Upgrading an old old dell's cpu questions

Scruff

Bit of a blast from the past this but anyway....
i got an old dell pc with a p2 266 slot 1 cpu in it. The manuals and jumpers say it can be upgraded to a p2 450, which i've got.
2 things:

1) i replaced the 266 with the 450 and set the jumpers accordingly but the pc wont even boot. I put the p450 back into the machine i got it from and it works fine. replaced the 266 and reset jumpers and that works fine. why wont it even boot with the 450?

2)Can you replace the heatsinks that come attached to the p2 cartridges? they're attached to the front of the cartridge by what looks like 4 metal plugs.
The 266 has a much better heatsink+fan than the 450 that i'd like to swap.

Johnny Storm

Believe me...i'm no expert: but are both CPUs expecting the same FSB speed?

Ferror

Scruff wrote:

Bit of a blast from the past this but anyway....
i got an old dell pc with a p2 266 slot 1 cpu in it. The manuals and jumpers say it can be upgraded to a p2 450, which i've got.
2 things:

1) i replaced the 266 with the 450 and set the jumpers accordingly but the pc wont even boot. I put the p450 back into the machine i got it from and it works fine. replaced the 266 and reset jumpers and that works fine. why wont it even boot with the 450?

2)Can you replace the heatsinks that come attached to the p2 cartridges? they're attached to the front of the cartridge by what looks like 4 metal plugs.
The 266 has a much better heatsink+fan than the 450 that i'd like to swap.

Should work ok, make sure the core voltage is set right for starters (later gen are lower voltage), and that cpu fsb is intel's default (the 450 is likely an early p3 so this is kinda inportant)..
The heat sinks are interchangable without too much fuss, the fan is generally part of the same heatsink assembly, swap the whole thing...

RicardoSmith

PII - 266mhz/ fsb 66mhz/ 2.8v / multiplier x4
PII - 450mhz/ fsb of 100mhz / 2.0v / multiplier x4.5
PIII - 450mhz/ fsb 100mhz / 2.0v / multiplier x4.5

On the Dell GX1's I think theres a set of jumpers with 233/266/300/350/400/450/500/550 etc marked on them. There should also be one marked auto. I think you need to set that one. Or 450 if its there.

I think it autodetects the volts, you can't change it on a Dell anyway. The FSB isn't in the BIOS either, you need to get the jumpers on the board, as that sets the multiplier and the volts.

You might also need to flash the bios but that might be for later PIII CPUs and celerons. I used the intel A07 bios, but you'd have to check which is right for the machine you are working on. Which you haven't told us.

You can swap the HSF on both. But its tricky to squeeze out the pins without breaking them. If you do end up breaking them, you could always use some other means of attaching them. I've used plastic ties in the past. Most of these can be run with a passive HS once theres decent cooling in the case.

Johnny Storm

Here's a link to a page I found useful when I wanted to upgrade my 1998 Dell
http://www.roberthancock.com/dell/

Also - my advice is dont reflash your BIOS unless you actually have to - it can go very wrong through no fault of yours.

Scruff

cheers all:

here's what it says in the manual for the g1's jumpers i downloaded from dell:
BUS66M Reserved (do not change).
266MHZ* Jumpered when the microprocessor's internal speed is 266 MHz.
300MHZ* Jumpered when the microprocessor's internal speed is 300 MHz.
333MHZ* Jumpered when the microprocessor's internal speed is 333 MHz.
350MHZ* Jumpered when the microprocessor's internal speed is 350 MHz.
400MHZ* Jumpered when the microprocessor's internal speed is 400 MHz.
450MHZ* Jumpered when the microprocessor's internal speed is 450 MHz.

* One set of the speed jumper pins must have a jumper plug installed; otherwise, the system will operate at an undetermined speed.

so it looks like if i do update it with the latest bios it might work. i'd be happy enough for the time bieng if i could get the 450 to work. No point trying to put in anything faster if its not even recongnising a cpu its supposed to support.
I'm not sure if the crappy 145Watt psu could support much more seeing as i've 2 hd in it but i have a p3 700 100mhz fsb lying around doing nothing that i might tinker with at a later date....

