EggXpert

Hey all. Trying to decide what to do. I posted a couple weeks ago (post subject:"Any CPU's out there for a Biostar U8668D mobo?") asking about possibly upgrading a CPU for a mobo I was considering using. Yesterday I installed that mobo, with its Celeron 1.7 CPU, and am sadly disappointed at what [lack-of] preformance I'm getting, compared to what I was getting.

Trying to determine exactly what to do, as far as keep this mobo, maybe upgrade the CPU in or go back to what I had (a PcChips M811LU ver. 3.1, with a AMD Athlon XP 2000+ CPU). Currently things are slower responsively (not hugely, but very noticeable, especially when using programs that eat heavily) - I'm quite sure it's the Celery CPU, with it only having 8kb of L1 cache & 128kb of L2, compared to my orig. Athlon CPU with its 128kb of L1 and 256kb of L2. Both run at 1.7ghz. The weird thing is though that the Celeron runs at 400mhz FSB, while the AMD only at 266... I was hoping that that would help the Celery get my whole system at least at (or beat) what I had with the old CPU preformance wise. Maybe not. Also, I was hoping that since the new mobo having a faster fsb capibility (533mhz) verses only 266 on my old board would also kick things up a bit. Maybe only with a better CPU.

Weird thing too is that when checking things out using CPU-Z, it shows the Celery CPU running a bus speed of 100mhz, with a rated FSB of 400mhz... why the first one listed at 100mhz? Is it because of the slow DDR RAM I have? Both boards list that they need PC2100 in them, which is only 133mhz. Strange thing though is that the board right now is running with 1 stick of PC2100 1gb 133mhz, and 1 stick of PC3200 512mb, 200mhz! This RAM is what I ran in the old board, and the whole system ran much noticablly faster.

Budget won't allow anything over $50, and I don't know if it would be worth it to get a better CPU or go back to what I had...cheapest new one I could find is a Pentium 4 Northwood [non-Celery] 2.8GHz 533mhz w/512 L2 cache for $75, or the same used but with 1gb L2 for $40, but I sure am nervous about buying a used CPU...

Advice? (and please don't just say to shoot the poor thing!)

Thanks

Sorry to hear about your troubles. Since your budget is so low, I would suggest you get the Pentium 4 2.8Ghz (New) processor while you can.

Edit: Northwood P4s have FSB of 800mhz. Your motherboard supports 400/533mhz FSB for the processor. I don't quite remember if the 800mhz FSB processors will work on a 400/533mhz FSB motherboard. If it does, then you can get the northwood for a little less.

PS. I've bought from that site before (a couple of 550mhz P3s that you couldn't find anywhere), and there were no problems with the site.

For a little under $100.00

 You can get an AMD Semrpon Sparta 1.8ghz

 A Jetway Nvidia NF6100 Motherboard

And A Gygabyte of Wintec AmpX Ram 

That'd be a better deal instead of getting the P4 for $75.00

Then you could sell your current parts on ebay or somewhere and use that money to put it into the new system. :) 

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I would not worry too much with a used CPU,  just check the dealers transactions and most offer DOA warranty. 

Ebay 

Yeh board says it  only goes to PC2100 anyways but sure it will overclock with right the PC3200. 

Your board supposrts p4 up to 3.0 and prescott to 2.8 with 533FSB and you are paying way to much premium for those as sometimes it is more expensive to get hold of old stock.  Search didn't find any but you could try ebay.

 GF6100-M754 (V1.0) $63.99 after $20 reabate with memory included - not much of a step up though.

100/400 deal is that intels are quad pumped I believe so 100 is 400 or 100x4. Not positive though as that is older hardware. 

For a little over $100 you can buy a new system.  Boards start around $40 and CPU at $50 but then you need memory But your PSU is most likely only 20pin and not 24 for the motherboard.

You can search Ebay and find motherboard cpu combos.

Here is one auction starting - see if they will throw in some ram Actually it supports 266-400???  Nice step up for you.  Really only one I saw that caught my eye.

You might try to hook that AMD board up again and repost here on tips on overclocking it.  As it should hit 2000mhz which would be a decent increase.   Back form the bad capcitor days so lucky if the caps aren't leaking on that one.  Not sure if the one you have now will overclock at all but it should clock to 2000 to.  If you want to try just let me know on either.