need to upgrade a proprietary system

[IBhacknU]

yea, I know proprietary stinks, but this is what I'm working with (for my boss):

I've got a Micron rig with the following mobo. The two DIMM slots will enable me to up my memory to 256MB. That's good enough. The CPU on board right now is a SL376 (a Celeron 366 in S.E.P.P. form factor. I'm wondering what my options are for an upgrade to the CPU using this form factor. There is also the issue of the BIOS. I am not sure what the current BIOS will support and what upgrades there may be.

Any thoughts?

THANKS!

 

[Mindlink]

Well, I am stuck with one, so I feel your pain. The mobo is probably capable of taking a similar celeron. There are several issue including power, fsb speed, and MB design.

The 366 is a 2v design. You can swap in any celeron with the same power in (up to 533 MHz according to the list for celerons) or a PII with the same. if you can't find a slot version, you can find a Slotket (?) online to convert a ppga to a sepp.

The FSB as far as I know is generally 66MHz except for the very newest Celerons, so no problem off hand there. You can download wcpuid from H.Oda! to check if you want.

The problem I see is the jumper setting for CPU speed on the mobo. This may indicate that the BIOS/mobo uses the cpu to time stuff. The manual says that the jumper is for multiplier, but as far as I knew celerons were multiplier locked. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong on that. Nonetheless, the provided 8x multiplier will let you get to 528 (or the closest rated number) CPU, which is enough of a boost for WP, etc. Incidentally, the (apparently) older version of the manual only gives settings up to 333 MHz, but the newer one gives all of them. BTW, I think 466's can be had cheaply.
Well, long post, but I hope it helps.


Regards.

 

[IBhacknU]

Thanks Mindlink... your information is very helpful. I'm gonna try to give this a go, and will post my results.

regarding the jumper issues, I'm hoping this is not an issue. In this thread <a target=new href="http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=38&amp;threadid=325634
">here</a> Russ gives me the idea it shouldn't matter. I think I should be OK.

I'm gonna shoot for finding a 533 SEPP and try not to worry about a slotket. Any idea where I can find one of those?

 

[TELeast]

hmm....a slot 1 Celeron....they are very rare these days..

and slot 1 Celerons are older than socket ones, so they usually overclock not as well (there are exceptional cases).

Since you are stuck with the 2V core voltage design from Intel, you couldn't go to any coppermine CPUs.

Without overclocking, the REAL WORLD performance gain you get from a 566Mhz Celeron over the 366Mhz Celeron is NOT 566/366x100%.

I think the best is:
1-see if you can overclock on that motherboard of yours, if no, get 566.
2-if can overclock, see how far you can take the 366
3-if you can use the 83Mhz FSB no problem, you'll get 457Mhz and that's comparable to the overclocked 566Celeron...with no cost.

There's a choice of getting a more overclockable socket Celeron (366) and overclock it to 550 with the 100Mhz FSB. There were a bunch of these CPUs last year that can do the magical 550. Maybe some people are selling them now second hand as they upgrade to high CPUs. Having the Celeron 366 running at 550Mhz will definately be much faster than the Celeron 566 un-overclocked.

But then...if you have to do all this, tell you boss to spend a little more to get a Duron CPU...they are very very cheap these days. The only extra cost is the motherboard which you can have for about US$150-160

 

[Mindlink]

Good point above. The actual speed increase is not exactly linear with the clock. As to the Celeron, I don't think they make a 533 celeron secc 2v. The slotket here may help. It has adjustable vcore and can support a coppermine. I don't know whether it will help. I own a celeron ppga, so I have no clue whether a 66MHz coppermine with proper vcore works or not. Maybe someone has experience with there things?

Personally, I would just go and buy a duron or OC. But then, orders are orders where the job is concerned

Regards.

 

[TELeast]

hey that's right...I forgot about Slotket3 which lets you use coppermine...WITH the combination of a BIOS upgrade.

I am not sure about the motherboard you have will allow this...but it's worth probing your nose into...

