Done that. Thank you for the suggestion.
Powerleap is the best option, but it's pricey. I'm looking into it, though. The 440BX board that I have supports 3 x 256 PC133 CL2 or 3, unbuffered, non-parity 32x64 dimms. Geeks has fitting 256MB dimms at $30 ea. but I'm going to try and get them cheaper.
WT
Diamond Member
- Sep 21, 2000
- 4,816
- 60
- 91
I really need to sell off my growing collection of parts, with a few slotkets and BX boards lying about. I have a P3 1ghz on an MSI 6905 slotket that performs quite well, along with 3 sticks of 256 PC133 RAM. Good luck building it, but rest assured this will not be as easy as you might expect. The parts are sometimes at a price premium due to their availability, and the accumulated years that they spent doing their thing before you buy them from someone can burn you if that is your main rig. I'd pick up an Asrock combo board and a Barton 2500 if it was me, but again, I wish you good luck in your search.
Did you really come here for advice? Everybody seems to be saying "Bad idea man - just build a more viable morden budget system.", but you don't seem interested 
.
My personal advice: your current system is working and apparently filling your needs aside from stability. As stated, this is probably software related. Do a reinstall. The upgrade you're proposing just doesn't do much to bring your computer up to date. It'll be a little faster, but still very slow by today's standards. Why blow money down the tubes to go from one slow machine to another. If you're fine with a slow machine it's wasted money; if you need a fast machine it's wated money. The proposed upgrade is lose-lose.
If you can't afford a "real" $200-300 upgrade right now I'd just save a little longer or do nothing rather than letting $100 go down the tubes.
.My personal advice: your current system is working and apparently filling your needs aside from stability. As stated, this is probably software related. Do a reinstall. The upgrade you're proposing just doesn't do much to bring your computer up to date. It'll be a little faster, but still very slow by today's standards. Why blow money down the tubes to go from one slow machine to another. If you're fine with a slow machine it's wasted money; if you need a fast machine it's wated money. The proposed upgrade is lose-lose.
If you can't afford a "real" $200-300 upgrade right now I'd just save a little longer or do nothing rather than letting $100 go down the tubes.
I recently retired (to be used as a server) our main desktop. Sure, I had my gaming rig, but for general surfing and such, the wife and I used my old BX based machine. It is an ASUS P2B slot 1 board that started life as a PII 350 in 1998 and became a slot 1 PIII 550. Yes, it was slow, but also garbaged up software-wise. It did the job.
While I can see why others are recommending a serious upgrade, there's nothing wrong with wanting to tinker.
While I can see why others are recommending a serious upgrade, there's nothing wrong with wanting to tinker.
Originally posted by: MGMorden
Did you really come here for advice? Everybody seems to be saying "Bad idea man - just build a more viable morden budget system.", but you don't seem interested
Well, yes and no. While I understand and accept everybody's advice on building something more modern (believe me, I get it), where's the fun in that? I could spend $500, I could spend $1000, but I don't want to. I spend on hardware. I have large external HDDs and I'm buying up more storage for my office PC (running out of space), but I simply want to see just how far I can take this particular machine, which I got for free, by tinkering with it and spending no more than $150 in cash. I want to be as frugal as possible (but not take months to finish it), so I'll accept donations of RAM and processors and such, but ultimately, I want a little bit of a challenge and I want to see where this path takes me. Where's the challenge in getting $1500 of hardware and putting it all together? Who cares?
You guys get me?
On the other hand, I am looking for advice in the sense that I'd like to know what all I can (or cannot) do with this system.
I know I'm weird... but I thought about getting something new, etc., waited for the core 2 duo cpus to come out, but decided to tinker with this and put up with it a little longer... until core 2 duo matures and becomes cheaper.
A64 3400+ and a mb with video = $100 @ Newegg, case and 500w psu @ Radioshack = $30AR, been a few deals recently on 512mb ddr3200 for $30AR.
