- Joined
- Dec 28, 2001
Retired Sticky
If you look around, socket7/AT machines aren't hard to find. Most of them are equipped with Intel P133 to 233 CPU's. You can hardly donate a computer that slow anymore, most schools and such won't accept them. But many of these machines can be upgraded to 500 MHz, with the help of AMD K6-2's or even better, K6-2+'s.
While these aren't the worlds greatest CPU, using one in an old socket7 AT computer can make it a good machine for kids (I mean young kids), grandparents, or anyone who doesn't have a computer who just wants to do the basics. Not everyone needs a Ferrari, many people would be happy with a minivan.
This article at Tom's Hardware shows how to make the old Asus P55T2P4 run at 500 MHz using a K6-2+. Anandtech has a good article about the K6-2+here. I know Tom isn't too popular around here, but this article is from before they went downhill.
As they say in that article. the key to running these boards fast is the 6x multiplier built into all K6-2 CPU's from the 400 MHz on. When you set the clock multiplier at 2 on the board, the CPU reads it as 6. 6x66=400 And like the Asus board in that article, many old socket 7 boards (and many super 7 boards) have unofficial busspeeds that can only be found by experimenting with the jumpers/dip switches. So if your old board has a setting for 75 MHz 6x75=450, 83 MHz 6x83=500.
One thing that they didn't mention in the Tom's article was Jan Steunebrinks Unofficial K6-2+/K6-III+ Page . As a hobby, and out of the goodness of his heart, he has patched BIOS's for many older socket7 boards that take advantage of the enhancements of the plus series CPU, report the proper MHz of the CPU, and he has several that allow the board to use up to 128 Gigabyte hardrives!
I have my mom setup with an Asus P55T2P4 computer like in the Tom's article. Like all MMX capable socket 7 boards I have seen, it has working USB ports. I had to get a cable adapter for it, but her USB optical mouse works great. And it'll make for an easy connection when I finally talk her into getting a digital camera. We got a 40 Gig harddrive at Best Buy on sale, so I upgraded to the latest BIOS from Jan Steunebrink. It works great. True, the controller is only ATA33, but the newer drives are faster even on the slow controller, I suppose because of memory cache and other improvements. She'll never need the space, but I wanted her to have a good reliable drive, and 40 gig drives are where the bargains are these days. It runs Windows XP with no problems, and she is very happy with it.
Another advantage of these older machines is that they still have ISA slots. This is good because there are a lot of good ISA Modems and soundcards out there for cheap.
So next time you see an old AT P133 machine with a dead harddrive, check it out. You might be able to make a good basic machine for someone for the price of a K6-2+ (available at Tiger Direct for $35.00 for a 450 it'll run at least 500) and a used harddrive. And because it only has a P133 and a dead harddrive, you might be able to get it free! Not everyone knows that it can be upgraded to 500 MHz!
I've purposely left Super7 and K6-3 and K6-3+ CPU's out. The prices for good AT Super 7 boards are much too high, same with K6-3+ CPU's. Once you get to that kind of money, there is no excuse for not using a Socket A setup.
I left this out originally, this site has a good K6-2 compatibility list.
I regularly see questions about the K6-2+, so here is a quick cut and paste:
I found this link a while back. You may find it useful for upgrading an older system, they have patched BIOS that support larger drives on older motherboards, Socket 7 and Slot 1 both.
http://wims.host.sk/
I've noticed that Tiger Direct no longer stock the K6-2+. But Newegg has K6-2 500's for $16.00. Still a big boost over a P166 MMX.
I recently purchased a Toshiba laptop. The first thing I did was replace the K6-2 475 with a K6-2+ 450 I had. Luckily it recognized the CPU well enough to boot, but the BIOS calls it a K5.
The down side of this is that without proper CPU recognition, it doesn't enable Write Allocate. But I found a freeware application that does, and also enables you to use the Powernow feature to change the clock multiplier in Windows. K6 speed. It is a little way down the page. It is compatible with XP. It would also be a useful program for anyone trying to use K6-2+ with a motherboard without an available BIOS for the mobile processors. And for jumper free overclocking.
The multiplier changing utility worked well for me, but with the poor cooling of my laptop, running my 450 at 523 didn't last long. But enabling Write Allocate made a noticeable difference (a couple of points) in Performance Test. And it allowed me to play a Divx movie straight from the CDROM smoothly. It was a little jerky before.
No longer maintained, I'm outta here. Snubbed once too often. Might see you at AOA, where they don't have a caste system. Delete when hopelessly obsolete. Bye!
