Upgrading PII333 to PIII800

[Guest]

Hello all,

I didn't know I can simply swap a PIII800 CPU to replace my PII333 system without replacing the motherboard, until I read the artice on the tomshardware main page today.

So I wonder whether it is do-able on all PII 66 first generation motherboad? I am not too knowledgable on chipset and such so I need some help and confirmation before rush to buy a new CPU and the adaptor.

I bought a Dell 233MHz system back in 1997, upgraded to 333 18 months ago and now would like to do another round of cheap upgrade. So how can I sure the motorboard that I have can put a PII800 with adaptor and run stable?

Thanks!

 

[scamtrOn]

ooooh. if the 66 on your opening post is your fsb i don't think you can. p3 uses 100/133 fsb. i'm not into intel that much anymore so see if any one egrees with me.

<font color=red><b><i>you</i> keep talking and i'll pretend i'm listening.</b></font color=red>

 

[Guest]

What's the chipset of your mobo?

bx or others

 

[girish]

Well, if your board is as old as 97 model, then it might support just 66 MHz FSB. Processor these days use 133 MHz [and 800 one comes in two flavours, a 100 MHz FSB (100x8) and a 133 MHz (133x6) ones]. The multiplier is locked by intel so whatever the FSB it gets multiplied by this multiplier. Plus, PII worked at pretty high voltage and today's processors work at lower voltages than that. You board may not support these lower voltage and your processor will have to work at higher voltage leading to reduction in its life, instability or permenant damage. Then you might not get a proper BIOS update to make your board identify the CPU!

If you get a PIII 800 MHz with 100 MHz FSB, you can run it at 8x66.6 = 533 MHz, that is if your board takes it.

Best bet is to get a Celeron 800 MHz plus a new board. That will be much faster than a PIII FSB of 66MHz!

girish

<font color=red>No system is fool-proof. Fools are Ingenious!</font color=red>

 

[girish]

you will need a good slotket adapter to put in the PIII 800 socket CPU (800 MHz slot1 is rare and costly) so there should be no problem with the voltage.

Even the BIOS wont be a problem because it will detect it as a PII and still work. The biggest problem is the FSB, even 100 MHz wont be supported. And a branded system doesnt have overclocking facilities onboard!

<font color=red>No system is fool-proof. Fools are Ingenious!</font color=red>

 

[Guest]

The first generation boards all ran 66mhz, this limits you to PII's or celerons.

If your multiplier goes quite high then a older model celeron is probably your best bet as these have been until recently restricted to a 66mhz bus and so should be compatible with your board, and you should be able to pick one up dirt cheap, you'll have to check when it was the celeron switched to 100mhz bus yourself though as I don't know offhand and the 100mhz bus models won't be compatible with your board. I got a feeling you should be able to go up to about 733 or someting like that though and that should give you quite a nice performance boost

you might have a problem getting a decent graphics card onto that board though but whether this is a factor or not for you I'm not sure.


Your nice new PC might be faster then my 286, but my 286 makes a better door stop

 

[Crashman]

YOu probably have an LX chipset, which would limmit you to a Celeron 766.

What's the frequency, Kenneth?