Upgrade old PPGA MoBo w/ Lin-Lin 370 to FC-PGA or ... ?

Upgrade old PPGA MoBo w/ Lin-Lin 370 to FC-PGA or ... ?

I've got an old Abit ZM6 MoBo designed for a Celeron PPGA CPU. I has
the Intel i440BX/ZX chipset. Currently I have a Celeron (Mendocino)
400 OC'd to 550mhz w/ 100FSB very stable.

I noticed these new Lin-Lin 370 slotket adapters.

They say they can convert:

FC-PGA - FC-PGA2

Also they claim to convert:

PPGA - FC-PGA

Which should bring me up to a Coppermine in the 533-1100mhz range?

Since they don't mention going from PPGA - FC-PGA2 I presume a PGA2
(tualatin?) is not an option?

Do I need to still stick w/ a Celeron or is a PIII an option to
consider given my MoBo?

I need to double check the voltage/multiplier options or range in my
BIOS but I think this MoBo supports that.

thanks!

On Sat, 26 Jun 2004 00:35:49 -0500, pgtr wrote:

Upgrade old PPGA MoBo w/ Lin-Lin 370 to FC-PGA or ... ?

I've got an old Abit ZM6 MoBo designed for a Celeron PPGA CPU. I has
the Intel i440BX/ZX chipset. Currently I have a Celeron (Mendocino)
400 OC'd to 550mhz w/ 100FSB very stable.

You are extraordinary... most people would end up with 600MHz if
they o'c that chip to 100MHz FSB. If you had a Celeron 366, it
would be more ordinary.

I noticed these new Lin-Lin 370 slotket adapters.

These? Where are these?
Not to nitpick but, there are more adapters than i can shake a
stick at. For the sake of continuance, let's assume it's a great
adapter and will do as well as any adapter could be expected to,
and provides needed documentation towards that end.

They say they can convert:

FC-PGA - FC-PGA2

Also they claim to convert:

PPGA - FC-PGA

Which should bring me up to a Coppermine in the 533-1100mhz range?

Yes, that's the right range but be aware that from 900MHz and up
there was overlap, there were FCPGA2 Tualatins in that range too.

The slotket "can" work but there are other factors too.
For example, the m'board bios has to like it... Asus were pretty
good about bios updates, support for further CPUs, so unless this
is an OEM board, that is, has a custom OEM bios, you might try
updating to latest Asus bios... try it anyway even if it IS an
OEM board, if you think it'll work (your risk, I don't know).
Flash bios before swapping the CPUs.

Then there's voltage support. Some boards didn't support below
1.8V... maybe yours does, maybe not, but it needs to, or at least
you need a slotket that can be manually set to 1.8V, IF that's
the situation. If the board already supports lower, it's not a
problem. The lowest Coppermine voltage possible, IIRC, was 1.5V.
There is a good chance the board supports it, but you need to
know ahead of time.


Since they don't mention going from PPGA - FC-PGA2 I presume a PGA2
(tualatin?) is not an option?

Probably not. One might question how important it is to keep
using the board though, since buying a sloket adapter and CPU
(unless you already had the CPU) is (relatively speaking) a lot
of money to only get the board up to 1.1GHz with a Coppermine
Celery which only has 128K L2 cache. IMHO, you might be better
off to hunt down a board that'd natively support Tualatins
instead. A board that'd support Tualatins (thinking mainly of a
Via 694T chipset based board) has a number of advantages,
including:

AGP 4X Universal, supports all newer video cards in addition to
the oldest, and at 4X rate it's not much of a performance
penalty.

High Density Memory support, for at least 1GB (if only two slots
on the board that is) , which is cheaper memory too.

ATA66 or ATA100, since your board's ATA33 is a significant
bottleneck to any modern HDD, and may make the largest difference
in perceived speed for everyday use.

More than 2 USB ports, even if they're only USB1.1


Do I need to still stick w/ a Celeron or is a PIII an option to
consider given my MoBo?

If a Coppermine Celeron will work, so should a Coppermine PIII,
provided it's the 100MHz FSB version, since your board
technically doesn't support 133MHz FSB. Some people used to o'c
their boards to 133FSB, but it could cause instability and/or AGP
problems... better to stick with 100MHz FSB CPU, then since you
already demonstrated that you're not against overclocking, you
can see if the board will tolerate bumping the FSB up some, like
to 110MHz. So towards that end the highest performance would be
starting out with a cD0 stepping Celeron 1.1GHz. The earlier cC0
stepping was less likely to o'c very far past 1.1GHz.


