I have a inspiron 546 with a sempron chip...I have a spare phenom X3 8400 laying around can i upgrade it..Given the fact that both are AMD chips.?? Is it possible or not....

Press the Windows key and the letter "p" at the same time, and select duplicate

you cannot use m4a78t-e to amd phenom x4 9650 because it does not support am2+ socket, it only support am3,phenom II,sempron 100, and athlon II processor.

One for an AM2 AM2+ chip. Given the spec of this board and chip I'd advise you don't buy a cheap one

According to the manufacturer's web-site:

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=2695#ov

the motherboard supports it, and supports quad-core CPUs.

well if i was you i wqould go with the 64 bit athon 2800 think the 2800 is about 2.6 ghz its best for price if this answer helps please rate it

please purchase the processor that is compatible to your motherboard. if the motherboard can be upgrade to a higher speed of processor then purchase it. if not, stick to the required specs. if you still want to upgrade, replace the motherboard, processor and the memory.

Did you check the AMD site for compatibility? If they are, you could have a bad chip, it could have been mishandled or inserted incorrectly. Visual inspection first for burns, contaminated or bent conductors. Static discharge will kill cpus.

That chip should be a Socket AM2 interface, so these mothorboards will be fine, it all depends on how much you want to spend.

Foxconn M61PMV

PC chips A15G

Biostar K8M800MAM2

ABIT NF-M2PV

MSI K9N6PGM2-V

Have a look or ask at your prefered site or shop for Socket AM2 and you will have a much better choice.

Mike

You are using a very old socket/CPU I very much doubt you will find a retailer that sells new kits or whatever your looking for (kinda hard to decipher your question) As for shielding, shielding for what? wires?
Also you really wont have any performance gain upgrading to a 3200 over a 3100+

I'd recommend upgrading your board totally to a 939 or higher like a AMD AM2 platform. Then you can browse dozens of OCZ kits and have many dual and quad processors to choose from.

The AMD Phenom x4 is actually cheaper with 4 cpu cores compaired to Core 2 duo which has 2 cpu cores, you will get a better deal for less money on a AMD x4.

Heres a chart you can look at
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/desktop-cpu-charts-q3-2008/3DMark-Vantage-CPU,817.html

I just got myself the AMD Phenom 9650 for 150usd
The core 2 duo e6600, which I would recommend from the core duo series costs around 200 usd.

Note that the Duo only has 2 cpu cores. You get double the power on a phenom 4x with 4 cpu cores
So the phenom is definitely the best choise! (double the power for 50usd less)

Anything else?