Pentium II upgrade

[Guest]

Hi all, Newbie here; just getting into PC hardware. I read the "A new lease on life: Make your PC 5x faster" article with interest and am considering this for my system. I have a Pentium II 300MHz processor that runs a front side 66 MHz bus. I am wondering if I could replace this with a faster Pentium II, eg 400MHz or 450MHz, which I see are only available with a 100MHz bus. I have added RAM relatively recently, additional 256 MB on top of the 64 MB that came with the computer (I had a devil of a time finding 66MHz memory any more), and I would like to avoid having to replace the motherboard and memory when changing CPU's. Would the change to 450MHz CPU speed compared to 300MHz make any noticible difference? (Boy, the additional RAM sure did!) What about 400MHz? Can I put one of the faster CPU's with their 100MHz bus in with the rest of my bus at 66MHz? What about a Pentium III CPU at 100MHz (let alone 133 MHz) bus? I must admit I don't quite understand the implications of bus speed, as is probably evident from my question. Any insight would be welcome. Thanks in advance.

 

[Kelledin]

First of all, the change from 300 to 450 would require new memory and probably a new motherboard as well. I'm guessing your motherboard is running on a 440LX chipset, which is 66MHz max FSB. 440BX goes up to 100MHz FSB, and certain high-yield 440BX parts can go up to 133Mz max FSB, if you're willing to accept a few things running out of spec. i815 is specced for 133MHz FSB.

The highest you'll be able to go with a 66MHz FSB is 333 with a Pentium II, or 766 or 800MHz with an old Celeron. The old 66MHz Pentium II CPUs will be severely marked up these days, because of their extreme "legacy" status. A Celeron 733 (with a 66MHz FSB) would cost you about $40, plus $10 for a slocket converter. I'm not sure if your system will support that.

Crashman would probably be the one to talk to about such an upgrade.

Kelledin
<A HREF="http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/" target="_new">LFS</A>: "You don't eat or sleep or mow the lawn; you just hack your distro all day long."

 

[LoveGuRu]

you could use 100Mhz memory module, they will operate at 66Mhz yet still be able to work at 100.

<font color=green>
*******
*K.I.S.S*
*(k)eep (I)t (S)imple (S)tupid*
*******
</font color=green>