PII --> PIII Upgrade?

[Koooler King]

Hello all ... I've been reading these forums for several months and as a "newbie" have found them very helpful in learning the basics. I can appreciate some recent threads about having the "right" hardware, mobo, etc. for overclocking, but am still curious what I might be able to do with my "plain vanilla" OEM cpu, trying to keep things cheap and simple just to get started.

Here's what I have:

Dell Dimension V350, Slot 1 350 Mhz PII, 100Mhz bus, Intel 440BX AGP chip set.

I haven't been able to get much detail from the Dell web site on the mobo particulars, so just wondering if someone might have experience with this ... so here are my newbie questions:

- is the clock multiplier variable or locked on this?

- if variable, where can I find jumper or software settings?

- can I install a Slot 1 PIII cpu or am I stuck with PII?


Thanks for any info and feedback

Koooler King

[cw823]

1. Yes, the multiplier is locked.

2. There are 3 settings for processor speed, none of which will help you, as the multiplier is locked. There are also no ways to increase your FSB. So the processor is @350 and always will be @ 350.

3. You're stuck with a PII. The highest it would support is a PII 400


You have no overclocking settings that I can see. You're just stuck with that 350.

[Racoon]

Open up the case & see if there is a model no. printed on mobo & then go to the website of the manufacturer of mobo & see if they have a bios update. Since it accepts a PII, i'm confident it'll accept a PIII katmai with a bios update. It may even accept a PIII Cumine.

[Koooler King]

Thanks for the info ... I had suspected the OEM Dell was not friendly to O/C, but I'll double check the mobo just in case there is an outside chance. Well, I guess I now have the O/C bug:-)

Koooler King

[soil]

also check the dell model number against powerleap site and see whether you can get an adaptor slotket/tualatin combo from powerleap, if your are lucky you can spend ~160 bucks to run a 1.2G Tualeron, IIRC:D

the multiplier lock in the Bios is irrelevant as it's always over-ride by the CPU's multiplier but the concern is whether your MB is prepared to run>1G, even if powerleap found it compatible

your ram should be no problem at pc-100, if the warranty has expired maybe you can get some more RAM

also you can get a coppermine slotket and run a FSB100 CuMine, up 1.1G at 100 mhz FSB

[Koooler King]

Originally posted by soil
the multiplier lock in the Bios is irrelevant as it's always over-ride by the CPU's multiplier but the concern is whether your MB is prepared to run>1G, even if powerleap found it compatible

hmmm ... now I'm a bit confused ... another newbie question ...

Rather than O/C the 350 MHz PII I now have, if the CPU overrides the BIOS, would simply plugging in another Slot 1 cpu, e.g. 450 MHz PII then run at 450Mhz with no other changes? What about a PIII? I don't need 1 GHz, just something more liveable ... just wondering as I am seeing PII and some lower end PIII processors going reasonably cheap on eBay. Thanks.

Koooler King

[soil]

Originally posted by Koooler King


hmmm ... now I'm a bit confused ... another newbie question ...

Rather than O/C the 350 MHz PII I now have, if the CPU overrides the BIOS, would simply plugging in another Slot 1 cpu, e.g. 450 MHz PII then run at 450Mhz with no other changes? What about a PIII? I don't need 1 GHz, just something more liveable ... just wondering as I am seeing PII and some lower end PIII processors going reasonably cheap on eBay. Thanks.

Koooler King

Yes you can just plug in another PII 450 mhz slot 1 if their voltage requirement are the same, you can find it by checking Intel's site. Check by S-SPEC (eg, SLY45) rather than by CPU clock. Find the working voltage of your current CPU by by checking the Bios or program like Sisoft Sandra: mainboard information. You need to check the CPU circuit board to see any serial number printed and the S-SPEC is likely buried within.

Try to find whether your Bios or any MB jumpers allow change of CPU working voltage.

For slot 1 PIII you also need to check the voltage similarly. Slotket is desirable as it has built-in manual voltage selector.

Your chipset BX440 has no problem supporting the above CPU. A bloke here is using BX440 to run a PIII at 1.4G BX440 is a legend by itself

but 450mhz is not so much different from 350mhz, it's worth o/c to achieve but no worth buying a new cpu to achieve

[DSTA]

As soil suggested, it's best to get a Slotket, IMO.

I think there's a good chance of getting something like a Celeron 800/Slotket running. If the mobo's VRM doesn't deliver sub 1.8V, you can dial in 1.8V on the slotket. The Celeron won't mind the small overvoltage.

BIOS will be a problem cause it's not going to have the right microcode update as it is. Best would be to find out what kind of board they used.

[Trainwreck]

Where in upstate I have a PIII 650 in my sys I could bring over and we could try it out. it would be eaiser if you open up the case and try to find any numbers that we could use to id the mobo or give us the bios string from start up it can be done that way .
http://www.roberthancock.com/dell/index.htm
try this

[Koooler King]

Hello all, thanks for the replies to my post. Things are thawing out a bit here ... I'm about a 1/2 hour North of snowy Buffalo, NY:-)

The various slot adapters sound very interesting, but previous experience tells me to take things slowly, one step at a time. I was very surprised when the cheap 450MHz PII Slot 1 card plugged in and ran 30% faster than the 350 that was in there before with no changes to anything!. I realize that is not much compared to the 1GHz+ systems out there, but it was cheap and a good % upgrade for the $ (maybe $10, net) ... "210" vs. "145" per Norton's CPU benchmark utility. The reason I am surprised is that I assumed I had to change a jumper setting somewhere to get the faster speed of the cpu.

