Upgrading an old P3

[ryan256]

I'm helping a friend upgrade an old Dell machine for his daughter to use. The current cpu is an old 433MHz celeron.
Now I know the 370 socket underwent several revisions with the coppermine & tualatin cores and none of them are compatabile with the other. But I think I've found a CPU that will work. Will this 766MHz celeron work in this old 370 socket. I think it will. Now I know its still just a 766 but that will nearly double the machines current speed.

EDIT: nevermind... after further research I've found that it won't work.

 

[imported_Kiwi]

There were changes in the chip sets, especially regarding the FSB's and matching RAM; the socket itself (TTBOMK) was never rewired. You might find it easier to swap the Celeron for a slower (than 766 MHz) P-III, which would still be a performance increase. A 500 MHz P3 would probably be equal to or better than a 700 MHz Celeron.

 

[dexvx]

Are you sure? It probably uses the 810 chipset (or even better 440BX). If thats the case, it should take all socket Pentium3's and Celerons up to around the 900Mhz mark with no problem with a BIOS update.

 

[blackhawk]

highest in that old series is 550mz

celerons were all 66fsb in that series with the 300 and 366 famous for going to 100mz fsb which was the same as the old P3's at that time but less cache

 

[imported_Kiwi]

Originally posted by: dexvx
Are you sure? It probably uses the 810 chipset (or even better 440BX). If thats the case, it should take all socket Pentium3's and Celerons up to around the 900Mhz mark with no problem with a BIOS update.

The 440BX I had was a Slot-I piece, made by Intel. Mine was a real POS; gave me a ton of problems. Anyway, if you download a few of the different s370 period's MB manuals, you'll see what a flux everything was in during that period, but no mention of changes to the socket itself. I might've missed that at the time, maybe. I didn't have a local source for just a few parts at a time then (and did have a few extra bucks to spare), so I let a White Box shop build systems for me during the P-II/ early P-III period that was so full of changes.

 

[FelixDeCat]

Originally posted by: blackhawk
highest in that old series is 550mz

celerons were all 66fsb in that series with the 300 and 366 famous for going to 100mz fsb which was the same as the old P3's at that time but less cache

This is true. I wasted time and money a few years ago doing this for my sisters extremely old (even at the time) emachine. I searched high and low for a bios that would let me update the FLORIDA board that it came on. The best I could do was one that added one insignificant feature and deleted the E logo. It also changed the language. :shocked:

You could try your luck with 665, but I know 550 is going to work w/o a prob. There are several on ebay right now for about $5 shipped or less.