Upgrade 440BX PII 350 > PIII 1ghz ??

[dbota]

Our office has 20 W2k PC's with Supermicro 440BX P6SBA rev. 2.00 motherboards (02/99) that currently have slot 1 PII 350 chips. It says in the literature that they can be upgraded to 1 ghz. but somewhere else it says only PIII 600 Mhz. There are some notes that the upgrade must be 100 Mhz. FSB chip and not a 133 FSB and also some notes that I did not understand about the significance of a .18 process voltage level.

Can I do it? ... where would I find the upgrade CPU's and how expensive might they be? We don't have enough money or labor to replace/reload/resetup with entirely new computers.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by dbota on 11/16/02 01:36 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Crashman]

To find out if your board supports Coppermine CPU's, go to <A HREF="http://www.supermicro.com/TECHSUPPORT/FAQs/Processor.htm" target="_new">http://www.supermicro.com/TECHSUPPORT/FAQs/Processor.htm</A> and follow the instructions at the bottom of that page to identify your Voltage Control Module (VRM). You probably have a new enough board, but check there to be certain, there's a link on the page that shows you what chip to look at for the numbers on the list.

You can get a PIII 1000E Slot 1 processor from Compgeeks, new in box with retail heatsink/fan, for around $100. This is a rare processor, I'd get one while you can at that price!

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>

 

[Crashman]

Make that 20 of them!

If you bought all your systems at the same time they most likely all have the same board revision, so you'll probably only need to check one.

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>

 

[dbota]

Crashman, thanks for replying. The page you referred me to however was exactly the page of "notes" that I already looked at and did not understand. What exactly do I have to look for on the MB to tell if mine will upgrade?

 

[Crashman]

You have to look for some numbers on a chip. The page shows that part numbers HIP6004BCB or HIP6004CB will support the faster processor, but part number HIP6004ACB won't. It even gives you a link to <A HREF="http://www.supermicro.com/images/Imag_Web/HIP6004_SP.JPG" target="_new">THIS IMAGE</A> which shows exactly what chip you need to look at, which is located directly behind the serial/parallel ports.

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>