To clarify, I have a confession to make, I am a long time upgrader / tweaker of the Apple-Mac variety. Recently, due to job change, I have had to get a quick education on the other side of the aisle. I have found the technical aspects of the Win-PC side both confounding and interesting. So, as a "newbie", I thought the CPU multiplier settings resided in the BIOS or motherboard, but since I can plug in any slot 1 CPU and get the faster speed, I guess the multiplier either resides on the CPU card or is auto-sensing somehow ... is my assumption accurate? I realize the motherboard frequency can be clocked as well, but since my PC100 memory and other cards are working well, I don’t want to mess with that. From a practical standpoint, how far can I take my system with only cpu card changes using a plug-in slot (1) CPU, PII or PIII ? Is there a techinical link on changing the Intel cpu card mulitpliers ... the Intel developer website obviously avoids that issue?

Thanks for all your input ... I find this forum and the info exchange invaluable!!

Best regards,

Koooler King

[Sir-Epix]

Originally posted by cw823
1. Yes, the multiplier is locked.

2. There are 3 settings for processor speed, none of which will help you, as the multiplier is locked. There are also no ways to increase your FSB. So the processor is @350 and always will be @ 350.

3. You're stuck with a PII. The highest it would support is a PII 400


You have no overclocking settings that I can see. You're just stuck with that 350.

Wrong it will take the P3 Katmai core, because it has the same voltage. Katmai's go up to 600MHz and have the large L2 cache. They are expensive to buy on ebay though.

[muddocktor]

Before giving up on your Dell mobo, check and see if there is a bios update that will update for P3 procs on Dell's website. The board is probably a Dell-modified version of an Intel board and the bios could possibly be flashed to support P3's. The board already supports a 100 fsb as the P2 350 is a 100 fsb proc. You still wouldn't have an option to overclock, but it would make for a nice speed upgrade anyways. If the board can't supply the proper power requirements for a P3 coppermine proc, you can probably go with the powerleap converter mentioned in previous posts. If it does support the P3 power requirements, you still might be able to overclock the proc with an Abit slotket 3 adapter with a cD0 stepping P3 1000E or cD0 stepping Celeron. The Abit slotket has a jumper to select between 66/100/133 fsb speeds and also has settings for the vcore voltage. With proper cooling, a cD0 1000E has a decent chance of running 1330/133 fsb on this slotket. I don't know about other slotkets as the only one I have experience with is my Abit slotket, but others might also have the fsb speed jumpers too. Hope this helps you out.

[Colin]

The PIII 650 won't work, it has a lower Vcore. The fastest PIII that has the 2.0 Vcore the PIIs use is the PIII 550. I would also suggest you check Power Leap's Web Site (http://www.powerleap.com) to see if their adapter will work in your box. You can buy the bare adapter for $69 and put in the CPU of your choice.

Also some of the OEM style BX motherboards have the option of CPU select via BIOS or jumpers to allow for faster CPUs than the board was originally set up for.

[Sir-Epix]

Originally posted by Colin
The PIII 650 won't work, it has a lower Vcore. The fastest PIII that has the 2.0 Vcore the PIIs use is the PIII 550. I would also suggest you check Power Leap's Web Site (http://www.powerleap.com) to see if their adapter will work in your box. You can buy the bare adapter for $69 and put in the CPU of your choice.

Also some of the OEM style BX motherboards have the option of CPU select via BIOS or jumpers to allow for faster CPUs than the board was originally set up for.

Again the Katmai P III's go up to 600MHz. Not 550. He should be able just to drop a Katmai in there and it should work, seeing how it runs on a 100MHz FSB.

[Trainwreck]

the katmai p III should work but you should check your voltage reg to see if will support a lower voltage as for the coppermines because the katmais demand more from the mobo in amps than the same speed coppermine causing more need for watt disapation check out this http://www.roberthancock.com/dell/xpsrproc.htm and the previous post links scroll down to the bottom of this link here to the chart to see what I mean this applies to all intel cpu motherboards

[Trainwreck]

Don't bother with the power leap it would be throwing away good money better spent elseware like a mobo cpu bundle as for a bios update that is a good idea I think the newest is AO8 hafta check though with the update your mobo should auto detect the copper III's

[Colin]

Originally posted by Sir-Epix


Again the Katmai P III's go up to 600MHz. Not 550. He should be able just to drop a Katmai in there and it should work, seeing how it runs on a 100MHz FSB.

The 600s require a 2.05 Vcore. If the motherboard supports this fine, but they are also quite pricy. FWIW, on of the local computer shops buys used equipement. The sell used 550s for under $50.

[muddocktor]

You might want to give Dell a call and talk to someone about what the last bios update does. I looked it up on Dell's website and the came out with a bios update in late 1999, which is when the coppermine P3's came out, if I remember right. They could positively tell you if that board will support a coppermine P3. I've had real good experiences talking to Dell's tech support with my laptops that I've bought from them.