Processor upgrade

Hello all,
I have an Abit kt7a-raid motherboard installed, with an AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1ghz processor installed. I want to upgrade to an Athlon xp 1900 processor. Is this compatable with my motherboard? I read that there is different versions of that mb, not sure what mine is though.
Thanks for your help,
Sal

 

Thanks for the reply. I was looking at this one on ebay:

Park Number: AX1900DMT3C


Features/Specifications
AMD Athlon XP Palomino 1900+ (1600MHz (1.6GHz))
Model 6 Athlon (Palomino)
More Instructions per clock cycle!
PGA Package Type (462pin Socket A)
Max Front Side Bus of 266MHz
256KB L2 Cache
QuantiSpeed architecture
1.75v operating voltage
CPU, Socket A Heatsink & Fan


Product Requirements
Socket A Motherboard that supports XP 1900 (1600MHz
(1.6GHz))
Socket A Heatsink & Fan for an AMD Athlon XP CPU
Thermal Grease Compound


I think this one would work. Please correct me if i'm wrong.
Thanks,
Sal

 

Looks like it may work, but two caveats:
First, you won't observe any increased performance. It will run like your current CPU. Think you'd have to get a new mobo taking faster memory to feel a difference. Been there.
Second, it's not currently available retail (obsolete?).

 

Thanks for the reply Sparrow,
Well I was hoping to see a little bit of increase in performance. What do you think would be the largest cpu I can put on that mb? I was thinking of doing that and adding a some more ram.

This is my secondary computer, that I have networked with my main comp. My kids and I play Call of Duty together on them. I was trying to make it a little better without buying another new one.

I knew they were obsolete, but you can still pick them up pretty cheap on ebay.
Thanks for your help,
Sal

 

From some experience building computers and upgrading them for almost 20 years, would feel you'd be wasting money looking for a faster Athlon. Even doubling the speed is imperceptible without upgrades in the memory, not just more, but a lot faster, e.g., from your present 133Mhz to 400Mhz, which would require a new motherboard to handle it all. It sounds like this is a home built or custom machine because of the present Abit kt7a-raid motherboard (an excellent choice, have used it myself), and whoever put it together could upgrade it to state-of-the-art condition for around $400 - 500 and it'd last the kids thru school, at least to college.

 

Was thinking - is the problem that the machine is running slower than it used to? If so, maybe it's hard drive could do with some cleaning up, e.g., removing loads of junk files in some of the temporary folders. Look at the spyware section of the BBS for good advice.

 

Call of Duty is a little jittery, was trying to make it smoother. I just finished reformatting and reinstalling xp professional. It runs a little better, just thought upgrading a little would help it. I might try looking for a mb - cpu combo.

Thanks Sparrow,
Sal

 

Could be a new graphics card would do the trick.

 

If you really want to upgrade the processor I agree that you should also upgrade the mother board so you can put faster RAM in it to take advantage of the increased power.

Just as a thought if you go this way you may want to take a look at the Asus A7V8X-X mother board. It's what I run. You could do your upgradeing a little at a time. It will run your 1gig Athalon although you would need to also get RAM as I don't think it will run PC-133s... Nope, don't see them listed in the manual. You could then later upgrade the processor. Although with the board and faster memory you may find that you don't need to. It will Handle Athalon/Duron/Athalon XP up to at least 2.5GHz.

Here are some specs.:
North and South Bridge are VIA
Front side buss up to 333MHz. with PC-3200 and Athalon XP
Slots: 1 8X AGP; 6 PCI
Onboard audio optional
LAN, Realtek 10/100Mbps Ethernet PHY
6 2.0 USB; 4 back panel, 2 header on board
IDE: 2X UltraDMA 133/100/66

Nice solid board! Only thing that I didn't like is that the chipset heatsink didn't have a fan. Contacted them and was told that adding a fan would NOT void the warrenty so it's running a fan.

I got the board and 512meg PC-3200 through Tiger Direct for a bit over $200.00. Although the PC-3200 only runs at 200MHz. due to just having a 1gig Athalon on it. Figured I'd get the PC-3200 as I intend to end up going with an Athalon XP 3200 on it. Once I upgrade the processor the memory will run at at least 333MHz..

As far as a game running sluggish... The Halo demo claims it needs at least a 1.5GHz. processor. Mine is just a 1GHz.. With an ATI 128meg 8X AGP 9200 I can run the demo flawlessly with the graphics all set to highest level.

Just figured I'd throw something in your direction that has worked well for me.

Jay

 

I have switched to asus currently, and second jaylach's opinion. He's got a very good graphics card too; awfully important if you're running todays games.

would also like to know what video card you have and how much video memory is on it. And how much RAM there is on the mobo.

The northbridge heat sink fan (like the little fan on your board near the large CPU fan) failed on one of my boards and Abit refused to warranty the board even tho it was purchased only 6 mos. before. Suspect it's bad design. Can't hurt to add on where it's not needed, but rather buy a board that doesn't need it.

If you re-use the 1Ghz Athlon, be sure to clean its top and use use arctic silver heat sink compound to replace what's on it.

 

Back to your original question, since you may want to still upgrade the CPU at some stage (looked this up this morning, but I see Jay is window-shopping already )

The BIOS updates do not refer to particular "versions ". You should be able to find your version number printed on the motherboard. The motherboard details should be shown on the first or second screen when you startup, although, if you have an Abit splash-screen you may have to press a key to see it or disable the splash-screen in the BIOS settings. Everest in my signature may tell you.

I did not search very far, but did not see a reference to CPUs faster than 1.4Ghz being supported.

You want more than these at least and you may still run across problems.

Check out some problems found:
http://callofduty.filefront.com/info/Requirements_expand#200518
Holy Moly what a forum mattman! . You may find a few "fixes" though.

