upgrading from athlon xp 1500+

[v6v6v6]

hey, all, i need some advice on upgrading my athlon xp 1500+ processor to a better one. i understand the 1500+ is at the bottom of the totem pole as far as the xp processors go.

i did some searching on the web and found a small app called belarc advisor and it came back with this info:

Board: ECS M830LR
Bus Clock: 66 megahertz
BIOS: American Megatrends Inc. 07.00T 04/02/01

i've currently got 1gb of ddr ram installed on this system. what's the best processor i can get without changing the system?

thanks!

[morriswindgate]

In order to upgrade you are going to have to change out the motherboard. The model you have only supported the XP Palomino core CPUs which have been discontinued with the exception of the 1900 which that board will not support.
Additionally the board you have is a PC Chips that was also sold by ECS, so it isn't the greatest board to begin with.
I also think that you may have the clock set to low, since the XP1500 was a 266MHZ CPU, so the FSB should be 133MHZ and not 66MHZ.

[yellohut]

right, your board is the same as an ecs k7s5a
<a href="http://www.ecsusa.com/support/table_amd.html" target="blank">here</a> is a list of supported cpu's.
according to that you could get up to the xp 2600, but I would recomend getting a newer board.. that one was made by PC Chips and isn't very good.

[morriswindgate]

That is if the board version is correct. And both ECS and PC Chips are bad about not giving you all the information you need.

[v6v6v6]

thanks for the replies!

I also think that you may have the clock set to low, since the XP1500 was a 266MHZ CPU, so the FSB should be 133MHZ and not 66MHZ.

there's a note at the bottom of the belarc advisor report which says, "Data may be transferred on the bus at one, two, or four times the Bus Clock rate." i'm thinking this is why it's showing so low?

right, your board is the same as an ecs k7s5a

yup, did some more searching and found the bios update--but what an ordeal! now the board is listed as you mentioned instead of as m830lr.

i've never swapped out a motherboard so i'm still a newb in this area. from what i've researched, i hear these are the things i need to look out for:


board fits existing case (atx)
ram matches new board
power supply is adequate for new board/processor (currently have 300w supply)
install board drivers (are these the on-board components such as built-in lan?)


beyond that and making sure all the connections are done correctly, is there anything else i need to worry about? do i need to reinstall drivers for components such as hard drive, sound card, etc. or will those just run properly?

[v6v6v6]

according to that you could get up to the xp 2600

i spoke with a tech rep from the store where i bought the computer and they said any xp processor that runs 266mhz fsb should be ok.

checked amd's site and it looks like they offer the 2600+ in both 266mhz and 300mhz fsb.