How to upgrade an IBM PIII 450MHz ...?

DeeKnow

Platinum Member
Jan 28, 2002
2,470
0
71
I have an IBM PC300 (model 6862 just in case you happen to have one of them) which came with a slot 1 PIII 450MHz cpu. The mobo is an IBM proprietary, but it is apparently an Intel OEM, using the 440BX chipset. I wanted to upgrade the cpu, and the IBM support folks were nice enough to tell me that the mobo shipped with a max processor of 700MHz. I checked out all the slot-1 PIII specs at the intel website, and here is where the problem comes in - my chip has a core voltage of 2.0V, but every other chip listed that runs faster than 450MHz seems to have a lower core voltage spec - usually 1.70V or 1.65V. So - how am I supposed to be able to use one othem faster chips ? The mobo does not seem to have any jumpers to set voltage ... am I missing something obvious here ?

Will it be worth trying to use anything faster than 700MHz ? (i guess if IBM shipped this system with 700, it might well do 800 or 900, no?)

cheers

Dee
 

rogue1979

Diamond Member
Mar 14, 2001
3,062
0
0
If it is a BX chipset, then there is nothing to worry about. Just get a slocket adapter than converts ppga to fcpga (you can even get one with core voltage adjustments) and the motherboard will auto detect the correct voltage. While the bios may not recognize anything over 700MHz, in all my experiences old BX boards will run any multiplier dictated by the cpu. Since original Pentium 3's are still a ridiculous price, costing more than Athlon XP's, I would suggest the Celeron 1GHz for about $53 shipped on pricewatch. Make sure it is the fcpga1 with 128K of L2 cache. The fcpga2 with 256K of L2 cache will not work on your motherboard without extensive mods.