PII 233@???? can someone help

[zeisel]

okay heres the specs, FIC va-503+ mobo with socket 7 intel pentium 233. is it safe to change the fsb to 75? it runs stable at 266 but want more, i am running a large heatsink and fan. is it better to change multiplyer and leave fsb at 66 or is it better to change fsb and have smaller multiplyer, thanks

[kunsunoke]

zeisel (Jan 15, 2001 03:55 p.m.):
okay heres the specs, FIC va-503+ mobo with socket 7 intel pentium 233. is it safe to change the fsb to 75? it runs stable at 266 but want more, i am running a large heatsink and fan. is it better to change multiplyer and leave fsb at 66 or is it better to change fsb and have smaller multiplyer, thanks

I think the most you will be able to get out of this CPU would be 300 MHz at 100 FSB (3.0x multi), which your mobo should be able to handle easily. Not sure how the CPU would hold up, though.

Recommend you ditch your P233 MMX in favor of an AMD mobile K6-2+ or K6-III+. These are made in 0.18 process (vs. .35 for the P233MMX), so they run cool. To boot, they have L2 caches of 128K and 256K, respectively, which run at full CPU speed. This is a heckofulot better than the on-board method for your current CPU. If you want to move your PC away from 'obsolete', this upgrade will do it.

You can pick the K6-III+ up for 60 bucks at the following site:

http://www.connectcomp.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=cc&Category_Code=CPU

The lower speed grades (450 MHz) are rumored to overclock pretty well. Some may be hitting 600 MHz at 6.0X multi. Your FIC VA503+ board is compatible with the new CPUs, by the way; however, you may need the latest BIOS flash. Check out Tom's Hardware Guide (www7.tomshardware.com) for more details.

Good luck

[cozyfannytooty]

Hey, go to the First International Computer web site and there they have the manuals that show the settings for all speeds. I don't know if that helps but if you haven't seen these you should. I've got a FIC 503+ mobo too, a 1.1 B I think, the version of this mobo is on a sticker near the last (or first) ISA slot - that will have everything to do with what you can and can't do with this mobo. I believe you can operate up to a 500Mhz k62 on some versions of the 503+. Hope that helps. Cozy

[batboy]

I had a P-II 233 running at 75 MHz for over a year, no problem. I could even run it at 83, but it got real hot in a hurry. So, I didn't bother running it that fast.

Not all those P-II 233 have changeable clock multipliers, just the earlier ones. Mine was clock locked. Use a good cooler, it'll take 75 ok.

Generally speaking, you'll get better performance from a fast bus speed and lower multiplier. If you can get that chip to run at 3X100, that would be ideal, but not a lot of them would do that. However, 3.5X75 is almost a sure thing.

[zeisel]

thanks everyone who dropped a line on my subject. the computer was a desktop this morning but i swapped everything out into a tower i had laying around so i will be able to get to things a little easier. its a fun little project