Originally posted by omegaman7:

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Ha ha russ. I beat you to it :p It is informative. I just hope it's accurate. Some people seem to think Wiki doesn't post the right information. Everything I've ever seen seemed to be accurate though.

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Originally posted by Estuansis:

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Yep my 890XA is the same way. 790X chipset, SB850, PATA hookups, the works. Mine is most certainly a directly upgraded 790X-UD4P.

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Quote:

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Russ,

My motherboard has a 990X Northbridge and a SB950 South bridge. No PATA or Floppy. I have it running at 3.5GHz, 5000 MTs, at 1.31v, at least for the next couple of days. So far it runs like a dream.

Best Regards,
Russ

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Quote:

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omegaman7:

( Pata and floppy are dying breeds ;)

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Quote:

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N_3_Days

What's your temp like sense you had to re paste the cpu any differents? and you should be able to set it back Oc'd like you had it on the 790 ;) All and another thing Glad to see you Rock'in some G.Skill's Now. Lol congrat Russ ;) and you Know. I wanna see some Everest Memory Latency tests on those sticks. I'll be waiting hoping not to remind. lol take care my friend ;)

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Originally posted by FredBun:

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Russ, for what it's worth, I know it's far from me to give anybody pc advise here, but I have been using piriforms speccy, I know it might not be as accurate as some of the one's you guys use, but I have been using it for a couple of years now plus did the same with my nieghbors, it gives out 4 temps, cpu, hardrives, graphic cards and mobo temps, and it's always stable, never runs amuck, something to try till you find something better.

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Originally posted by Estuansis:

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Just had a fun project going today. Had a laptop sitting here for some time that would run off the charger but wouldn't charge. Inspiron 1525 built in 2008 but basically unused until now due to said issue. Try the battery in another Dell Inspiron, and it works fine. Well these laptops have a bad track record for the power board attached to the connector being flimsy, so I automatically assumed it would need a part replaced, and put it on the back burner. Probably collected dust for ~6 months.

Now just found out today that the power adapter cord had been tripped on and yanked out in the past, just in passing conversation, and it got me to thinking. Sliced the boot off the connector and lo and behold, the center wire, which charges the battery, is snapped right at the connector. A little soldering, shrink tube, and electrical tape later and the laptop is suddenly charging perfectly again. And to think I was gonna take it out and shoot it XD

Specs just for the record:

2GHz Celeron M 550 (A64 3400+ equivalent)
2GB DDR2 5300
Intel X3100(kinda makes me miss the X4500HD in my Thinkpad)
160GB HDD

If it were junk I would have chucked it but it's in otherwise fine shape and due to lack of use the battery has retained most of its factory capacity. Think I got about 3 hours out of it surfing the web and watching youtube and a little over 4 hours word processing and listening to MP3s which is fantastic for the age of the laptop and battery. Now if the battery didn't charge, the laptop isn't exactly worth enough on its own to salvage. As a working unit though, it's a lot easier to sell or trade.

My next project might be to find a suitable dual core to use in it. It only supports 800MHz FSB processors though, so I might have to dig into my stash of Merom Core Duos(ie not Core 2 Duo). I'm thinking a 1.66GHz dual core would work really nice without killing the battery too much, and make it a more useful machine. Have been doing some vintage gaming on it too. Mostly CoD1, Wolfenstein ET online, GTA Vice City etc. Have proven myself that even when badly GPU limited like Intel integrated a CPU upgrade has always helped gaming speeds. Shoot me, I like to optimize games to run on PCs they shouldn't :P

On another note just got to compare the X4500HD in my Thinkpad T500 and the X3100 in this Dell. Features aside the X4500 is nearly twice as fast which puts it in max settings territory for a very large number of older games. Have been playing Star Wars Republic Commando and Battlefield Vietnam maxed on the X4500 which are both usually games reserved for discrete cards or AMD/Nvidia IGPs. The X4500 also manages original-version cracked copies of Half Life 2 without much fuss maxed at 1024 x 768(ie just fine for a 15" laptop screen). The new Source 2009 updated Half Life 2 runs like poop though.

Had another interesting laptop a few months ago that I intended to buy a high-cap battery for and keep but it sold right away to an owner of the same model for parts. Was an Acer Ferrari with a 2.2GHz Turion X2 and a mobility X1600 which would have been perfect. IIRC my biggest expense would have been the proper high-capacity 9 cell battery to give it useful battery life while gaming. I think the guy I sold the laptop to used it for the power controller board and the screen which were both broken on his. His was a newer, more reliable model as well but with a weaker cooler so I think he took the cooler as well. The CPU I still have sitting here. Have a whole mess of mobile CPUs as well as P4s A64s, X2s, Core 2s, etc etc just sitting here. Really should start piecing out builds and selling. Say throw in a PSU or some RAM if something needs it and sell what I have for profit. Prolly have a dozen full modern PCs here in parts :P

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