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Abit BH6 processor upgrade performance, memory questions

I

indd

Senior member
My buddy has the following system:

Enlight 7237
Abit BH6 rev 1.0? (not sure which exact one) running the SS BIOS
some old 5400rpm 4 gig HD (pri)
Maxtor 7200rpm 40g HD (sla)
HP 8200 CDRW
Geforce2 MX 400 64MB *PCI*
Creative labs PCI
Trendnet PCI (ethernet)
Kingston ValueRAM 256MB PC133

.. all running Win2k.

The processor WAS a good ol' slot1 C300A running at 450@2.2V. Games that he plays are generally UT and MOHAA. UT gets around 50-60FPS at 16bit and 640x480 with eye candy turned off. Put in a Cel 566 (66x9.5) with an MSI 6905 slocket and it ran fine at 1.5V. Clocked it up to 850 (100x8.5) - 1.5 wouldn't get into windows - 1.55 wouldn't load up MOHAA and crashed UT - 1.65 seems to be running things pretty smoothly..

W2k loads up much faster.. it seems like UT is getting about the same framerates (hitting around the 50-60fps range).. it's on the 5400rpm drive, and I plan on installing it onto the 7200rpm drive instead, but that should only help load times I'm expecting.. MOHAA seems to run slightly better, but not noticeably (it's on the lowest settings as well). My question is should I be expecting a big difference in performance for these games? I know the PCI Geforce2 is a big obstacle here, but how much difference should this CPU upgrade make? He also plans on playing Ghost Recon, Jedi Outcast, Spiderman and Morrowind.

Also, the motherboard can only find 128Megs of the RAM for some reason. Before and after both BIOS flash and CPU upgrade.. can't test this as I don't have another system, but wondering if there's any way to tell if it's the MB or the memory..

Also, a bonus side question: with UT, I upped the res from 640x480 to 1024x768 at 16bit with both his computer and my Toshiba Satellite (P3 900Mhz with Geforce2Go 16MB) with almost NO drop in framerates.. does the Geforce2 chipset have some kind of scaling? It's been great!

thanks for any help..
indd
 
Take that 4 Gig drive out and run it over. I hope the OS is not on that thing. 256 meg Dimms do work on the BH6. Why not get a decent AGP video card for it?
 
When I upgraded from my C300A running at 504MHz to a C566 running at 850MHz(still using it now), my system managed a healthy speed increase. On Q3A, framerates rose quite a bit, in fact, it was almost proportional to the CPU speed increase, and this is with my AGP Voodoo3 3000 overclocked to 175MHz. I went from 640x480, most graphical settings off, running at 60+FPS to 800x600, middle of the road graphical settings, running at around 75FPS timedemos, so you can see that its a HUGE speed increase from just changing the CPU. With your GF2MX, you should be expecting bigger speedups.
 
MOHAA seems to run more smoothly now (we tested it with internet multiplayer and it performed noticeably better there). I'll have to do more FPS testing with UT though. Also, strangely UT sometimes locks up after you die for some reason..

Still though, not sure why the MB only sees half of the memory.. wonder if that may be causing some issues. W2k is installed on the 5400rpm drive, as the 40MB drive was added only recently. Looks like it may be time to reinstall..

He's sticking with the Geforce2MX until he can save up enough for a better card.. I'm thinking by September when he has the money that he should move up to a Radeon 8500 or GeForce4 Ti200, something around there..

Thanks for your replies..
indd
 
I have a 256 meg stick of Crucial that works fine in a BH6. Running Win2K on 128 Meg on that incredibly slow 4 Gig drive is not a good combo. I would work on getting those two things fixed first. That stick of ram sounds like a high density cheap type that is not compatible. You can get a GF2 GTS-V 32 meg AGP card for < $50, or even GF3 cards for ~ $100 these days.
 
I have a very broad question. I pretty new to the technicalities of hard ware. What is all involved in upgrading the procesor of a computer?
 
Nothing much pking. Basically, if the CPU is the same format(that is, same electrical and mechanical specifications), its a simple matter of taking out the CPU+HSF from the socket/slot on the motherboard and replacing it with a new CPU+HSF
 
What is a HSF? So basically I can go out and buy another processor and unplug the one I have and replace it? Nothing has to be done to the motherboard, etc.? Inside my PC i saw that the processor was basically held down by clips. I ahve done miniscule things like installing, Hard drives, CDR's, RAM, and very small stuff like that, but thats as far as my knowledge goes. And if you know by chance how much is a P4 1Ghz?
 
