Re: Upgrading Chaintech mobo?

On 8 Feb, 10:24, Chris Whelan <cawhe...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
treenoa...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
I've an old pc with a Chaintech 7AJA motherboard. I'm trying to work
out if it's upgradeable enough to use as a test PC for working out the
best multi-booting setup for WinXP, Linux and even perhaps Vista. It
wouldn't have to run too well under Vista, just boot into it.

The motherboard currently has a Socket A, AMD Athlon (Thunderbird)
900Mhz CPU
The memory at present is a mere 127MB. I can get this upgraded to a
full complement of Crucial SDRAM (1.5GB) for just over a 100quid,
which may be worth the trouble and expense if it's possible to upgrade
the CPU by a significant amount. I did read that it may be possible to
fit a mobile variety of CPU to gain best performance.

Is there a way I can check for sure the maximum upgrade capacity of
this motherboard, or can anyone please advise me on the same?
--
Regards,
*** Treen

There's not much info on Chaintech's site, that's for sure!

Best I could find is here:

http://www.motherboard.cz/mb/chaintech/CT-7AJA.htm

Thanks for that, it's a great source of info.

The limitation is the 200MHz FSB. I seem to recall that the fastest Athlon
that runs that bus speed was a 1400, but finding a second hand one may be
difficult. Most of the 1400's are 266MHz FSB.

Best I've found is a 1300 but I don't think this offers much more than
I've already got.

There is no way that I would spend 100UKP on this! Find a couple of 256MB
PC133's on eBay and Memtest them.

I'll take your advice on that.

The AGP slot is only x4. IMHO, that alone rules out Vista. I've found that
Vista is sluggish on a box with an Athlon XP3200 and 1GB RAM, so I would
not even consider trying it.

Using the existing CPU and 512MB RAM, it would run XP acceptably. (FSVO
acceptable, obviously!) It would run a modern Linux disto, even with KDE,
very well; in fact I have a box sitting next to me with a 1000Mhz P3 and
512MB PC133 RAM that runs PCLinuxOS perfectly well.

I'm reaching the stage where the computers I do have need to justify
their existence.
What, with power bills increasing and the wife complaining that the
only room without a computer is the loo.
(I don't think she means that she wants one in there).

HTH

Chris

--
Remove prejudice to reply.

Thanks for the info,
--
Regards,
*** Treen
.