Have an old Pentium II computer here I want to upgrade...anything I need to know?

[KingNothing]

It's a Gateway PII-233 with 128MB of RAM. Serial number is 0009310486 if anyone cares to see the complete configuration details on Gateway's support website.

I'd like to buy a faster processor to put on the motherboard, maybe some additional RAM, although 128 is probably enough. I have a spare Maxtor 20GB 5400RPM drive I can stick in here too. My questions:

1) Will the motherboard be able to make full use of the 20GB drive, speedwise?
2) Is there anything I need to know about buying a PII processor? Anything that won't be compatible, any models to beware of, etc. What speed did the PII series top out at anyway?
3) What OS should I put on it? I was thinking Win98, but since Microsoft is no longer supporting that I wonder if I should. Would WinXP be good, if I bumped the RAM to 256 and installed a faster processor?

Thanks!

Edit: Based on some reading on Gateway's site and EBay, it looks like PII-450 processors are the fastest you can buy, but they have a 100MHz FSB and I think this computer has a 66MHz FSB. Is a PII-450 not going to work, then?

 

[Twsmit]

you are correct. The 66mhz P2's are different from the 100mhz. The top 66mhz P2 was the 300mhz (possibly a 333, but i think 300 was top). I didnt check the gateway site, but you might be able to use a 66mhz Celeron in the motherboard, but thats if the motherboard will support it.

The hard drive will work fine, but probably in ATA33 mode.

If u upgrade just get some PC100 or PC133, preferably used or as cheap as you can get. If you upgrade the CPU your best shot is a celeron though i doubt the motherboard was made for one originally.

 

[BD231]

When it comes to old systems all you can do is take advantage of the PCI bandwidth and max out on memory and CPU.

Get an ATA 100 card and run XP. I ran XP on a Pent 1 and it did fine with the ATA addition.

That 450 most likely wont work, stick with something thats 66mhz.

 

[KingNothing]

Hmm. 67 extra megahertz hardly seems worth it. Would an ATA-100 controller really make that much difference on a 5400RPM drive?

 

[redbeard1]

As I write this I can't get into gateway's support website.

My guess would be that the fastest cpu you could use would be a slot 1 P2-333. This is a 66mhz bus cpu. There is a chance your board would see a celeron on a slotket and go above the 333, but I'd say the chances were low. It's possible that your board has support for 100 mhz, so then you could go to at least a P2-450 and possibly a P3-600 512 cache Katmai slot 1. Though 600's are rare, 500 and 550's are around.

If it sees the 20 gig drive, there would be a big performance difference just because the drive has faster parts in it than say a 2 gig drive.

Microsoft changed their minds and are still supporting 98 until 2006. 98 works fine with 128 meg of ram. Putting 256 meg of ram would make it a usable win2k system, if you want an NT based OS. XP would be slow. People will say that they loaded it on some old system and it worked fine, but I've never found it to be to my liking below a 450mhz. But at least you would be using the lastest OS.

 

[redbeard1]

Some of those older cpu's, like a 233 used slow cache. There would some advantage to getting a slightly newer and faster cpu of any sort. On the for sale forum here, I bet you could find a 300 or 333 cheap.

The ata-100 controller wouldn't gain you much of anything even with a 7200 rpm. New drives only now are getting to 80mb real throughput. I'd bet that 20 gig probably max's out around 18mb/second. I found that this has a LX chipset, so 66mhz is all you can do.

Board

 

[boomerang]

Another thing to consider is that all the major computer manufacturers during the timeframe that system was built used proprietary parts. If you install a different OS, you may have a frustrating time getting any add-in cards to work. Sound cards and modems can be especially troublesome to get working.

They can usually be made to function, but with considerable trial and error installing and searching for obscure drivers. Just something to consider.

 

[AIWGuru]

Does it use a standard ATX case? If so, I think you'd be better off picking up a very, very cheap ECS K7S5A board and a low end Athlon XP that will eat any P2 for breakfast. It will cost you next to nothing.

 

[KGB1]

KN... umm the motherboard the gateway could most probably be based on is a a intel i440LX chipset. This chipset was designed for 66 fsb Celeron and Pentium II. It's maximum speed support is 333mhz P2. It is possible to overclock the system if there are Jumpers to change from 66-100 (if its a gateway, its most unlikely they would let you want to have the ability to do so) Anand did a i440Lx article Text

I recommend a Powerleap adapter with a celeron 1.3 (same a P3) go to this website and check for camptability for your gateway.

