# Motherboard/CPU compatibility



## Industrial_One (May 7, 2010)

Hey, I wanna upgrade my current piece of reeking garbage ACER desktop (Pentium D) and replace it with the latest and fastest CPU that my F672CR motherboard supports.

Can anyone give me a list of CPUs that would work on this motherboard? Acer's tech support line has been useless and they could only categorize working CPUs by system model number and not motherboard serial number. A Pentium Dual-core E5400 was one of the fastest cpus that were on that list, so I went to a tech shop to get that CPU installed, but it wasn't compatible.

If Acer can't give me proper specifications of their ****ty proprietary equipment then what's a guy to do?

Thanks in advance.


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

OEM Mobo's are made for the manufacturer. They do not commonly support the same CPU's as retail models. The PC manufacturer is generally the best source for accurate info. 
Do you know the Brand Name & Model Number of the Mobo?


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## Industrial_One (May 7, 2010)

Acer F672CR.


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

That's the Acer Model Number. Download and run CPU-Z-that "might" give you the manufacturer of the Mobo. CPU-Z: http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php


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## Industrial_One (May 7, 2010)

Acer is the manufacturer of this mobo.


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

I can't read those numbers. Everything is black.


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## Industrial_One (May 7, 2010)

Yeah well white blinds me, I have my browser and desktop set to black background and white text. You SHOULD be able to read the numbers though, as they are in blue.


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

The numbers are too dark. Post the Manufacturer-Model-Chipset info that CPU-Z reports.


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## Industrial_One (May 7, 2010)

Manufacturer: Acer
Model: F672CR R01-A3
Chipset; SiS 671/FX/DX/MX rev. 00


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

Per usual with OEM PC's there is no information, that I can find, on CPU compatibility.


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## Industrial_One (May 7, 2010)

So basically I'm ****** then?


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

The SIS 671 will only run the early C2D's like the E6300 1.85Gig @ 1066 FSB and the E2xxx, E4xxx series D/Core @ 800 FSB all are now out of production but available used on Ebay, but as with any OEM PC it's going to be an experiment to see if the Acer limited Bios will support them. 

To see a improvement worth doing it'll take a newer motherboard and faster ram.


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## Industrial_One (May 7, 2010)

> The SIS 671 will only run the early C2D's like the E6300 1.85Gig @ 1066 FSB


Wait, I thought my mobo was limited to 800 MHz FSB, or only for Pentium Dual-core?

Installing a new motherboard won't be cost effective. The reason I am only upgrading the CPU is to replace this piece of **** that literally acted as my personal heater during the winter, and now with the air-conditioner running and this Pentium D producing even more heat, I am wasting way more electricity than necessary.

A new CPU will already cost $100 and spending any more for just an upgrade is pointless, cuz at that point I may as well buy a completely new system.


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

Your motherboard may be limited by the Bios to that, but the SIS 671 chipset was capable of the the early C2D E6x00 CPU's not to be confused with the current dual core E6x00's 
You can not rely on the bus speed to know if the CPU will work Intel CPU's need specific Bios instructions for each different series, OEM Bios are written for the specific CPU's the OEM wanted to use on the board in their models, hence the experiment endeavor.


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## Industrial_One (May 7, 2010)

Can't I flash the BIOS? Oh and, how much would a motherboard that could support the latest C2Ds or C2Qs cost? Would the upgrade be worth it? From what you're telling me, it looks to me the maximum CPU my mobo supports is only about twice as faster than the Pentium D, which I'm not blowing any of my cash on.


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

You can only update the Bios to whatever Acer has to offer, from experience OEM's very rarely do Bios updates to add CPU support, That's the advantage of a retail board where the board manufacturer has an interest in making it accept the newest CPU's the chipset will support, Asus and Gigabyte even have support for some 1066 CPUs to run at 800 FSB on older boards and 1333 CPUs to run at 1066 on 1066 boards.