I think there's one other thing you guys are missing. FUN!
I've been helping my brother-in-law recently. He's got an old KT7 mobo with an Athlon 1GHz chip. We're looking through all the stuff on the web we can find and I've contacted a vendor on eBay who's willing to help us get just the right chip... we're going to try to get one of the early 2003 AthlonXPs up to 2-2.4Ghz with a 20x or 24x 100MHz setup. It's some time and effort and will probably end up costing about $50-60 bucks in the end... but in the mean time, it's been sort of fun going back to the days when you could actually hack around with things and make things do stuff they weren't supposed to do.
Not as much of a pain as soldering new cyrstals on my XT to get it to 7MHz (my first overclock in 1987) and not as ho-hum as just plopping in a chip and changing a couple of BIOS settings.
What's the price of fun?
Joe
I've been helping my brother-in-law recently. He's got an old KT7 mobo with an Athlon 1GHz chip. We're looking through all the stuff on the web we can find and I've contacted a vendor on eBay who's willing to help us get just the right chip... we're going to try to get one of the early 2003 AthlonXPs up to 2-2.4Ghz with a 20x or 24x 100MHz setup. It's some time and effort and will probably end up costing about $50-60 bucks in the end... but in the mean time, it's been sort of fun going back to the days when you could actually hack around with things and make things do stuff they weren't supposed to do.
Not as much of a pain as soldering new cyrstals on my XT to get it to 7MHz (my first overclock in 1987) and not as ho-hum as just plopping in a chip and changing a couple of BIOS settings.
What's the price of fun?
Joe
That's a good point. Obviously this is not so much about building a fast computer on the cheap, as it is about a neato project.
That said, I should try the Z-80 mod.... I was never brave enough to modify my old Tandy 1000SX... but then I was lucky to be at 7.14MHz - a whole 50% faster than the 4.7MHz IBM PC.
Obviously this is not so much about building a fast computer on the cheap, as it is about a neato project.That said, I should try the Z-80 mod.... I was never brave enough to modify my old Tandy 1000SX... but then I was lucky to be at 7.14MHz - a whole 50% faster than the 4.7MHz IBM PC.
An upgrade like that would be perfectly fine for regular use. I run a server with Windows 2k on an 800mhz Coppermine PIII with 128MB of RAM. When my main rig was broken, I used that for music, web browsing, IM, etc. You might want to upgrade the power supply though. My server's PSU with 8A on the +12V rail couldn't even handle a small HDD cooler, so I replaced it with some noname 425W PSU with 12A on the +12V that I got for like $10.
While I wouldn't exactly spend any money on parts for it today, I currently have 2 440BX machines with slotkit adapters running 1.2ghz tualatins right now. One is actually the tertiary gaming system (the other a simple machine for my 3 y/o to play Dora games on when the boys are using up her other computer). It handles things decently enough with a 5900ultra (which was handed down from the secondary gaming rig). The neighbor kid comes over to play LAN games with my son and he uses it for Titan Quest, UT2k4, SWBF2, WC3... hell, I even got Oblivion to play on it (it ain't pretty tho).
It does its job. And it will likely be retired in a year or so when I build a new system and hand my A64 down to my son, and then his AXP down.
It does its job. And it will likely be retired in a year or so when I build a new system and hand my A64 down to my son, and then his AXP down.
ViviTheMage
Lifer
Thank you for pointing out that a little project like is actually fun. It's kinda exciting and taking me back to the days when I used to have a dozen computers sitting around this place and used to boast about how fast my best rig was. Those days are long behind me, but the prospect of doing this alone brings back that feeling I used to have. It's more sentimental than anything.
Well, so far, things are moving along well enough. I've taken care of the Celeron 1400, the IWILL Slocket II, the RAM (all 768MB of it), a WD1200JB + a WD800, ATA133 controller, USB 2.0 + Firewire card and the OS. Th eonly things that remain are a heatsink, a DVD burner and possibly a new PSU. Actually, I have a nice PSU in the closet. Does anyone happen to know if an Antec True330 PSU would work with this Dell OEM mobo? I haven't bothered checking yet.