1. A 20Gb HDD will work in the system.
2. The Katmai P2 was good for only 450 (4.5x100fsb) and required less voltage... not a good option in your system since it probably wont support it.
3. Windows 2000 I'd recommend, 1x 128 and 1x256 PC100 ram and have a total of 512
4. Video card options are limited since AGP is only 1-2x and voltage is too high (3.3) HOWEVER some saphire Radeon 9600 are made to be able to work with the original agp spec. (or else a GF3, Radeon 9100 and below is usable in that mobo)
5. If the slot adapter is not compatible, a P2 @333 is cheap on ebay, and faster celeron would work also.

 

[0roo0roo]

not worth it. a new usb 2.0 agp 8x etc and all the new goodies m/b with xp 2400 processor at frys costs maybe 80 bux.. if ur lucky they have those ecs m/b that can take old sdram to boot, a new cheapo case if ur gateway is proprietaryisn't mcuh either. bang for buck of trying to upgrade super old systems is rather horrible. unless your desperate to stivck with that system, its totally not worth it.

 

[KGB1]

^ Sorry dude, but for some people letting go of old established PC products is still cool. I mean talk about a ultimate sleeper gateway. It's a 233mhz model doing 100+ in Quake 3 Overkill Yes, to get a faster AXP pc would be equal or cheaper in price... but meh. This is only for enthusiasts who like to tinker with old pc's.

 

[Slogun]

My two cents:

I have an old Dell PII 233MHz pc from late 1997. It has the afforementioned AL440LX mobo that your HP likely has (or a similar variant).

I researched the max upgrade path on this mobo several years ago and added a 500MHz celeron processor via a slocket daptor.

That old computer has remained a workhorse for my wife. It now has 224MB RAM and runs WinXP Pro fine. She has no problem using it for wordprocessing, web browsing and even scanning and digital photo management.

Here's a reference for you on the slocket conversion.

I am not familiar with the Powerleap adapter. If that allows you go higher than a 500MHz Celeron, then that sounds cool.

 

[BD231]

Originally posted by: redbeard1
Some of those older cpu's, like a 233 used slow cache. There would some advantage to getting a slightly newer and faster cpu of any sort. On the for sale forum here, I bet you could find a 300 or 333 cheap.

The ata-100 controller wouldn't gain you much of anything even with a 7200 rpm. New drives only now are getting to 80mb real throughput. I'd bet that 20 gig probably max's out around 18mb/second. I found that this has a LX chipset, so 66mhz is all you can do.

Board

The ata controller DOSE help, the on-board ata 33 is extremely slow but don't ask me to explain why, it just is.

 

[Cerb]

Try the 20GB HD, but be ready to buy an ATA card in case.
Win98 will run faster, WinXP will run more stable.
IIRC, you can only go to 333MHz for a Pentium II (which is actually is a good upgrade if you are going to use WinXP). My advice is to check for support for the mobo (Gateway doesn't like the posted SN), and see if you can put a Celeron in there. A Celeron A or "II" (with slocket) would do nicely...but may not work. A celeron 466 or better will make for an alright office/web box. Celerons only ran at the 66MHz FSB until at least the 800.
Also, get yourself to 256MB RAM for XP. With 256MB or over, XP will run fine, but with 128MB, it won't.

 

[RickH]

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE don't spend a dime on that old thing. Even a $40 Duron on a $65 MB with $40 worth of memory would be a million time better. Throw in a case and a $25 video card from the Forms and you have a "gameable" machine. Either use the old box as is, or start over. Don't put $$ in an old LX or FX PII motherboard. R

 

[Cerb]

Oh, yeah, you might want to check out Retrobox. You can make a new PC for ~$350-$500, but if you have a small budget and/or don't need speed...
Not bad for <$200

 

[Parrotheader]

I was in a similar situation with an old spare system I have at the office. It was an old Gateway with a P2-350 that we still owned (most of our systems at the office are/have been leased, but we bought a few Gateways back around '98-'99) that I use to run some tracking/reporting software 24/7 that I don't want tying up my main system. I also use it to watch TV via a TV Wonder VE.

