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okey dokey iv'e been having computer restart problems for a wile and have been through all the usual check for heat problems, board cracks and os replace / reinstals.
eventualy i replaced the board, in fact everything but the power suply a new seasonic 500watter and the processor.

whats my question well i need to replace the chip do i go for a p4 like the origional or a dual core, board supports it, which is half the price can someone shed some light on what the diference is.

If the motherboard supports it, I'd go for a dual core processor. But that's because I do lots of video, graphics and multimedia work. If you work your system HARD, then a dual core processor is a wise move. If the machine is used for office work and internet surfing, you probably won't see the advantage of it.

In simple terms, a dual core processor behaves like two discreet processors, and is capable of very intense number crunching. But you either need them or you don't.

Hope that helps,

Pete

great I'm doing georges book to dvd so its just what I'm after, i supose p4's are older technology and so are more expensive.?

I'd imagine that it's a matter of scale. The most abundent product will always be the cheapest. Always check compatibility with your motherboard before you buy theough (says he, stating the bleedin' obvious).

The best chip around at the minute ( apart from the quad core ) is the intel core duo (conroe), if your board supports it this is the chip to go for, but I would be very surprised if it was cheaper than a P4

p4 630 3 ghz 800fsb £122
pentium d 820 2.8ghz 800fsb £69

what with disco rig replacments and magic props to replace my budget for this year is as paul would say "not a lot"

The P4 has hyperthreading which improves the speed of the processor, whereas the Pentium D has two cores, but these are a lot slower than the P4s single core. The effect of this is that running single apps the P4 is a lot faster than the Dual core, but then when running multiple tasks......... you guessed it the dual core is faster. The question is how often do you run two power hungry apps, like video processing and gaming at the same time.

could be worth getting a celeron just for testing purposes since i already have a spare board, memory, case, drives all i need is another psu, to check its not that thats causing the problem and i'll have a complete system for surfing the web and book printing.

since changing the mb ive had a fairly consistant 4-5 hrs use regardless of load ie idle / video editing before a reboot.
could this be psu related? the temp reading varys from 38c to 51c under full load and voltages are within 5% of expected voltages monitored.

as always it reboots usualy when I'm out of the room.