I am not sure that "faster" RAM would help. The specifications only refer to the "size" of RAM (eg,. you should run at least 256MB, especially with running Win XP).

The graphics card may be the main reason for the problems. Games are mainly graphics dependent.
Check for the latest drivers for your graphics card.
Update DirectX to 9.0c.

Matt

 

Thanks for the replies. Sorry I didn't get back sooner, been busy at work.

I have an ATI Radeon 8500 128meg 4x agp, with 384 meg of ram on mb, XP Pro. I have decided to upgrade mb,cpu, and ram. Since this is not my main computer I really didn't want to spend a lot of money on upgrading.

I was looking at an AMD Athlon 64 2800 (1.8 ghz) cpu. With,
Shuttle AN51R Socket 754 NVIDIA nForce3 250Gb mb, or
ASRock K8UPGRADE-1689 Socket754/ALI1689/DDR400/Upgrade S939/ATX Motherboard. Along with 512 meg ddr 400 ram.

CPU with the Shuttle mb is $170.00 or with the ASRock is $190.00.I saw these on ebay. I know these are not top of the line mb's, but I was thinking one of these would be decent enough for now.

If you have any comments on either if these mb's please let me know.
Thanks for the help,
Sal

 

Here's a much better quality bargain at www.newegg.com:


AMD Sempron 2500+ Thoroughbred 333MHz FSB 256KB L2 Cache Socket A Processor - Retail and
Asus motherboard
ASUS A7V400-MX Socket A (Socket 462) VIA KM400A Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail, both for about $130 incl. shipping. With the retail box it's unlikely you need to pay for a 'combo' and you get three years warranty on the CPU.

If you want to get an Athlon, it would cost another $40.

You'll need to buy memory also, costing about $50 incl. shipping.

Wouldn't think you'd need a 64 bit processor for a second computer, and definitely wouldn't buy parts like this on eBay - no warranty even tho the prices you quote are equal to retail on the web otherwise! But if that's the way you wish to go, check prices and warranty on newegg and pricewatch before you buy. Recommend always buying mobos and CPUs retail for the warranty, not necessary for memory, hard or optical drives and other parts, if bought from a good retailer.

Memory for the 64 bit mobo will cost about double for the 32 bit, and you should have twice as much. Be sure to buy it in matched sets.

Another consideration: check your power supply, you may need a larger one to accomodate new equipment, say around 400W if you go 64 bit.

 

Thanks Sparrow,
I checked out Newegg and liked your suggestions, so I came up with this,

ASUS A7V400-MX Socket A (Socket 462) VIA KM400A Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

Kingston ValueRAM 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 333 (PC 2700) System Memory - OEM

AMD Athlon XP 2800+ Barton 333MHz FSB 512KB L2 Cache Socket A Processor - Retail

$210.00, includes freight, Thats right around what I wanted to spend.

Do you think I would see a noticeable improvement over the system I have now? Also would the cpu come with a heatsink and fan? And should I be able to use my existing sound card (Sound Blaster Live), and my ATI video card?

Thanks for your help, it is much appreciated!

Sal

 

Think you'll see some speed-up, but not astounding. Should help the game performance.

The Athlon, retail, comes with an approved heatsink and fan with heat sink compound already in place. All you do is place the CPU in its socket after lifting the little arm on the socket so "zero insertion force" is required, carefully orienting it as per instructions.

Then orient the heatsink-fan combination over the CPU so the portion that attaches and holds it in place can grab little hooks on the socket, and after attaching one side, use a flat blade medium screwdriver to press down on the fixture that will grab the hook on that side until it hooks in place. That takes a bit of your weight on it, so don't be afraid to lean on it. It must be solidly hooked. There are very good photos in the instructions; you can't go wrong if you take reasonable care.

Your existing sound card (Sound Blaster Live), and ATI video card should work just fine with this setup.

Just take your time and be very careful to avoid static electricity. I work on a grounded surface, and keep a hand or arm in contact with the ground at all times, to avoid sparks.

 

Thanks Sparrow,
I placed the order with Newegg today for the items I mentioned earlier.

This will be my first time installing a cpu and swapping mb's. Thanks for the info for installing the cpu, I'm sure it will come in handy.

Sounds like they provide detailed instructions. Hopefully I won't have any problems.lol

Will I have to set anything up in the bios?

I'll let you know how it goes.

Again thanks for all your help!

Sal

 

I received my mb and cpu yesterday . I was reading the manual for the mb last night, There is a lot of different settings on it. Are they mostly set by default? Is there certain ones I need to set before installation? I shouldn't have a problem replacing the mb, I'm just not sure about all the settings yet.Any tips would be appreciated.

Thanks for the info about the heat sink, there's really no instructions on installing the heat sink in the manual.

Hopefully I will be installing them this weekend.

Thanks,
Sal

 

Heat sink instructions and pics are in the athlon box. No need to set anything on mobo until after installing it, and then most defaults are fine, unless you know what you may want to try.

 

Yes the BIOS will start on it's default settings. If there is a menu "Load Optimal Settings" (or wording like that) you can set that. Get Everest in my signature, check things like the FSB setting (the frequency for the CPU and RAM) against the motherboard specifications. Check the temperatures, if the CPU temp is over 50*C there may be a problem.

With 512MB of RAM you can set the AGP Aperture to 128MB. Not many other settings should need changing, they are for "special conditions ".

I think you all made a good selection with the Asus motherboard. It should serve well into the future (in motherboard years )

Matt
Edit: If you have any concerns about the frequencies, post back. The actual frequency of the CPU is not the Athlon XXXX+ rating. The memory is double data rate, so the base frequency is only half.