how best to upgrade this.

[FBG]

i have a socket 462 front side bus of 200/266mhz T'bid chipset motherboard. with an amd 1.2 ghz chip and a shitty 256Mb 168pin SDRAM of mem. Nearly everything is built on the motherboard, but i have dedicated geforce 2 and hurcules sound card which are fine for the moment.

Basically im under the impression that bus speeds are now in the range of 400+ mhz which would require a new motherboard, something im not looking to really upgrade at the moment. And that newer better memory types would require mobos with higher bus speeds. is SDRAM ok? is there much improvement with other types?

Also what amd cpu are there availeble? i figure for this upgrade i'll be looking at something like just a 2ghz chip.

basically i haven't upgraded a pc properly in 4 years, so im pretty much in the dark ages.

Not sure im bothered about overclocking, but its worth a thought.

[sheepy]

right, u dont want to upgrade the mobo, but, u want a 2gig processor??? good luck.

[TeaLeaf]

FBG - first of all go get your torch and write down the make and serial number of your motherboard.  Then look it up on the manufacturer's web to check what the fastest processor speed it will take is.  It will also tell you what settings the FSB can operate at - this is important as it will tell you which memory will go best with your mobo.  Whilst you are at it you may as well flash the bios to the latest version too.  Armed with the knowledge of your mobo's processor limit (and assuming that this is not too slow), go and get a faster CPU and some memory.  

I can offer you an XP2100+ CPU for £25 (I bought it from ?Slowhand about 2 months back for £40 but have nver used it - an overclocking project got in the way!)

Some memory (DDR PC2700 is probably about right, but we'll see when you have the mobo specs) should cost about £45 for 512MB.

I wouldn't worry too much about the sound side of things, but FatBob is selling an Audigy card if you want to spend some more dollars.

The above £85 will make a real BIG difference to the system.  If you want me to help you out jusdt PM the reference numbers from your motherboard and I'll do the research and let you know what it can and can't take by way of CPU and RAM.

Hope this helps.

TL.  

[FBG]

cheers, i'll get the screw driver out.

[Doorman]

Here's another one for you TL. Aopen AX4B Pro mb. P4 2.0a cpu. Two questions, 1. What's the biggest cpu I can put on my mb if I simply want to whack another cpu in? I've searched the Aopen website and cannot find a definative answer and 2. By how much can I overclock the cpu? The motherboard site says I can o/c in 1mb increments but I'm not certain what that means in practical terms.

[FBG]

humm, one reference i found suggested that my mother board is unknown. I couldn't see any reference on the mother board that suggested a serial number except this. EA=00d009fdc44d i dont know if the 00 are 00 or oo.

also my manual has this refence on one of its pages.

PC 266 systemboard
socket A m810 series
more specificly

m810series, v5.0
s73X/july 2001

its defeinatly lan ready as well. everything is built in, graphics, sound etc. i just have those disabled for my specific cards.

hope you get more of the internet than i did of google.


ps,
its the mobo is gold/brown color with 2 pci slots and a agp slot. Its also known as a ECS K7SEM mobo

[JB]

Just took a few seconds to find tbh.

http://www.ecsusa.com/products/k7sem.html

Looking at the  bios update, even version 1.0 of the pcb can take upto a 2200Mhz cou, there's also updates for version 3.0A or 3.0C.  So if you do update make sure you have the correct one.
Surely 2200Mhz processors would still use the 266 FSb that this board does?  Am i not right?

[FBG]

like i said,. its been many years since ive upgraded a pc. its me in the darkages, not the pc, though that mybe true as well.

[TeaLeaf]

Yep an XP 2200 will run a 266MHz FSB, so PC2100 is the fastest DDR RAM will run on that mobo.  However I would still get a single 512MB stick of PC2700 as it is cheaper than PC2100 these days  

There you go Flibber, we have you sorted in double quick time - let me know if you need that XP2100 for £25.......


TL.