Looks like you're a real beginner here...its ok, daunting as it may seem, its actually quite simple. I'll go through it step by step
A HSF is short for a Heatsink/Fan. Basically its a piece of finned/pinned metal(usually Aluminum or Copper or a combination) that's attached to the CPU, together with a fan, to keep the hot CPU cool when running, so as to prevent overheating. Typically the HSF is attached to the CPU by means of clips, which is what you saw. Sometimes, more exotic attachment methods are used, but clips are by far the most common method.
There's no hard and fast rule how to remove the clip, since different HSF manufacturers employ different clip designs. However, normally it requires pressing down the clip on 1 end using a screwdrive, unhooking the clip from the plastic latch of your socket, then releasing the clip so that it unhooks from the latch and is released.

Once the HSF is off, what you have beneath is the naked CPU. It is seated in the CPU socket, and attached by means of a lever at the side. Release the lever, and the CPU is now ready to be taken out easily.

In order to perform a direct plug and play CPU upgrade, the new CPU will have to be compatible with your motherboard. Usually this means that it has to be of the same socket type(socket A for AMD Athlon/Duron processors, Socket 370 for Intel P3 and some Celeron CPUs, Socket 423 for Intel P4(Williamette), and Socket 478 for Intel P4(Williamette/Northwood). For P3s and Celerons, there are some further confusion, depending on what kind of P3 it is(Coppermine, Katmai, etc), what kind of Celeron it is(Mendocino, Coppermine-128, Williamette-128 as well as whether its normal PGA or FC-PGA).

However, you don't need to worry about so many things, just tell us what CPU you have and we'll be glad to do the rest of the thinking for you...

 
Ok that did clear up a lot of things. I think the processor is a P2 333Mhz, yeah I know 🙂. I will check up on that for sure and let you know. The HSF I have on mine is a black rectangular box. On one end it is solid and for about another 1.5-2 inches are all these plastic (I assume) plastic "rods" that stick out in blocks about 7-10 of these rods in a block. Is that the HSF? I will open up my PC again and take a further look into it. Am I on the right track?
 
That's probably correct, except its probably black anodized Aluminum rather than plastic since plastic is more a heat insulator than conductor/radiator 🙂

Besides telling us the CPU, it'd be helpful to know the motherboard too.
 
You don't know what motherboard you have? Do you still have the manual or receipt or anything that says the model? If not, try looking at the motherboard, there might be markings or logos or some sort of make/model indicator.
 
Here are the specs (100% sure):
Processor - 266 MHz Intel Pentium (R) II Processor with MMX Technology
Chipset - Intel 440LX AGPset

Does that give you an idea of what type of mother board it is?
 
Well, the motherboard chipset certainly helps a lot, but it would be nice to know the exact motherboard model as well. The Intel 440LX chipset, IIRC, was the first mainstream P2 chipset around back in 96/97. It was however quickly replaced by the 440BX chipset. The LX supported only P2's and early Celerons. Since it only supported a 66MHz Front Side Bus speed, the fastest P2 CPU would be a P2-333, and the fastest Celeron being the Celeron 333. Going from your P2-266 to a P2-333 would probably be a minor speed increase, but the end result would probably still be too slow, especially by today's standards. If you had a BX chipset things would look much better for you... since it supports so much more.
 
A sLocket is a slot 1 to socket 370 adapter. The PPGA Celeron 533 is a socket 370 CPU. You put the CPU into the slocket, then put the slocket into your slot 1 motherboard. This would be the fastest setup for an old LX board. I've done a couple such upgrades and they work well.
 
What does the slocket look like? Ogi - Regarding the processor, I was not able to take out the processor as you said. I took out the whole thing, comprising of those rods connected to that solid block. On the front side it says "Intel 233 MMX", is that the processor or is it the black square underneath that? If it is then I cannot detach it from the mother board, I think it is soldered onto the board.
 
OK, I was talking about a socket CPU when I was explaining about the HSF/CPU issue. Since you're using a Slot1 CPU, it doesn't apply to you. The CPU is already fixed onto the Slot1 Printed Circuit Board(PCB).

A Slotket looks like your P2 Slot1 CPU, except in place of the chip, you have a socket to plug in a Socket type CPU.
 
Originally posted by: indd
My buddy has the following system:
...
Kingston ValueRAM 256MB PC133
...
Also, the motherboard can only find 128Megs of the RAM for some reason. Before and after both BIOS flash and CPU upgrade.. can't test this as I don't have another system, but wondering if there's any way to tell if it's the MB or the memory..
Click to expand...

When I installed a larger heatsink on my BE6+slocket I had to move a DIMM from the first slot to the third. The bootup screen started to misidentify how much RAM was installed. Setting all the memory timings to more conservative values resulted in the correct amount being identified, most of the time.

Things you could try:

another stick of ram
changing memory timings
moving DIMMs to different banks.

Conventional wisdom holds that the memory banks closest to the CPU are the best/most stable.
 
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