I have an Aleinware area 51 P4 2.2 that is about 1 1/2 years old. Anyone know if i can just switch out the CPU to a 3.0 or so or if I have to change the whole motherboard? If so, what would you suggest. Rest of the computer has been upgraded. Thanks.

Hi Brad,actually I'm not an Alienware user - but I think their systems are quite decent and they still should know what motherboard they used for for their Area 51 1 1/2 years ago. So maybe you should just ask them about that.It's absolutely essential to find out what kind of motherboard's in your system. Doesn't the BIOS give any hints towards the manufacturer? To get more technical: Does your board really support 400 MHz RAM modules? Can't believe that for a board that's 1 1/2 years old - 333 maybe, but not 400. Or did you mix that up with the CPU's FSB speed?Anyway, your board should support a 533 MHz FSB (133 MHz quadpumped) CPU (PIV "B" specification) at least to be able to run anything Pentium-like made by Intel that comes close to the magic 3 GHz. I don't know where the FSB 400 (100 MHz quadpumped) P IV-range currently ends - think it must be somewhere about 2.66G. And probably you'll need a BIOS upgrade so your mobo can detect the new CPU.However, I don't assume you'll be able to run the latest specification "C" PIVs with 800 MHz FSB (200 MHz quadpumped).CU Thomas :-wave