Re: A7A266

In article <3o510lF46sehU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "tigger"
<blackie944cat@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> a very newbie on MoBo's. This board has never been updated. If
> i flash the BIOS with V1012 i can use up to a Athlon XP 2600+.
> now the question is, if i wanted to use an even higher CPU, say
> a P4, but keep all the same memory, cards, slots etc, what MoBo
> could i use?
>
> all i want to do is take out old board, put in new board and
> upgraded cpu, insert all cards etc that i have and press the
> on button.
>
> hope that makes sense
> regards

You picked the perfect motherboard to ask that question :-)
The A7A266 has both SDRAM and DDR RAM slots. You are trying
to preserve one or the other, but since you didn't mention
the RAM type...

I bought a P4B a few years back, as I wanted to preserve my
SDRAM. You'll need an older FSB400 S478 P4 processor to go with
that, and that means no Prescotts or Celeron-D processors.
The AGP slot is 1.5V only, so you cannot reuse a 3.3V only
video card. If your current video card supports at least
AGP 4X, it should be OK.

http://support.asus.com.tw/cpusupport/cpu_support_right.aspx?type=1&model_name=p4b&SLanguage=en-us

If you have DDR RAM, that means you get to move ahead one
generation. P4C800/P4P800 family or a P5P800 support DDR, and
are quite flexible about it. They are all AGP motherboards, but
again, no 3.3V-only video cards will work. The first pair of
motherboards are S478, and handle just about anything in
that form factor. The P5P800 is LGA775 socket, which is
the current generation of single core processors.

http://support.asus.com.tw/cpusupport/cpu_support_right.aspx?type=1&model_name=p4p800-e%20deluxe&SLanguage=en-us
http://support.asus.com.tw/cpusupport/cpu_support_right.aspx?type=1&model_name=p5p800&SLanguage=en-us

Seriously, if you are planning on upgrading, I'd toss your
current RAM, and buy some DDR. (You are only going to find
the P4B board on Ebay, and finding a processor for it could
be a challenge as well. Powerleap.com might have a FSB400
processor, but it won't be cheap.)

The cheapest I see on Pricewatch, is $41 a stick for DDR
PC3200 512MB Elixir. Two of those sticks will be a good match
for a dual channel motherboard, and bring you a little further
along. (If you are using Win98/Win98SE, you might want to
investigate the memory limits of the OS, which is 512MB with
no problems whatsoever, and up to 1GB with a little fiddling
of the boot.ini .)

For a new P4 board, you'll need an ATX power supply with the
12V connector on it. The P4B motherboard has a disk drive
connector, that you can use as a substitute for the +12V
connector, if you don't want to buy a new power supply. But,
what you cannot avoid, is the power consumption spec - the
label on the power supply should say it can supply at least
12V @ 15A , as that is a good minimum rating for a computer
without a lot of "toys" installed in it. If you own eight
disk drives, you'll need more current than that.

And, to state the obvious, there are a lot of little gotchas
to watch for, when changing to a newer generation of hardware.
After all, the industry has strived hard, to make you throw
away as much hardware as they can manage. Once you have a
better idea of what you want to buy, download the PDF version
of the user manual, and read it. If you have any questions
about what you are seeing, post them here. That way, maybe
there'll be no surprises when the cardboard boxes arrive.

This page will tell you a lot about AGP, so you'll be able
to match up your video card with the motherboard:

http://www.playtool.com/pages/agpcompat/agp.html

Paul
.

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