Upgrading an ancient system

[debianne]

Hi All. I am helping my neighbor to upgrade his pc. He has an ancient NEC Ready 9730. It is currently equipped with 32MB of RAM and has a 166MHz CPU. He's on a fixed income (retired) and I'm trying to give him a bit of boost for about $50.

How fast of a cpu can I put on this motherboard? The manual only lists up to a 200MHz. But that may be all that had been available at that time. Anyway, I'm getting lost in the slot blah,blah jargon when I looked at old CPU's. The manual gives me zero guidelines on if the mother board can accept a "slot 1" type or a "socket 7" type. It does tell me how to remove/install a cpu chip but I don't see any of the socket mumbo jumbo.

If I upgrade the RAM to 96 and the cpu to 200, will it be noticeably faster (without using a stopwatch) or am I going thru this motion for nothing? Will this configuration allow him to get a dsl connection?

Thanks!

Debbie Erickson http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

[Steve]

Hi Debianne,

Yes. If you increase the RAM to 96 and the CPU to 200mhz it will be a noticeable upgrade. Most of the difference will come with the extra RAM. If you want to stick to the $50 price, you might be better off just adding the RAM. Those old SIMMs seem to be getting expensive.

A 200mhz chip is as far as I would go unless the documentation says otherwise. The Intel 200mhz chip with MMX will be noticable. The multi media ability is worth while. I think you can get these chips for about $30.

HERE'S (http://216.218.222.2/cen/N6379.htm) some more info.

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Peace and Love, brothers and sisters. Peace and Love

[This message has been edited by Steve (edited 05-10-2002).]

[hiredgoonz]

Find out what chipset it has before you upgrade the ram beyond 64mb...all but one of the intel pentium chipsets suffered a performance hit over 64mb. I can never remember which one doesn't...if it's a via, sis or other chipset, you should be fine over 64mb...

If it is a socket 7 mobo, you may be able to get it to run an AMD K6-2 at 400mhz...the K6-2 was designed to interpret a multiplier setting of 2x as 6x So if you stick any K6-2 chip 400-550mhz in there, set the multiplier to 2x and the voltage as low as it will go...and you'll be running at 400mhz (6 x 66 = 400)

More info here: http://www.romulus2.com/articles/guides/newlife/newlife.htm

The voltage issue is most important...the K6-2 at 450mhz and 475mhz that are marked AHX are designed for 2.4v. These would be the best to get, as they would be closest to the voltage settings likely available on your board.

In any event, if you go this route, a heatsink with a fan is a must because you'll be running over stock voltage. Don't worry too much though, I ran a K6-2 at 2.5 volts for a long time with no problems and had it set as high as 2.9v just to see what it would overclock to...

If you don't want to try the K6-2, see if the board supports a multiplier of 3.5...this would allow you to use a 233mmx...

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When all else fails, read the instructions.

Microsoft Knowledge Base (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;rid;kbinfo)

Drivers (http://www.driverguide.com)

Google (http://www.google.com)

[Steve48]

Hello,

I agree fully with everything said so far http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif However, you should really consult the motherboard manual to see if indeed you can put more than 64 megs of memory in it! I have a older 133MHZ system that only allows up to 64 MHZ (Which was a lot of memory in its day!)


Good Luck,
Steve

[Steve]

If you look at the link I provided you'll see that the manufacturer says it'll take up to 128meg. Am I missing something?

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Peace and Love, brothers and sisters. Peace and Love

[hiredgoonz]

Most pentium boards will take more than 64mb of ram, however, you will suffer a major performance drop if you upgrade past 64mb. Only one intel pentium chipset had enough tag ram to cache over 64mb of ram, so any ram over 64mb would be cached VERY slowly. Due to the "top-down" memory loading of windows, you would be accessing all your system files at a snail's pace...

It's the 430HX that can cache more than 64mb...

------------------
When all else fails, read the instructions.

Microsoft Knowledge Base (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;rid;kbinfo)

Drivers (http://www.driverguide.com)

Google (http://www.google.com)

[Steve]

I see, said the blind man. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/wink.gif

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Peace and Love, brothers and sisters. Peace and Love

[joea64]

Coming in late, but I just wanted to reinforce the point several others have made:

Stick to 64 MB for that motherboard. My secondary system (which I fall back on whenever my primary is virus-infected or having heat problems http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif ) is an "ancient" Dell Dimension XPS Pro 180n that's had its original Pentium Pro 180 CPU replaced by a Pentium Pro Overdrive CPU clocked to 333 mhz. That system has 64 MB, and even though it can take up to 128 MB, 64 MB is, as with most mobos of the period, all it can reasonably take without suffering real performance hits under Windows 9x (that system runs Win95B). It's just as well I have my trusty Duron, because I've upgraded _that_ other sucker as far as it can possibly go...

-Joe-

Originally posted by debianne:
Hi All. I am helping my neighbor to upgrade his pc. He has an ancient NEC Ready 9730. It is currently equipped with 32MB of RAM and has a 166MHz CPU. He's on a fixed income (retired) and I'm trying to give him a bit of boost for about $50.

How fast of a cpu can I put on this motherboard? The manual only lists up to a 200MHz. But that may be all that had been available at that time. Anyway, I'm getting lost in the slot blah,blah jargon when I looked at old CPU's. The manual gives me zero guidelines on if the mother board can accept a "slot 1" type or a "socket 7" type. It does tell me how to remove/install a cpu chip but I don't see any of the socket mumbo jumbo.

If I upgrade the RAM to 96 and the cpu to 200, will it be noticeably faster (without using a stopwatch) or am I going thru this motion for nothing? Will this configuration allow him to get a dsl connection?

Thanks!

Debbie Erickson http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif



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Alternate email: joea64@yahoo.com