PII FSB Quandry

[sledman256]

Does anyone know if PII's that have a FSB of 100MHz will run at 66 only slower?? I know this sounds weird but I have this cool dual-slot MOBO but it has the LX chipset which only supports 66MHZ. The kicker is I have two PII 350's that want to live on that board but they are 100MHz FSB CPU's. Any experience out there with this anyone???????

[hiredgoonz]

You should be able to run them in the system, but they will be underclocked to 233mhz...if you have all the stuff lying around, I would give it a shot. I can't think of a reason it wouldn't work...

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When all else fails, read the instructions.

[sledman256]

Actually all of the latest info only references up to a 366 Cellie and 333 PII CPU. I hope that there isn't some weird thing in the BIOS or that Intel built into the Porc that it can't be underclocked. In theory, it should fly and given the multiplier settings that I can use it might even run at 333. I don't have any 66Mhz cpu's around to test the system first so I might not be able to tell if there is there is something else wrong if it doesn't post. It's worth a shot and I wanted to see how Linux likes dual processors.

[hiredgoonz]

The multiplier is locked on the 350mhz+ P2...so for the 350s in that system, it's going to be 3.5 X 66 = 233. If you try to set the mulitplier at something other than 3.5 it will either ignore the setting or simply not work at all.

I think you can "unlock" the mult. on P2s by covering up one of the contacts on the cpu with a non-conductive material (check overclocking sites for info) but it's tricky...

I'm running a dual P2 266 right now with WinXP and it is fast...the guy I got it from was running Mandrake 8.1 and he loved it...only Gateway system he ever liked...



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When all else fails, read the instructions.

[sledman256]

That's right, I forgot about the locked multiplier bit. Thanks for your input. I'm going to give it a shot.