Well, so far, things are moving along well enough. I've taken care of the Celeron 1400, the IWILL Slocket II, the RAM (all 768MB of it), a WD1200JB + a WD800, ATA133 controller, USB 2.0 + Firewire card and the OS. Th eonly things that remain are a heatsink, a DVD burner and possibly a new PSU. Actually, I have a nice PSU in the closet. Does anyone happen to know if an Antec True330 PSU would work with this Dell OEM mobo? I haven't bothered checking yet.
By the way, I think I'll do a little write-up on this project of mine, including before and after pictures, before and after benchmarks, exactly how much the whole thing cost me and just overall impressions. What do you guys think? Would it make for an interesting read? Sort of a zeitgeist...
No. If you want to use a different power supply, you have to get an adapter. PC power and cooling make PSUs design for dell systems in case you want to upgrade.
Till a year ago I was quite happily using a similar BX440 system (Asus P3B-F and PIII-500, 512MB) as a spare for e-mail, Internet and Office on XP Home. My HD was on an ATA-133 controller card. One fine day it simply did not boot and I found that the motherboard had finally crapped out. I simply could not get another motherboard. I used the HDD in another new Sempron PC and RAM I threw into another old Celeron 1.2 I had lying around. I was glad it finally went bust, I could never burn any CDs with any burner on that PC.
Yes!
It's too bad that we can't post pictures on here... it would make a nice addition to your article.
Joe
Originally posted by: Eug
Do your BIOS support it? Some mobos need to be reflashed to work with slocketed Tualatins.
P.S. 440BX is the best chipset of all time.
I have a BIOS flash at the ready. Just waiting for all the parts to come in and then I'll proceed with everything at the same time... probably next weekend.
Originally posted by: Eug
Do your BIOS support it? Some mobos need to be reflashed to work with slocketed Tualatins.
P.S. 440BX is the best chipset of all time.
I'll agree with ONE of the best. The inability to lock the AGP bus (or at least not having a 1/2 divider) caused the chipset to die earlier than it really needed to.
I also have a special place in my heart for the KT133a. Of course, it had it's issues too, like IRQ handling and me having to always have my soundblaster live! in the 4th PCI slot.
I've got a Linux file server for home use with A BP6 (440BX) running dual C-466's at 533, 512MB of RAM, a 40GB system drive and two 120GB drives hanging off the ATA-66 Controller in Raid-1. PCI Voodoo 3-3000 for graphics. Still cranking fine!
Also have a KT133a that I use as a Linux testbed that has an AthlonXP in it, overclocked to 1750 on a 140MHz FSB with 768MB of RAM.
Neither of the above is ever going to be a gaming box again, but they both could have several more years of useful life. I'm about to stick two 300 GB drives in the PB6 on an ATA-133 card, which will allow for much more redundant storage of my families documents and photos.
LONG LIVE USEFUL OLD EQUIPMENT, REBORN TO REPURPOSED LIFE!
Joe
Eug
Lifer
- Mar 11, 2000
- 24,158
- 1,806
- 126
Assuming I understand your meaning... To be fair, 440BX was never intended to run at 133 MHz. It only officially supported a max speed of 100 MHz.Originally posted by: NetopiaI'll agree with ONE of the best. The inability to lock the AGP bus (or at least not having a 1/2 divider) caused the chipset to die earlier than it really needed to.Originally posted by: Eug
Do your BIOS support it? Some mobos need to be reflashed to work with slocketed Tualatins.
P.S. 440BX is the best chipset of all time.
Last year I gave away my Celeron Tualatin 440BX machine to a charity that recycles PCs to give to other charities. They said it was one of the nicest PCs they had ever received (cuz they usually get totally out-of-date hardware). By their standards, an upgraded 440BX machine was almost cutting edge in 2005.
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