I need to double check the voltage/multiplier options or range in my
BIOS but I think this MoBo supports that.

Multiplier is not _usually_ a problem, the board does not
actually need to support the multiplier. The board only sets the
FSB and voltage rate, any attempt to set or change the multiplier
will simply be ignored by the CPU. No matter what multi you set,
it'll still run at default muti that Intel set at the factory, or
not POST at all till you set it back to "auto".

On Sat, 26 Jun 2004 08:27:17 GMT, kony wrote:

On Sat, 26 Jun 2004 00:35:49 -0500, pgtr wrote:

Upgrade old PPGA MoBo w/ Lin-Lin 370 to FC-PGA or ... ?

I've got an old Abit ZM6 MoBo designed for a Celeron PPGA CPU. I has
the Intel i440BX/ZX chipset. Currently I have a Celeron (Mendocino)
400 OC'd to 550mhz w/ 100FSB very stable.

You are extraordinary... most people would end up with 600MHz if
they o'c that chip to 100MHz FSB. If you had a Celeron 366, it
would be more ordinary.

Maybe it is a 366 - that was so many years ago I don't remember.

I noticed these new Lin-Lin 370 slotket adapters.

These? Where are these?
Not to nitpick but, there are more adapters than i can shake a
stick at. For the sake of continuance, let's assume it's a great
adapter and will do as well as any adapter could be expected to,
and provides needed documentation towards that end.

The only other ones I'm familiar w/ are the rather expensive
PowerLeaps.

They say they can convert:

FC-PGA - FC-PGA2

Also they claim to convert:

PPGA - FC-PGA

Which should bring me up to a Coppermine in the 533-1100mhz range?

Yes, that's the right range but be aware that from 900MHz and up
there was overlap, there were FCPGA2 Tualatins in that range too.

What is the differentiator between Tualatin and Coppermine - is it the
..13, .18 respectively? But what functional differences (voltage?)
causes the newer Tualatins to not be happy on older boards?


The slotket "can" work but there are other factors too.
For example, the m'board bios has to like it... Asus were pretty
good about bios updates, support for further CPUs, so unless this
is an OEM board, that is, has a custom OEM bios, you might try
updating to latest Asus bios... try it anyway even if it IS an
OEM board, if you think it'll work (your risk, I don't know).
Flash bios before swapping the CPUs.

Too risky for me ;o) but it does have the last BIOS ABit offered from
a couple years ago.

Then there's voltage support. Some boards didn't support below
1.8V... maybe yours does, maybe not, but it needs to, or at least
you need a slotket that can be manually set to 1.8V, IF that's

THe BIOS on the board shows values between 1.3V and 2.3V in 0.05V
increments.

the situation. If the board already supports lower, it's not a
problem. The lowest Coppermine voltage possible, IIRC, was 1.5V.
There is a good chance the board supports it, but you need to
know ahead of time.

Well the BIOS 'says' it does so hopefully it will do what it says ;o)

Since they don't mention going from PPGA - FC-PGA2 I presume a PGA2
(tualatin?) is not an option?

Probably not. One might question how important it is to keep
using the board though, since buying a sloket adapter and CPU
(unless you already had the CPU) is (relatively speaking) a lot
of money to only get the board up to 1.1GHz with a Coppermine
Celery which only has 128K L2 cache. IMHO, you might be better
off to hunt down a board that'd natively support Tualatins

I can pick up a Lin-Lin 370 adapter for between $1-$7 from compgeeks
or ebay or whatever. I don't know offhand what Celerons are running
but probably $10-$20ish in the 850...10000 speed range - just a guess.

instead. A board that'd support Tualatins (thinking mainly of a
Via 694T chipset based board) has a number of advantages,
including:

AGP 4X Universal, supports all newer video cards in addition to
the oldest, and at 4X rate it's not much of a performance
penalty.

High Density Memory support, for at least 1GB (if only two slots
on the board that is) , which is cheaper memory too.

ATA66 or ATA100, since your board's ATA33 is a significant
bottleneck to any modern HDD, and may make the largest difference
in perceived speed for everyday use.

More than 2 USB ports, even if they're only USB1.1

Yes yes and yes! If I can do this on a cheap w/ a Celeron it might be
worth popping for a cheapo Celeron but on second thought it's not
worth the added expense of a PIII. Those are all valid bottlenecks on
a ZM6.