Even with 256-512MB of RAM it was getting noticeably sluggish with all the stuff I had running on it. I tried one of the Upgradeware (Powerleap type slocket) slockets with a Celeron 1.3 that I already had laying around, but my mobo revision wouldn't recognize it even though the Gateway series was technically listed as compatible on Upgradeware's site. It did recogniz a series 1 slocket with a Celeron 433, but that was actually slower with the multiple apps I have running on it. It was beginning to look like my only upgrade option was a P2-450. Then I remembered we had an old spare server that a P3-600 (Katami, not Coppermine) and decided to give that a try. Even though the Bios revision I have isn't technically supposed to recognize it, it did and now I've got a fairly usable secondary system at the office again.

Trying a slocket with an older Celeron (something around a 466-533) might be worthwhile if you don't waste a lot of money on it (testing with a friend/family/co-worker's equipment from an older system would be highly recommended so you don't waste money if it's not going to work.) Or if there's a way to setup 100Mhz fsb you could try a P2 450. If you're just going to use it for MS Office and surfing it'll probably do just fine if you have enough RAM.

 

[mechBgon]

I know this wasn't really asked, but if you stumbled across a good deal on a 4.3GB or 9GB Ultra2 or Ultra160 SCSI drive, cable, terminator and adapter, that might be just the right brand of gas to throw on the fire, at least after you get Win2000 Pro and 192-256MB of RAM into the system first.

For perspective:

I had one person at work whose P2-233 (with 96MB of PC66) had a failed hard drive, so I threw in a 30GB Maxtor 7200rpm drive in place of its old ?6GB? 5400rpm drive or whatever it had.

Later, I replaced that employee's entire computer with a Pentium3 450, with 192MB of PC100 memory and a 10GB 5400rpm hard drive. Get this: the employee asked if he could have the P2 233 back! Even with twice the CPU speed and twice the RAM, the P2 450 felt slower to him, undoubtedly because of the difference in the hard drives.

 

[KingNothing]

I just copy/pasted the serial number I posted, and it works. So I don't know why some people are having trouble using it.

I installed WinXP, which recognized all the hardware, and am in the process of installing apps right now. The system is surpisingly responsive, although it could really use 256MB of RAM as there's only about 32MB of RAM left with no apps running.

The system does use an ATX case.

mechBgon, I totally believe that a faster HD subsystem would make for a faster computer. But, I'm not gonna toss that much money into this system.

I think I'll attempt to spend $10 on another 128MB stick of RAM for the machine, give it to my friend, and tell her if it gets too annoying to use then give me $150 and I'll put together a better system.

On the subject of RAM, will PC100 RAM work since this has a 66MHz bus? I've had bad experiences with some RAM downclocking and some not. Should I look for PC66 RAM to be on the safe side?

128MB 64Bit 4-clock CL=2 SDRAM UNBUFFERED DIMM

That's the most that Gateway's support site will tell me about the RAM in the system right now.

Edit: I tested two modules in this machine, one from a 400MHz Celeron with a 66MHz FSB and a PC133 module from a 1GHz PIII. Neither worked in the PII system, but I think both modules are high density (chips on only one side) whereas the working module is low density (chips on both sides).

 

[thraxes]

Yeah, BX and LX need low density RAM so that's where its at.

As for CPU I am thinking a Celeron on a Slocket is your best bet to better performance. But otherwise it doesn't look to good. With a BX board you can do some really cool stuff but an LX is rather limited.

 

[NokiaDude]

Max out the PCI bandwidth by using an ATA100 HD w/ an ATA100 controller card, it'll run much faster than ATA33/66.

 

[oldfart]

I've upgraded a couple of Gateways like that one quite awhile ago.

Its an LX chipset. Fastest CPU for it is a Celeron 533 (NOT 533A!) and a Slocket.

The one I upgraded last was
PII 233 -> C533
32M ram -> 288M ram (big difference)
4Gig HD -> 40 Gig HD
Forget the vid card -> Voodoo 3 3000

The difference was amazing. Nothing by todays standards, but the owner was thrilled.

 

[KingNothing]

FS/T Thread

A guy is offering me a stick that sounds like it'll work, but it's ECC. Does ECC and non-ECC memory play nice together?

 

[Super6]

The last two LX motherboards I worked on would only use PC66 memory....PC100 didn't work.

Super6

 

[AIWGuru]

please just get a new motherboard/duron/ram for about $90. There no point in upgrading that system when a new platform is so cheap. Of course, once you do that, you're going to WANT a new new HDD