What can be done?

[SufferWell1396]

my AST Adventure! 430 is in need of upgrades. The machine only accepts up to 64 megabytes RAM, which i have now but it is just too slow. I was wondering, could a Flash BIOS upgrade rise the accepted amount of system ram?

Also i would like to preform a processor upgrade, ill give the specs below, given the specs, how high do you think i could go?? [NOTE: i dont want to buy a new system.]

AST Adventure! 430 Specs
Intel Pentium Processor @ 166 MHz (socket 7)
64 Megabytes System Ram
Chipset
North Bridge:Intel 82437VX TSC
South Bridge:Intel 82371SB PIIX3
BIOS
Award Modular BIOS v4.51PG
System BIOS Date: 5/12/97
Video
S3 Trio 64v+ PCI (765)
1 Megabyte Video RAM
Video BIOS Date: 09/03/96

And ive had bad experiences with BIOS flashes, if anyone has any suggestions on how to do it safely, they are appreciated.

[OrbitzXT]

lol I'm not a frequent visitor of this forum but I hope this is a joke =P. If not I can ship you a sledgehammer as my own personal christmas gift to solve your problems

[Erik]

The best thing you can do is toss that PC to the curb!

In most cases the max RAM is a hardware thing, not BIOS related. Also a 166MHz is not really gonna speed up to a usable machine by adding RAM. Maybe running pure DOS or some other CLI driven OS it will be fine.

What would you want to use that fore anyway? Even as a Linux based firewall it will be a bit underpowered. Sometimes you just need to know when it is time to buy a new machine.

[TopChip7]

Oh heck... you could pick up a better machine than that on ebay for $10 - sorry Surf, refuge collection comes thursday!!!

[SufferWell1396]

hahaha my poor AST. I atleast wanted to try because it is the only computer in the basement, and my only alternative if i want to get internet down there, but its just soooooo slow... Yeah, its christmas time, im getting money like there is no tommarow, ill just grab a PII or PIII system off ebay, thanks much.

[mjc]

Actually, there are a couple of things you can do with it that don't require dropping at the curb...

What it has right now, processor/memory along with a couple of network cards and a specialized Linux distro will get you a hi-grade firewall.

Another mini distro will get you a SETI (http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/) or Folding@Home (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folding@home) or similar box...

A few more similar machines network cards and you can set up a Beowulf cluster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf_(computing))

[Erik]

Actually, there are a couple of things you can do with it that don't require dropping at the curb...

What it has right now, processor/memory along with a couple of network cards and a specialized Linux distro will get you a hi-grade firewall.

Another mini distro will get you a SETI (http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/) or Folding@Home (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folding@home) or similar box...

A few more similar machines network cards and you can set up a Beowulf cluster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf_(computing))


Actually I don't know how well a machine with such little memory would do for a firewall. I think 64MB is right around the minimum recommended amount for most applications, with more being needed to use all features.

Now F@H or SETI with it as a (possibly even diskless and or headless) could work.

[mjc]

Smoothwall and m0n0wall both can run on that system...m0n0 would probably be the better choice.

[Erik]

It will run, but not all that great. I guess if you picked m0n0wall and didn't do anything extra it would be a decent rig for that. Once you start adding in extras (a big benefit of doing a Linux based firewall) it just won't be able to handle it.

I had one (Smoothwall 2.0) with 128MB of RAM and it took near all of that with a few extras installed.