RicardoSmith

DON'T INSTALL THE LATEST BIOS!!!!!

The latest bios locks you out of some processor options. Theres a specific one that lets you use other processors. You can put up to a Celeron 1.4ghz in SOME of these machines. (it depends on which version you have)

Get the one you have working first, before mucking around with the BIOS. Do you know for sure that the 450 is working itself?

Check out some of these links.

http://www.angelfire.com/wy/DellOPTIPLEX/CPU.htm
http://delltalk.us.dell.com/supportforums/board?board.id=oplex_upgrade
http://delltalk.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=oplex_upgrade&message.id=2816&query.id=149276#M2816
http://www.powerleap.com/SlotWonder.html

Scruff

Ok, the latest bios is A10 so i wont use that. From looking at those links it seems that they say to use A09. i have A06 atm.
I'm 100% sure the 450 is working cause i stuck it back into the pc i took it out of and it booted up fine.

The thing is its not even posting in the dell. something werid is happening, when i put in the 450 the on\off button wont even power on the system. i disconnected the extra hd and the cd rom and still nothning.

kmb

Is there a chance the pin out for the connector for the fan is laid out different?.IE The thermal sensor on the wrong pin?Would this cause sytem to not boot?

regds kieran

Scruff

i tried to fool it by leaving the original plugged in even though it wsnt attached to the heatsink on the 450's heat sink.
Ye see the reason i asked about being able to swap heatsinks is because the original 266 has a fan attached to the side of the heatsink where as the p450 just has a passive heatsink and relied on a shroud to feed air from a fan attached to the cassis fo colling. jaysus this is getting messy

RicardoSmith

Well is it a PII or a PIII. In either case the A06 BIOS might not support it. Don't worry about the PSU, its plenty for most things. That mega watts PSU myth always misleads people. I had a 370 Celeron 500 and 700 on a GX1's in the past using a slot1/socket370 adapter. You do realise that even once you get this working is still going to be slower than a very slow thing moving slowly.

I've a PII400 cpu you can have if you want it aswell. The heatsinks are easy to swap. Once you don't break them. As I remember you don't need a fan connected for it to boot. Thats a safety feature that AMD systems had.

Scruff

RicardoSmith wrote:

Well is it a PII or a PIII. In either case the A06 BIOS might not support it.

its a PII

You do realise that even once you get this working is still going to be slower than a very slow thing moving slowly.

oh i do but this isnt my pc, its my parents and is only used for typing and printing the odd document, limited web browsing and sending emails. The only reason i'm upgrading it is because i use it to browse the web but @ 266mhz its slower that the slow thing moving slowler than a very slow thing you mentioned. i've already maxed out its ram to a whopping 256MB :eek: in an effort to get it (not the net connection) moving a bit faster.
and its something to do

I've a PII400 cpu you can have if you want it aswell. The heatsinks are easy to swap. Once you don't break them. As I remember you don't need a fan connected for it to boot. Thats a safety feature that AMD systems had.

Cheers, might take ye up on that if i've no luck with the pII 450. one last question (honest!). What do you use to remove the hetsink? it looks like i need a small alen key to remove the 4 pins

RicardoSmith

I happen to have a celeron 500 with 192mb of ram here, (about the same speed as PII 400, running XP Pro streamlined with all the carp turned off. Runs ok, but the web is slow on a 56k dialup. However running it on my NTL broadband its fine. In fact its like a whole new PC! But even a 266 should be able to use email and the web fine. Though a PII 400 is really the lowest I'd say XP is usable on. Once you tweak XP.

Maybe the speed problem is somewhere else? What speed is your conection?

Looks different to how the ones I've seen are fitted. All the ones I've seen had plastic posts that you just push in from the otherside (otherside from your photo) and that was all.

Occidental

Scruff,

I've PII 400 with fan that you can have for nowt if you want it.

Pat