A motherboard to run newer C2D/Qs will run you $70-$140 depending on what you want features you want on it, another issue is retail boards and OEM cases are problematic for even experienced builders at times, I'm not familiar enough with your model to know if it uses standard front panel (individual wire plugs) wiring(power switch, light, HD light, Audio & USB ports on the front) or a odd single plug like a Dell some HP & Gateways.

And then of course there's Windows which is tied to the OEM motherboard if you upgrade the board the OEM version of windows will not be valid and flunk activation.

Often it's best to build new, that way you can up grade using standard retail components over a long time.

What is your primary use of the PC?

Also note that Pentium D's and Pentium Dual cores are completely different CPU's the Pentium D is 2 Pentium 4 chips on the same CPU where the Dual Cores are based off the C2D chip with less cache ram and a slower FSB speed and a few less features.


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## Industrial_One (May 7, 2010)

My PC











> What is your primary use of the PC?


MSN, gaming, video encoding. I do a lot of multitasking and the Pentium D doesn't suck TOO much in that department to say the least, but I would be happy even with 3x faster video encoding. The Pentium D is a huge improvement over my last, extremely s** Pentium 4 and now I can get the same FPS at maximum settings as I did on nominal settings on the P4, but now HD material throws the speed down the s**8 and it again takes up to 24 hours to encode.

I guess I'm stuck with it unless a significantly faster system becomes available for as cheap as $450 (the amount I paid for the Pentium D box.) I'm a frugal technological consumer, a big fan of efficiency. I watch as idiots spend fortunes on new hardware to run obese bloatware and the new sh** power-hungry PC game that takes a Cray to run and has virtually no content or entertainment value. So I wait as kickass hardware gets cheap, and I breathe in relief at the awesome lagless performance I get to enjoy on my properly configured system while the retards (with their high-end hardware) writhe in pain from the slowdown their 500 installed apps are causing.

I'm a late adopter of tech, I guess theres a name for something like this on overclocker forums.

So umm, yeah, I guess this box isn't upgradable. Thanks anyway for the help.


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

Depending on the Video card you need, $500 to $600 will get you into a AMD Quad set up on a reasonably decent motherboard.

Something like this and reusing your existing drives.
Link	Disc	List	Rebate	Cost After Mir
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131619 M4A78LT-M LE	$64.99 $64.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103675 PII x4 945	$150.99 $150.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...Deals-_-na-_-na&AID=10521304&PID=3342876&SID= OCZ 4 Gig DDR3	$109.99 $109.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102829 HD4650	$59.99	$10.00	$49.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005&Tpk=650tx 650TX	$89.99	$20.00	$69.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129084 Antec 200 Case	$49.99	$12.00	$37.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...Deals-_-na-_-na&AID=10521304&PID=3342876&SID= Win7	$99.99 $99.99








$625.93	$42.00	$583.93


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## Industrial_One (May 7, 2010)

I already have an NVIDIA 9500 GT, a hard drive and 4 gigs DDR2 RAM. I don't really wanna buy a new power supply as the one I got is more than enough to run most Core chips. Plus, AMD CPUs are noisy and power-hungry, I avoid them like the plague.

But the bottom line is that I'm unemployed so I couldn't really afford to spend that much for a new system anyway, that is why I wanted to only upgrade the CPU, but thanks anyway.


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## Dblanchard1278 (Jun 18, 2009)

A new power supply is stronly recomended, if you use an oem psu from that acer in a new build you are taking a big risk. What is the brand and wattage of the psu you have right now? I have an AMD desk top and I hardly know it's on and it runs cool for the case I have it in. But Iv'e been a fan of amd for eleven years now since I built my first system with a k6 300mhz cpu. Infact I built an athalonIIx2 240 system for my brother a few months back an it runs cool and hardly even know it's on.


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## Industrial_One (May 7, 2010)

I have a 400W PSU. The Acer PC came with a weak, useless 250W PSU so I replaced it with this one to support the 9500 GT a couple years ago.


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