If you look around, socket7/AT machines aren't hard to find. Most of them are equipped with Intel P133 to 233 CPU's. You can hardly donate a computer that slow anymore, most schools and such won't accept them. But many of these machines can be upgraded to 500 MHz, with the help of AMD K6-2's or even better, K6-2+'s.
While these aren't the worlds greatest CPU, using one in an old socket7 AT computer can make it a good machine for kids (I mean young kids), grandparents, or anyone who doesn't have a computer who just wants to do the basics. Not everyone needs a Ferrari, many people would be happy with a minivan.
This article at Tom's Hardware shows how to make the old Asus P55T2P4 run at 500 MHz using a K6-2+. Anandtech has a good article about the K6-2+here. I know Tom isn't too popular around here, but this article is from before they went downhill.
As they say in that article. the key to running these boards fast is the 6x multiplier built into all K6-2 CPU's from the 400 MHz on. When you set the clock multiplier at 2 on the board, the CPU reads it as 6. 6x66=400 And like the Asus board in that article, many old socket 7 boards (and many super 7 boards) have unofficial busspeeds that can only be found by experimenting with the jumpers/dip switches. So if your old board has a setting for 75 MHz 6x75=450, 83 MHz 6x83=500.
One thing that they didn't mention in the Tom's article was Jan Steunebrinks Unofficial K6-2+/K6-III+ Page . As a hobby, and out of the goodness of his heart, he has patched BIOS's for many older socket7 boards that take advantage of the enhancements of the plus series CPU, report the proper MHz of the CPU, and he has several that allow the board to use up to 128 Gigabyte hardrives!
I have my mom setup with an Asus P55T2P4 computer like in the Tom's article. Like all MMX capable socket 7 boards I have seen, it has working USB ports. I had to get a cable adapter for it, but her USB optical mouse works great. And it'll make for an easy connection when I finally talk her into getting a digital camera. We got a 40 Gig harddrive at Best Buy on sale, so I upgraded to the latest BIOS from Jan Steunebrink. It works great. True, the controller is only ATA33, but the newer drives are faster even on the slow controller, I suppose because of memory cache and other improvements. She'll never need the space, but I wanted her to have a good reliable drive, and 40 gig drives are where the bargains are these days. It runs Windows XP with no problems, and she is very happy with it.
Another advantage of these older machines is that they still have ISA slots. This is good because there are a lot of good ISA Modems and soundcards out there for cheap.
So next time you see an old AT P133 machine with a dead harddrive, check it out. You might be able to make a good basic machine for someone for the price of a K6-2+ (available at Tiger Direct for $35.00 for a 450 it'll run at least 500) and a used harddrive. And because it only has a P133 and a dead harddrive, you might be able to get it free! Not everyone knows that it can be upgraded to 500 MHz!
I've purposely left Super7 and K6-3 and K6-3+ CPU's out. The prices for good AT Super 7 boards are much too high, same with K6-3+ CPU's. Once you get to that kind of money, there is no excuse for not using a Socket A setup.
I left this out originally, this site has a good K6-2 compatibility list.
I regularly see questions about the K6-2+, so here is a quick cut and paste:
Excellent K6-2+ article here: http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1406
I found this link a while back. You may find it useful for upgrading an older system, they have patched BIOS that support larger drives on older motherboards, Socket 7 and Slot 1 both.
http://wims.host.sk/
I've noticed that Tiger Direct no longer stock the K6-2+. But Newegg has K6-2 500's for $16.00. Still a big boost over a P166 MMX.
I recently purchased a Toshiba laptop. The first thing I did was replace the K6-2 475 with a K6-2+ 450 I had. Luckily it recognized the CPU well enough to boot, but the BIOS calls it a K5.
The down side of this is that without proper CPU recognition, it doesn't enable Write Allocate. But I found a freeware application that does, and also enables you to use the Powernow feature to change the clock multiplier in Windows. K6 speed. It is a little way down the page. It is compatible with XP. It would also be a useful program for anyone trying to use K6-2+ with a motherboard without an available BIOS for the mobile processors. And for jumper free overclocking.
The multiplier changing utility worked well for me, but with the poor cooling of my laptop, running my 450 at 523 didn't last long. But enabling Write Allocate made a noticeable difference (a couple of points) in Performance Test. And it allowed me to play a Divx movie straight from the CDROM smoothly. It was a little jerky before.
No longer maintained, I'm outta here. Snubbed once too often. Might see you at AOA, where they don't have a caste system. Delete when hopelessly obsolete. Bye!
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