yorkspace.com

.. or so I thought. This article on Slashdot today prompted me to write about my recent processor purchase.

I can totally empathize with the opening paragraph of the above article where the author states “Gone are the days when processor names were something as simple as their clock speeds.” I’ve built my fair share of PCs from the ground-up for many years and have had a very high success rate.

However, this week I saw a smokin’ deal on a Celeron processor from Tiger Direct. I really wanted to upgrade the processor in my MythTV box to get better performance from my HD-3000 card.

With all my years of experience, of course I know that you can’t just plop any processor into any motherboard - you’ve got to check the specs.

• Socket 478 - check
• Celeron - check
• FSB 533MHz - check

Looked good enough for me to pull the trigger anyway. So, I learned the hard way that a Celeron D is NOT the same as a Celeron.

So, now that I can’t return the processor, I’m waiting for my new motherboard to arrive. What is also frustrating is that many of the motherboard specs on the vendor’s website don’t explicitly say Celeron D. In many cases you need to check the manufacturer’s website and download the manual for the board to find out for sure.

Hopefully as you get a chuckle out of my misfortune, you won’t make the same mistake. Have fun!

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 10th, 2005 at 8:52 pm and is filed under General, Electronics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.