Upgrading an old fart.

[Keitero]

I have this old Gateway GP6-350. It had a Pentium II 350. I have a spare Pentium III 550 Katmai lying around. I tried sticking it in there, but it will not boot. I had a Pentium 400 that I found in my desk, stuck that in, and it booted (albit no VooDoo 2 PCI or Sigma Designs Hollywood Plus MPEG Decoder card.) What's the fastest that this little beast can take? I really want to see if I can use the 550. I'll check to see if it has the latest BIOS (the latest that I downloaded just now was from 1999 -_-

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I'm too lazy to google it I can say I used a slotket to take an old packard hell and use a Celeron 366@500 in it. I've read that with a slot-T some old board will even run a 1.4ghz Tually. It's ironic you said old fart too, because I expect he'll be along to give you some good solid info on this

 

[Keitero]

0_o; Old fart? There IS such a user? Ohh dear.

 

[Iron Woode]

Originally posted by: Keitero
0_o; Old fart? There IS such a user? Ohh dear.

yes.

To make the sloket work you need to buy a good one with voltage and FSbus adjustments.

I got one from Ebay and worked great.

 

[SinfulWeeper]

Had one of those once.... then I discoved building my own computer was clearly supior to any pre-fabbed computer do to their unupgradability as you are now seeing.

Get Gateways newest BIOS for that and then try sticking in that 550. If it works, great if not... well then I imagine a PII 450 is the fastest it will take. Unless you get a celeron PPGA (or whatever they were called, but NOT the FCPGA) 400-466 and hope it can make it to a 100FSM like Iron Woode suggested. (I never heard of a 500 or 533 that can hit 100fsb w/o exotic cooling... but that was a long time back)

 

[SinfulWeeper]

One other thing, I have a Gateway BX motherboard (Intel Jabil) that handles a PIII 1.1GHz with an adapter just fine (customer reject... i.e... no bones, cash, money, broke... whatever you want to call it :|). It's already flashed with the latest BIOS and all. They are going on ebay for roughly $48 shipped, if you want I'll send it to you for $25 shipped. It has some blemishes, but works solid and stabily, just shoot a PM if your interested. But I can not let that adapter go. I need it for troubleshooting customers computers.

 

[Keitero]

I think its stuck at 4.5x Multipliers.

 

[mmcdonalataocdotgov]

I hope this helps.

Take the Gateway, and remove the mobo, old drives, and power supply, then replace the power supply with an Antec True550W, and the mobo with a 925X, and the CPU with 3.6 GHz or so C. The downside is you'll also have to replace the RAM. That should make "This Old Gateway Case" scream! =]

Seriously, Gateway Tech Support should be able to give you the answer. Opening the case voided your Upgrade Free after Two Years plan if you were on that. Go to Gateway.com and click Tech Support at the top of the page and enter your serial number. Or you can drill down to your mobo type. You may try the mobo manufacturer's website for upgrade info. It could be Tyan or Intel.

Anyway, if you just "found" the cpu laying around on your desk, it might have succumbed to St. Elmo already.

 

[Keitero]

Take the Gateway, and remove the mobo, old drives, and power supply, then replace the power supply with an Antec True550W, and the mobo with a 925X, and the CPU with 3.6 GHz or so C. The downside is you'll also have to replace the RAM. That should make "This Old Gateway Case" scream! =]

HAHAHA funny. :|

Well... considering I got the machine in 98, that two year thing (even if I was on it) is long dead.

Well I am going to see if i can get a cheap Pentium III 450 and put that in.

 

[Iron Woode]

Here is the answer to your upgrade question.

* please check the compatibility list. Your comp is in it.

http://www.ocworkbench.com/hardware/powerleap/page1.htm

 

[Keitero]

Hmm, I might look into it. Thanks

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: SinfulWeeper
Had one of those once.... then I discoved building my own computer was clearly supior to any pre-fabbed computer do to their unupgradability as you are now seeing.

