Socket 7 to Socket A upgrade ?

"Cuzman" wrote in message
...
I currently have a Socket 7 motherboard with on-board sound and on-board
ATI
Pro Rage graphics, AMD K6-2 475Mhz CPU, 512MB PC100 SDRAM (2 x 256MB
DIMM),
Seagate 13Gb hard drive.

I'm happy with my ATX case, DVD / CDRW drives, floppy drive, hard drive,
SDRAM (it runs PC133 and PC100), and my power supply.

I need a "temporary" upgrade that allows me to play the more
resource-hungry
games on the market at the moment, before I buy a completely new set-up
later this year. I'm planning on buying a good Socket A motherboard with
AMD Athlon 1800XP to 2400XP (whatever is going on eBay for a good deal),
heatsink and fan, and with on-board graphics and sound. The queries I
have
are.....

1. Will it fit in my case?

2.. Will I need to buy a different power supply unit?

3. Do I simply switch the motherboards, connect it all up and then switch
on the PC?

4. Will I need to configure the Bios? Or will it all be set as standard
already?

Any advice on specific motherboards would also be appreciated.



first off, are you sure your present socket7 motherboard is an ATX
they are usually the xt/at formfactor

at any rate, considering the amount of work you need to do to replace the
motherboard
and reconfigure your OS
why make an upgrade now when you are going to do so again in a few months

you will be wasting a lot of time and money

On Thu, 17 Jul 2003 21:31:54 +0100, "Cuzman"
wrote:

I currently have a Socket 7 motherboard with on-board sound and on-board ATI
Pro Rage graphics, AMD K6-2 475Mhz CPU, 512MB PC100 SDRAM (2 x 256MB DIMM),
Seagate 13Gb hard drive.

I'm happy with my ATX case, DVD / CDRW drives, floppy drive, hard drive,
SDRAM (it runs PC133 and PC100), and my power supply.

I need a "temporary" upgrade that allows me to play the more resource-hungry
games on the market at the moment, before I buy a completely new set-up
later this year. I'm planning on buying a good Socket A motherboard with
AMD Athlon 1800XP to 2400XP (whatever is going on eBay for a good deal),
heatsink and fan, and with on-board graphics and sound. The queries I have
are.....

A good deal on ebay is generally just the same deal found elsewhere
but older parts or after a middleman's markup... I'd try Newegg.com.

1. Will it fit in my case?

Maybe. Consider whether it's a full ATX or mATX... buy the
appropriate sized board. The new board/CPU will produce a lot more
heat, it's fairly safe to assume you'll need to increase the airflow
with an additional fan or two... if the case can't accomodate at least
one 80mm fan in addition to the one on the power supply, I'd abandon
the case and buy a new one.

2.. Will I need to buy a different power supply unit?

How can we know when you didn't list the make/model/capacity of your
current power supply? If it's a very good power supply it may be
fine, otherwise I'd replace it with at least a name-brand 300W.
Newegg.com also has good deals on Sparkle/Fortron Power supplies, very
reasonably priced in the 300-350W range.

3. Do I simply switch the motherboards, connect it all up and then switch
on the PC?

"Connect it all up" is a pretty comprehensive description, so yes, be
sure you connect it ALL up.

If your OS is Win95,98/SE, ME, you can plug-n-play the new board and
be done in 10 minutes. If it's NT/2K/XP then you need to do a repair
install by booting to the CDROM.

If you don't mind losing your data/application installs, you might
want to backup data and do a fresh OS install instead, it's the
simplier route but takes longer considering reinstalling everything,
and "usually"t not really necessary.

4. Will I need to configure the Bios? Or will it all be set as standard
already?

If you feel comfortable configuring a BIOS, configure it. If you
don't, don't. You may need do a minimal amount of configuration
anyway, like setting the processor/northbridge FSB to the correct
value, as often it defaults to the lowest possible value to allow ALL
possible processors to POST the first time. Just change what you
KNOW you need to and leave the rest at defaults, or do some online
searching for tweaks/tips for the particular motherboard.

Any advice on specific motherboards would also be appreciated.

You want a board with integrated graphics to play games... That's
been a contradiction for many years, only recently there's a
moderately quick integrated graphic chipset, nForce2. There are a
number of different manufacturers to consider at differing
price-points & feature sets.

You'll want a processor using DDR333 FSB, very good PC3200 memory, and
if you buy a lower-speed processor with some overclocking headroom you
can increase the FSB and memory bus synchronously (both at same speed)
to increase the performance of the integrated graphics. It'll yield
the performance of a Geforce 4 MX, more or less, since that's what it
is.

Since you plan on buying a better system later this year, I suggest a
motherboard without integrated graphics and buying the video card for
the NEXT system, now, but since it'll produce more heat and need an
even better PSU, it's more likely to require a case and PSU upgrade.


Dave