I have a fairly old (5 years plus) computer, running originally with a CyrixX86 150/166Mhz CPU. I recently popped a Pentium MMX in its place, and got a slightly better performance, but still way too low for some apps like Media Player (I’m running dual Win98/Win2000 OS with 128Mb RAM).
Question - can a faster CPU …
a) work without upgrading BIOS
and
b) give any substantial benefits
Any suggestions about limitations, guidelines etc gladly received.
I would say that without a BIOS upgrade (assuming one exists for your motherboard) you are likely limited to 233 MHz. That is about as high as socket 7 motherboards go if you are sticking with Intel. You could go as high as 300 with an AMD processor assuming that your bus speed is limited to 66 MHz. You would likely need a BIOS upgrade in that case. Assuming that your board would support that.
IMHO I would not spend any more money or time on that machine.
What BadDog said. 5 years old, forget it.
Why not try picking up a 2 or 3 year old machine from the classifieds?
Hey hey hey …
The dude is talking about a media box.
Look the machine is old ok … that don;t make it usless. And old beast liek that you’ll be able to overclock to around 250 easy.
Secondly WTF you doing with win 2k on ?.. put 95 back on ASAP … yes the ram is good.
Clear off all other apps - keep the beast cold not usless software ( Icq/yahoo) ect and you should be able to run media player no dramas
trader has a point here.
The backup 233MX machine I used to have worked fine until I upgraded the OS to ME. (At which point I bought a new board + processor for the frontline machine, and relegated the 550 MHz P3 to backup duty, then turfed out the 233MX)
Do you need to dual boot? Can you get by with just 98SE? Or 95?
And run msconfig to get rid of parasitic junk as Trader suggested.
True, true, 95 will run a lot better on it than anything later. My dad runs 95 on his 32meg ram, 486 laptop. It screams, and will run most normal apps. IIRC the recommended requirements for 95 were 16 ram, 386.
Thanks for all that - I really don’t want to chuck the thing out, because I’d have to buy a whole lot more than just a motherboard and CPU (I’ve got some old IDE cards driving peripherals).
I’m going to go back to 95 as suggested, but I’m interested in what t_o_s said about overclocking. Not something I know anything about. Can anyone tell me what, why, how etc.?
OCing may be more trouble than it’s worth on a comp that old (newer motherboards are generally jumperless and very overclocking friendly. Older comps/mobos, not so much.
For details and how-tos, check out tweak3d.net, anandtech.com or overclockers.com for starters. Others will probably be along with links and better sites and whatnot.
With your old 6x86 chip overclocing was not easy but the p233 should be able to do 250 easy. To overclock check bios and see if ou could set the speed (sometimes called jumper emulation) or you maty have to set the jumpers on the motherboard to a higher speed.
Also look into getting an AMD k6 or even a k6/2 (or even k6/3) if your motherboard will support it. if you board can only support 300mhz you may be able to get a k2-2 or 3 and just run it at a lower speed then rated - A k6/2 (3) AT 300 shoul;d kick a P 233 MMX ass.
also I have seen PCI cards that replace your CPU with a 400-600 MHZ chip (on the PCI card). Typically these don’t run nearly as well as a real 400 chip but should still be a boost.
If media player is one of the programs that you are having trouble with a video card upgarde might do more good than a faster CPU. If you still think you need a faster CPU a motherboard/cpu combo or a whole new bare bones system will probabely be cheaper in the long run.