Get Gateways newest BIOS for that and then try sticking in that 550. If it works, great if not... well then I imagine a PII 450 is the fastest it will take. Unless you get a celeron PPGA (or whatever they were called, but NOT the FCPGA) 400-466 and hope it can make it to a 100FSM like Iron Woode suggested. (I never heard of a 500 or 533 that can hit 100fsb w/o exotic cooling... but that was a long time back)

As long as a coppermine-compatible Slotket is used, that board should be able to take up to an FCPGA 800Mhz CPU, I think. At least a 566Mhz. (Caveat, older motherboards were not tested to withstand the higher power draws of newer chips, so if the board's VRMs are underpowered, putting too fast a CPU in it could overload them and cook the board.)

 

[Peter]

The problem isn't power draw. The real problem is the constant changes to voltage regulator specification - so if you plug a Coppermine into a board that isn't ready for it, you will end up with an all wrong CPU voltage. No, a Coppermine-ready slotket doesn't help. The voltage is always produced by the mainboard.

 

[VirtualLarry]

The VRM specs didn't change all that much. The point still stands, the FCPGA chips aren't intrinsically incompatible, just that the slotket pinouts changed slightly between the PPGA and FCPGA/coppermine-compatible pinouts. All newer slotkets should have a jumper setting for coppermines, SMP, and voltage/VID jumpers. It is up to the mainboard to be able to support the correct range of voltages, as specified by the VID strappings on the CPU, but nearly all of the BX-based boards can handle coppermine voltages. The biggest problem is the increased power draw puts a strain on the regulators and can burn them out.

Now, if you were going to talk about the odds of BX-based boards supporting Tualatin voltages, I would agree with you there. But Gateway tended to use Intel-made OEM BX-based mobos, and therefore they generally supported the newest-available VRM specs.

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

Just junk it

 

[Ballistyx]

Originally posted by: Keitero

Take the Gateway, and remove the mobo, old drives, and power supply, then replace the power supply with an Antec True550W, and the mobo with a 925X, and the CPU with 3.6 GHz or so C. The downside is you'll also have to replace the RAM. That should make "This Old Gateway Case" scream! =]

HAHAHA funny. :|

Well... considering I got the machine in 98, that two year thing (even if I was on it) is long dead.

Well I am going to see if i can get a cheap Pentium III 450 and put that in.

Hey, don't knock it! That's exactly what I did for a co-worker of mine. She didn't want to spring for a new case, and I happened to have a decent PSU that I gave her. I ended up putting in an ECS intergrated board in it (the one with a soldered-in mobile AthlonXP). She just needed something that was faster at web surfing, and word processing than the PII-300 she had.

If you want to try and shoe-horn a new motherboard in it, here's what you have to do. BTW, you WILL need a dremel, an electric drill, and a pop-rivetter with some rivets.

The I/O panel at the rear is probably non-removable. You're going to need to drill out ALL the rivets holding the back of the case together, so you can get in there with a dremel. I traced out the dimensions of the new plate cover, and cut it out. Use the fiberglass wheels for this. The emery wheels wear out too quickly. Put everything back together with the pop-riveter.

You won't be able to just slide a new PSU into the case either. The cutout at the rear is too small. Again, use a dremel to open the hole a little wider. You will need to drill new screw holes so that you can secure the PSU to the case.

Once that's done, clean out the metal bits, and you're ready to go.... almost.

The LED leads aren't standard on that case. You're going to have to either pillage a wiring harness from an older case, or you can just remove the individual connectors in the harness and wire it up accordingly.

After about three hours of work, you should be ready to put in a new motherboard.

Alternatively, you can cheat and just go to your local shop and buy a new case for $35. Of course that's not as much fun as messin' around with it yourself.

 

[Peter]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
The VRM specs didn't change all that much. The point still stands, the FCPGA chips aren't intrinsically incompatible, just that the slotket pinouts changed slightly between the PPGA and FCPGA/coppermine-compatible pinouts. All newer slotkets should have a jumper setting for coppermines, SMP, and voltage/VID jumpers. It is up to the mainboard to be able to support the correct range of voltages, as specified by the VID strappings on the CPU, but nearly all of the BX-based boards can handle coppermine voltages. The biggest problem is the increased power draw puts a strain on the regulators and can burn them out.

Sorry, but it is EXACTLY the meaning of these VID jumpers that has changed with Coppermine. Previously, no VIDs below 2.0V were available. Coppermine changed the meaning of its VID strappings quite substantially - and if you have a mainboard that follows an older VRM specification, you'll zap the CPU.