be almost happy.

Oh, and the bloody machine doesn't support AGP, which is
a shame really because I've a spare GeForce 2 MX AGP
sitting around doing nothing. Hmm - if anyone has a GeForce
2 MX PCI that they want to trade, I'm all ears (UK only
though, chaps).


i seriosly doubt if that thing could do 2ghz...
it would not be worth sticking much money into anyway...
however increasing the RAM may be worthwhile

On Sat, 18 Sep 2004 22:30:18 +0100, "YavolGurrick"
wrote:

Hi. My girlfriend has a less-than-desireable Packard Bell
iConnect 1250 that is lacking in more ways than I'd care
to go into. (She bought it before she met me, which is an
excuse, I guess.) Anyway, I'm looking to upgrade the
Celeron 700MHz CPU in the thing and was hoping to get
some feedback from the community on this. If anyone
out there has any idea just how far the CPU of this particular
model can be upgraded then I'd greatly appreciate some
feedback. If I could throw a 2GHz+ Celeron in there I'd
be almost happy.

Oh, and the bloody machine doesn't support AGP, which is
a shame really because I've a spare GeForce 2 MX AGP
sitting around doing nothing. Hmm - if anyone has a GeForce
2 MX PCI that they want to trade, I'm all ears (UK only
though, chaps).


2GHz Celeron uses a different socket, certainly won't work.

Determine the chipset on the motherboard, that is a good
start. Then see if you can figure out the supported voltage
range. If Packard Bell has a bios update, that'd be good to
do also, and read the bios notes to see if any mention of
CPU support is made.

Generally speaking, a box with a Celeron 700 in it will
support any Coppermine P3 or Celeron up to 1.1GHz, "maybe" a
Tualatin Celeron or P3 up to 1.4 (maybe 1.5?) GHz. The
Tualatin 1.4 may be just as fast as a Celeron 2.0 due to
shorter pipeline and 2-4X the L2 cache.

Since it has integrated video, chosing a CPU with highest
FSB possible will maximize the performance of that video...
it's not going to be able to play modern 3D games, but
moving from 66 to 100-133 FSB (sync'd memory bus) it should
have a lot more breathing room for things like DVD/other
video playback at moderate resolutions.

I wouldn't bother with the GF PCI video card though, if
gaming is important the whole box needs replaced, but if it
isn't, the integrated video should be more than sufficient
for basic email/office/internet usage.

Real question is how much $$$ to pour into a old box instead
of budgeting for new(er) one. You might even find that you
can overclock the Celeron 700 to 100MHz FSB, 1050MHz...
average ceiling speed for a Celeron 700 was in the 1GHz to
1.2GHz range, though it may need the vcore raised to about
1.7-1.8V to accomplish it. YMMV