BTW Any good boards you like from say recent years? ABit VH6T?

Do I need to still stick w/ a Celeron or is a PIII an option to
consider given my MoBo?

If a Coppermine Celeron will work, so should a Coppermine PIII,
provided it's the 100MHz FSB version, since your board
technically doesn't support 133MHz FSB. Some people used to o'c
their boards to 133FSB, but it could cause instability and/or AGP
problems... better to stick with 100MHz FSB CPU, then since you
already demonstrated that you're not against overclocking, you
can see if the board will tolerate bumping the FSB up some, like
to 110MHz. So towards that end the highest performance would be
starting out with a cD0 stepping Celeron 1.1GHz. The earlier cC0
stepping was less likely to o'c very far past 1.1GHz.

Heh heh - this old board and periphs are probably pretty well maxed
out at 100.


I need to double check the voltage/multiplier options or range in my
BIOS but I think this MoBo supports that.

Multiplier is not _usually_ a problem, the board does not
actually need to support the multiplier. The board only sets the
FSB and voltage rate, any attempt to set or change the multiplier
will simply be ignored by the CPU. No matter what multi you set,
it'll still run at default muti that Intel set at the factory, or
not POST at all till you set it back to "auto".

I don't recall offhand but I think on my BIOS I need to be able to set
the multiplier in BIOS to 'agree' w/ the chip is all. Otherwise it
won't be happy w/ a mismatch w/ the chips locked multiplier...?

Thanks for the detailed response! Much appreciated.

On Sat, 26 Jun 2004 12:39:53 -0500, pgtr wrote:


The only other ones I'm familiar w/ are the rather expensive
PowerLeaps.

It depends on what your board needs, whether it'd run a cheaper
adapter. Some only swap pin-locations and/or isolate pins, which
will work on some motherboards but not others. IIRC, that should
be all your board needs if it supports CPU voltage under 1.8V, or
if you can figure out the jumpers for a higher voltage (they are
undocumented and I don't know). Following adapter is one I had
in a motherboard that supported Coppermines but allowed using
Tualatins. Board was a Via 694X chipset, and other 694X
chipsetted boards also worked, but a cheap miniATX Sis 620
chipset board wouldn't work.

http://www.tigersurplus.com/details....ductid=4B-1202
Backtrack to their homepage to order it, the 'site isn't very
laid out in that regard, http://www.tigersurplus.com/




What is the differentiator between Tualatin and Coppermine - is it the
.13, .18 respectively? But what functional differences (voltage?)
causes the newer Tualatins to not be happy on older boards?

Yes the Tualatins were .13 and the L2 cache on the Celerons was
doubled, so a 1.4GHz Celeron was effectively the same as if a
PIII Coppermine could run at 1.4GHz (albeit on 100MHz FSB).

Tualatin PIII can in both same amount of L2 cache as the
Celerons and againt doubled, but they were so expensive to be
cost-prohibitive, best used in a 1U rackmount server instead of a
PC.

The other difference was of a few pin positions, Intel purposely
designed it to be (barely) pin-incompatible even though it used
same socket. Some boards can use both Coppermine and Tualatin
because those boards are engineered to overcome this, but I don't
know exactly how they accomplish it.


The slotket "can" work but there are other factors too.
For example, the m'board bios has to like it... Asus were pretty
good about bios updates, support for further CPUs, so unless this
is an OEM board, that is, has a custom OEM bios, you might try
updating to latest Asus bios... try it anyway even if it IS an
OEM board, if you think it'll work (your risk, I don't know).
Flash bios before swapping the CPUs.

Too risky for me ;o) but it does have the last BIOS ABit offered from
a couple years ago.

Then there's voltage support. Some boards didn't support below
1.8V... maybe yours does, maybe not, but it needs to, or at least
you need a slotket that can be manually set to 1.8V, IF that's

THe BIOS on the board shows values between 1.3V and 2.3V in 0.05V
increments.

Well then, your having a good brand of motherboard may've paid
off, it is most likely you can just use the cheap slotket adapter
I linked above, or if you're adventurous and daring, it "might"
be possible to hack out a way to run a Tualatin on our board
without even an adapter.


http://www.geocities.com/_lunchbox/t...n_zm6_mod.html

Look around the rest of that website and the links, there is a
lot of good info about not only a Tualatin mod for your board,
but pin differences and using Coppermines on BX/ZX, etc.