If it works out, you could end up with a PIII CPU ...like a P3-500 oc to 700...that will sure be much faster than any old Celeron chip.

 

[Mindlink]

ABit makes a SlotKet3 adapter. Axion sells one which seems to be the right one. Here is the right page. Take a look around. Maybe one is the right one. Sorry I did not include this page before. I just ran a search that time and must have missed it in the hurry.

Hope it helps.

 

[IBhacknU]

Thanks guys... this is all very helpful. Did I mention you guys are awesome?

Here is why I'm trying to do this:

The company I work for rents computers for hotel conventions and sales meetings. The bulk of the computers we rent are the 366 I described above (we've got 15 of these bad boys).

While I understand the gains of a 533 over a 366 are at best minimal, to my boss it's the difference between getting $400 per week and $600 per week.

Overclocking isn't really an option here. I'm really just looking for that plug and play cpu to break the 500 barrier. The mobo in these things is based on the EX chipset. I'm not sure what luck I'd have in flashing the BIOS to support the CMine (if I use one of those slotkets). That may be the trick though?

The Duron/Mobo is a good option, but since I'm not getting anything extra for doing this, I'd rather not set-up 15 new mobos. Give me the chip... let me POP and PIMP

 

[Mindlink]

Well, in that case, choose the SL3PZ from the list at intel and use the ABit $10 slotket adapter. That is the easiest way. The stepping (revision) of the 533 is higher, but that only means that some of the newer features (if there actually are any) will not be used by the mobo. No big deal there. Just try with one computer and see if it works. The job after that will be simply to clone the changes.

The problem will be finding a processor, since Cel-2's and P3s are so common these days. I believe this might be the right one. Someone should double-check me on this, though.

Hope this helps.

 

[IBhacknU]

yes Mindlink... I'm thinking the SL3PZ chip listed on the intel site is the way to go... or the easiest way to go. According to the footnotes though, it's a Slot 1 chip and would not work with the slotkets. In fact, all of the slotkets linked in this thread are for Slot 1 to FC-PGA (Celeron II). My understanding is those have a different pin arrangment than the original socket 370 (PPGA).

I think this chip you linked me to is actually a SL46S??? I'm not sure... but I do know the 370 pin is NOT the slot 1.

Since it's the boss's money.. I'm gonna do some experimenting with one of the machines. My first 'GOAL' is to track down that SL3PZ chip and see if it'll plug and play without a slotket.

The next test would be a newer FC-PGA chip with one of the slotkets listed above. In fact, I've got a 600Mhz I can test it with, so it's just a matter of ordering up a slotket and giving it a go. With the clock multiplier being locked and the bus still at 66Mhz, it should dance (non O/C mind you).

Any other ideas, or disagrement... please let me know

 

[DABANSHEE]

There should be no problen running a Socket Celeron on that board using a slotket (don't know about the Celeron II though, the flipchip ones, if you're lucky a bios update might let you run them though).

 

[IBhacknU]

I just need to find a slot one to socket 370 (PPGA) slotket then

 

[IBhacknU]

more helpful information for this thread:

http://support.intel.com/support/processors/celeron/370fcpga.htm
and this
http://support.intel.com/support/processors/celeron/s2s.htm

still looking to figure this out

 

[NOS440]

Theres a company called PowerLeap that makes a Slocket that can regulate the power down to the required volts for the Celeron 2 to run on the old LX MB's. The only issue with this is that for some reason the LX chipset and the SSE instruction that the celeron 2 have don't live well together the last I heard. It limit 3D apps from using AGP texturing with Nvidia based card you have to shut off AGP in the DX setup or 3D apps lock. If you run a Voodoo PCI or any other PCI video card there are no issues with this upgrade. The motherboard may need a Bios update. If you go cruise the DELL webtalk forum and ask some people there they have this whole issue worked out on there motherboards that are Intel brand Modified for DELL. I'm not sure if micron's are the same.. Hope this helps ya out.