Replacing a motherboard and proccessor

[aceandrew]

Hi!
What would be involved in replacing a motherboard and proccessor on a Dell Optiplex GX1 computer? If possible I would like a proccessor that already attached to the motherboard.. i've heard it takes soddering and thats not my favorite thing, is there such a thing? And if there is were could I get one?
Also, would I need to replace my fan?
Thanks!

[Freakazoid]

Hello aceandrew. I would contact dell and see if you can purchase a board from them that is compatible with the case and power supply you have at this time. The reason i suggest this is that Dell is proprietry which means they get there parts made for them to fit there design and not just any Board can be put into that case. This is most often true because the the power LED and reset switch, Hard Drive LED are usually all one block connector made to fit there boards. If you would like a new experience you could build your own system starting from the ground up, possibly you could use some of your components from your existing system such as video card, Cd-rom, floppy, Hard drive and so forth. I don't think they solder the processors to the board anymore. I could be wrong on this if so I hope someone else will come along and correct me. I hope this helped some.

[BlIsTeRpAcK]

I think you are right about the soldering not being an issue anymore, as far as my limited knowledge expands I'm pretty sure that they use some sort of small clip\clips or locking mechanism to fit the processor in-at least for AMD\Intel. Fiddling about or changing the processor can still be awkward for a novice-and potentially very expensive if you screw up!-So if you are replacing the MB and processor for the first time then I think it would be worth consulting a knowlegeable friend or even paying a professional.
I really doubt that they make processors attached to the MB, but even if you have to pay a professional to fit the two seperate parts, in the long run it may be cheaper because one day you may fancy just upgrading the processor or just the MB and if they two are attached then its gonna cost you alot more mollah!
About the fan it depends what type of jump in processor power you are planning to make, if you are upgrading from an old 300 MhZ processor to a 3.06Ghz behemoth then yes! or even if you are changing from an intel to an AMD then yes, because AMD's run hotter.

[aceandrew]

It's a P3 550 mhz processor, hopefully being replaced with a P4 in the 1.6-2.4 ghz range.

[BlIsTeRpAcK]

A new, more powerful shall be required then!