I can pick up a Lin-Lin 370 adapter for between $1-$7 from compgeeks
or ebay or whatever. I don't know offhand what Celerons are running
but probably $10-$20ish in the 850...10000 speed range - just a guess.

OK, I now realize that the Lin-Lin is probably the exact same
adapter I linked above.



instead. A board that'd support Tualatins (thinking mainly of a
Via 694T chipset based board) has a number of advantages,
including:

AGP 4X Universal, supports all newer video cards in addition to
the oldest, and at 4X rate it's not much of a performance
penalty.

High Density Memory support, for at least 1GB (if only two slots
on the board that is) , which is cheaper memory too.

ATA66 or ATA100, since your board's ATA33 is a significant
bottleneck to any modern HDD, and may make the largest difference
in perceived speed for everyday use.

More than 2 USB ports, even if they're only USB1.1

Yes yes and yes! If I can do this on a cheap w/ a Celeron it might be
worth popping for a cheapo Celeron but on second thought it's not
worth the added expense of a PIII. Those are all valid bottlenecks on
a ZM6.

BTW Any good boards you like from say recent years? ABit VH6T?

My experience with boards starting out with native Tualatin
support is limited, because I had a bunch of Coppermine
Compatible boards already and through mods or adapter they ran
Tualatins. Now I only have one or two Tualatin-based systems
left. However, the change to support Tualatin was very minor
from a motherboard manufacturer's perspective, if a given company
made a Coppermine-supportive board that received good reviews,
it's a good bet that their later Tualatin-compatible version is
the same good board reborn. By the time Tualatins became
somewhat common the industry had moved on to popularizing Athlons
because they had a small performance lead, as it is so often in
the industry only the "winner" gets the glory. So there were
many reviews and users with the Coppermine era boards but fewer
with Tualatin supportive version.

Similarly I also moved on to Athlons but it was also partly
because near same cost Athlon could be overclocked to much
higher performance.

Overclocking is an issue though, Some Tualatins overclocked
pretty well, it was common to buy a 1-1.1GHz and expect it to run
on 133MHz FSB as 1.3-1.4GHz @ roughly 1.65V with only a modest,
cheap, quiet heatsink.

Basically you should be OK choosing any of the major name brands
like Gigabyte, MSI, Asus, Abit. Just investigate whether the
board's bios or jumpers provide o'c settings if you'd like to use
any. As I mentioned the typical target o'c would need settings
for only 133MHz FSB and 1.65V... some only needed 1.6, others
1.7, but that's the range needed.


Do I need to still stick w/ a Celeron or is a PIII an option to
consider given my MoBo?

If a Coppermine Celeron will work, so should a Coppermine PIII,
provided it's the 100MHz FSB version, since your board
technically doesn't support 133MHz FSB. Some people used to o'c
their boards to 133FSB, but it could cause instability and/or AGP
problems... better to stick with 100MHz FSB CPU, then since you
already demonstrated that you're not against overclocking, you
can see if the board will tolerate bumping the FSB up some, like
to 110MHz. So towards that end the highest performance would be
starting out with a cD0 stepping Celeron 1.1GHz. The earlier cC0
stepping was less likely to o'c very far past 1.1GHz.

Heh heh - this old board and periphs are probably pretty well maxed
out at 100.

It was pretty popular for a while, since a BX board overclocked
to 133MHz was faster than the alternatives that came after it, at
least until manufacturers started tweaking the BIOS on the Via
694X based boards.



I need to double check the voltage/multiplier options or range in my
BIOS but I think this MoBo supports that.

Multiplier is not _usually_ a problem, the board does not
actually need to support the multiplier. The board only sets the
FSB and voltage rate, any attempt to set or change the multiplier
will simply be ignored by the CPU. No matter what multi you set,
it'll still run at default muti that Intel set at the factory, or
not POST at all till you set it back to "auto".

I don't recall offhand but I think on my BIOS I need to be able to set
the multiplier in BIOS to 'agree' w/ the chip is all. Otherwise it
won't be happy w/ a mismatch w/ the chips locked multiplier...?

I don't know. Usually there is an "auto" setting but I don't
recall any specifics about that board. Since the "lunchbox" site
I linked above shows the mod for Tualatins, I have to assume it
worked, somehow without anything difficult enough to need
mentioned, else the whole mod would be pointless, not exist on
the 'site. One way or the other it should work but if this is
your only system the problem becomes doing the research to
resolve a problem if the system is down.