Question I'm trying to soup-up an old HP desktop PC a little bit ?

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shawnhalf

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Jan 5, 2017
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Hello Group... well, it may be a dead end, but I'm trying to squeeze some more useful life out of an old
HP Pavilion A6400F Desktop PC. I'm not a gamer, but I'd like to be able to max out this old system to do some trading system backtesting (nothing graphics-intensive, just computation-intensive). I can do some right now on it, but it's kind of slow. As it stands currently, here are the specs:

Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit (SP1)
Intel Pentium E2200 2.20Ghz
6 gigs dual-channel DDR2
ASUStek Benicia Motherboard (CPU 1)
"Bestec" 250W PSU
1 TB Western Digital HD

Of course with such an old machine, I'm not going to sink much loot into it. Just wondering if there are some cheap & easy upgrades that I could do to it. I think I'm okay for RAM, I guess I just need to know how much better of a CPU I can squeeze into it without having to start buying new power supplies and stuff.


Thanks!
Shawn

P.S: I came across a site a while back describing how to get 32-bit Windows to use > 4 gigs RAM -

https://retrosystemsrevival.blogspot.com/2019/06/windows-vista7810-x86-128gb-ram-patch.html

Do you think this would be a help? I'm tempted to try it.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
shawnhalf said:
Hello Group... well, it may be a dead end, but I'm trying to squeeze some more useful life out of an old
HP Pavilion A6400F Desktop PC. I'm not a gamer, but I'd like to be able to max out this old system to do some trading system backtesting (nothing graphics-intensive, just computation-intensive). I can do some right now on it, but it's kind of slow. As it stands currently, here are the specs:

Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit (SP1)
Intel Pentium E2200 2.20Ghz
6 gigs dual-channel DDR2
ASUStek Benicia Motherboard (CPU 1)
"Bestec" 250W PSU
1 TB Western Digital HD

Of course with such an old machine, I'm not going to sink much loot into it. Just wondering if there are some cheap & easy upgrades that I could do to it. I think I'm okay for RAM, I guess I just need to know how much better of a CPU I can squeeze into it without having to start buying new power supplies and stuff.


Thanks!
Shawn

P.S: I came across a site a while back describing how to get 32-bit Windows to use > 4 gigs RAM -

https://retrosystemsrevival.blogspot.com/2019/06/windows-vista7810-x86-128gb-ram-patch.html

Do you think this would be a help? I'm tempted to try it.
Click to expand...
According to this link -- https://www.truenas.com/community/a...ations-ipibl-lb-benicia-hp®-support-pdf.3733/
You could replace the CPU with a quad core. A Q6600 is probably a cheap upgrade (<$10 on ebay). The Q9xxx CPU is probably more expensive ($15+ on ebay) .
I would also get 4 x 2GB DDR2 800Mhz DIMMs to max out the RAM. A 2.5in SATA SSD would also be a good upgrade.
You should get a 64bit OS rather than trying to work around the 32bit limitations. Will your trading software run on Linux ?
 
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Your most effective upgrade would be to replace your 1tb HDD with a ssd.
You will be amazed at how quick everything is.
The easy way is to buy a $75 1tb Samsung 970 EVO:
https://www.newegg.com/samsung-1tb-870-evo-series/p/N82E16820147793?Item=N82E16820147793
2tb is $150.
I suggest Samsung, not just for the quality, but for the ease of conversion.
Samsung has a nice ssd migration aid that will move your C drive to the new ssd.
App and instructions here:
semiconductor.samsung.com

Tool & Software Download | Samsung Semiconductor Global

Download various software related to your product, including Samsung Magician, designed for use with Samsung's memory products, and find related information.
semiconductor.samsung.com semiconductor.samsung.com

As to the patch, it depends on the app you are using.
Any 16 bit apps are still not going to work.
If your apps can use more than 4gb, then it might be better to simply upgrade windows to the 64 bit version and upgrade the ram.

A Q6600 upgrade would be worth the experiment.
4 threads vs.2 if nothing else.
The HP motherboard may have some limitations as to power capability and bios limits.
If you can tell what optional processors were initially available, they would likely work.
 
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Like others already mentioned,
1. Get a cheap quad core. Q66/6700 (Hotter and might need OC) or Q9xxx series. Q8xxx is mostly a waste of money. Look into xeons (E5450) if your PC supports it.
2. Get a sata SSD. Doesn't have to be anything fancy, even 120Gb will be a HUGE upgrade in usability


I have a core 2 duo E7400 pc with an easy overclock and running windows 10, and it's actually very usable for general needs. A quad would be even better especially on windows 7
 
Thanks for the input everybody! Let's go component by component:


CPU: well, in the little bit of research and digging I've done, it seems to say I could put in an Intel quad core Qxxxx, as high as a Q9650. But then it talked about how they get pretty hot under heavy use (backtesting uses almost 100% cpu for hours on end). So I guess if I went this route, I'd have to shell out for a more powerful cooling fan, wouldn't I? And the new cpu would likely draw more power so probably my dinky little 250 PSU wouldn't cut it. I'd like to be able to avoid having to buy extra stuff if I can. Would there be a CPU that would give me enough extra oomph that wouldn't need a cooling fan and/or PSU upgrade?


RAM: Yep, I could certainly max out the RAM at 8 gigs... that wouldn't be too costly for old-style RAM like that. I don't know how much of a factor that would play though, as once the chart data is loaded into the backtesting analysis program (probably about 100 megs max of data), there's really no more additional major I/O involved - just heavy duty number crunching.


SSD HD: Again, I don't know how much this would help having said above about the RAM situation. Once the chart data is read in (probably 100 megs in size), there's not much more I/O involved.


64-bit OS: I had *NO* idea I could upgrade this whole system to 64-bit! I thought the motherboard was only 32-bit and that was it! So I could just go ahead and install Windows 10 64-bit on this right now then? I am in shock, lol. That would likely make quite a difference as I'm certain the backtesting software could take advantage of the additional multithreading capabilities of 64 bit.


Thanks All !
Shawn
 
Any recommendation from anyone please with regards to the max CPU I could accommodate without needing to also upgrade power supply and CPU cooling fan? Sorry to nag!!

Thanks!
Shawn
 
Q6600 SLACR was a monster overclocker back in the day. I would specificially look for a SLACR stepping. The SL9UM stepping doesn't overclock as well.

Be careful. I just did a quick scan of ebay, and there are a few really cheap ones that look suspicious to me, though they may be fine. They are listed for $4.50 and free shipping, from China. The silkscreen on the heat spreader looks off to me. They look too light, and the size of the text seems too small, but my eyes are getting old, so I may be wrong. Most of the others listed look like they have larger text, and are printed darker. Remarked CPU's from China are less common than they used to be, but it does still happen.

For $4.50 and free shipping, I might buy one just to test the legitimacy. It's worth it, for science, so nobody else gets burned if they are fake.
 
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I'll be wary of that Joseph, thank you. So if I overclock a Q6600, would I need a better CPU cooling fan to handle that?

Thanks
Shawn
 
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