Upgrade help

[FoXeH]

I want to upgrade my processor but I don't know what motherboard I have! So how do I check what my motherdboard is, then how do I check what's the best type of processor it can take?
Thanks

 

[chretien]

Try contacting the manufacturer of your machine or the person who built it for you if it's a custom job. Failing that open the cover and look for model numbers on the board. Write down all the ones you see and feed them into google one at a time till you get a result.
If you're not keen on opening the case or it's a bit cramped in there and you can't see very much then try downloading a program like Sandra which will tell you pretty much anything you need to know about your computer including the make and model number of any bits in it.
Once you know the motherboard model you should be able to find the specs for it on any number of hardware review sites such as Toms Hardware or Anandtech or on the manufacturers web page. Some motherboards may not show a manufacturer - this will be because they are generic boards that are made under license by a variety of different companies, in which case the specs for one will apply to them all. It'll tell you what the fastest processor it can support is and what type.
You can only replace like with like so you can't put an AMD chip into a pentium board or vice versa, also if your board is more than a couple of years old it's possible that no chips still in production will be compatible with it. You may still be able to find older chips for sale as retailers won't always have run out of stock but obviously the upgrade potential is limited.
Unless cash is very tight or it's a fairly new motherboard I'd recommend replacing both board and chip. A decent upgradeable board will cost around £60-80 and about the same for a decently fast chip. You can spend twice that or more on the bleeding edge but if you only want something that'll run SI without complaining and won't need replacing for a couple of years then you probably don't need anything faster than 2.4Ghz.

 

[FoXeH]

Wow, thanks
I have a Athlon XP 2000 at the moment got it around 8 months ago so I don't think my mother board is all that old, I was hoping I could get a Athlon XP 3000+ or something I'll have a look later
Thanks again

 

[FoXeH]

Well Mainboard Inforamtion, under System Chassis manufacturer it says: Unknown Chassis manufacturer
Is that the right bit?
The only thing under Mainboard is - MP Support: No
Soooo! Looks like I'll have to take a look inside, great!

 

[FoXeH]

Perhaps you could help me again. It says;

Warning: FBS exceeds Chipset rated speed. Reduce FBS.

What's a FBS?? how to I lower it
Oh and;

ATA device (fixed) : SMART not enabled; consider enabling for safety.

Stupid warnings!

 

[oblivion_6]

FSB

Front Side Bus

THis is the speed of the motherboard, youll notice when you go lookin at cpus that they say XP200 266FSB this means this operates at 266 FSB

you set the FSB speed at setup on your bios, this is the reason why if you get a xp2000 and forget to up the fsb to the apprioprate level it is shown as a xp1200 because the motherboard isnt running fast enough to utilize the chip or somefink

if your board takes an xp2000 and is 8 months old chances are that its maxed out with the xp2000

imo an xp2000 is still pretty shit hot, maybe its a GFX card that you need to up your system? what kinda things you got on system just now?

coz i was able to whack up the performance on my old 850Mhz system with a simple Geforce 4 TI4600

 

[Cloak_]

If the FSB is 266 max on your board itll probably take a 2400xp.

Check out here for some good tools.

 

[oblivion_6]

also sometime u can get bios updates that improve your fsb althought these are a wee bit iffy

 

[Deadmanwalking]

Where did you buy your computer from? That may give you a clue to the motherboard.

 

[Sibanac]

If you turn the computer on, on the screen that shows the memory test and harddrive detection look at the bottom of the screen. There will probly be a line of numbers and leters mixed up with a few slashes. after that there schould be a mobo brand name. use the puase button if its to fast to read

 

[Cap'n Sissyfoo]

Send me your CPU!!

...and stop leveling without me.

 

[chretien]

Originally posted by FoXeH
Well Mainboard Inforamtion, under System Chassis manufacturer it says: Unknown Chassis manufacturer
Is that the right bit?
The only thing under Mainboard is - MP Support: No
Soooo! Looks like I'll have to take a look inside, great!

I assume you downloaded Sandra?
If you double click on the mainboard information icon onthe main Sandra screen it should take a couple of seconds to scan the system then come back with a new window, scroll down a little way and you should see Mainboard then the manufacturer, MP support, model, version, serial number and system BIOS version. The make and model is the bit you need (chassis info is about your case).
As far as the warnings are concerned, you can read more about each one by double-clicking on the warning to bring up an explanation and suggested fix. Not all warnings need to be acted on though, Sandra is a good program but it has limitations, many of the warnings are generic. If your computer is running fine then think twice before making major changes. If you do make major tweaks then make them one at a time and make a note of what you did and how you did it so that if you get problems you can put it back to how it was. If you run windows XP of ME then make a system restore point before you start (Start->All Programs ->Accessories->System Tools->System Restore then make a restore point) If it all goes horribly wrong then you can roll back to that point and undo all your changes. If you're messing about in the BIOS, then make a note of all the settings so you can put them back if necessary as some changes can prevent your computer from booting to windows or even starting up at all.

 

[FoXeH]

Originally posted by oblivion_6
FSB

Front Side Bus

THis is the speed of the motherboard, youll notice when you go lookin at cpus that they say XP200 266FSB this means this operates at 266 FSB

you set the FSB speed at setup on your bios, this is the reason why if you get a xp2000 and forget to up the fsb to the apprioprate level it is shown as a xp1200 because the motherboard isnt running fast enough to utilize the chip or somefink

if your board takes an xp2000 and is 8 months old chances are that its maxed out with the xp2000

imo an xp2000 is still pretty shit hot, maybe its a GFX card that you need to up your system? what kinda things you got on system just now?

coz i was able to whack up the performance on my old 850Mhz system with a simple Geforce 4 TI4600

So should I nock it back down to 1200?
I do have a decent Graphics card at the moment, or so I hope, running a Radeon 9600. It's just last nights Sidi raid I went on with 60 people or so I got major slow downs, so blaming it on my processor. I have 512 ram too!

 

[FoXeH]

Originally posted by Deadmanwalking
Where did you buy your computer from? That may give you a clue to the motherboard.

A friend built it for me
Not in contact with them anymore

 

[FoXeH]

Originally posted by Cap'n Sissyfoo
Send me your CPU!!

...and stop leveling without me.

Sorry

 

[FoXeH]

Originally posted by chretien
I assume you downloaded Sandra?
If you double click on the mainboard information icon onthe main Sandra screen it should take a couple of seconds to scan the system then come back with a new window, scroll down a little way and you should see Mainboard then the manufacturer, MP support, model, version, serial number and system BIOS version. The make and model is the bit you need (chassis info is about your case).
As far as the warnings are concerned, you can read more about each one by double-clicking on the warning to bring up an explanation and suggested fix. Not all warnings need to be acted on though, Sandra is a good program but it has limitations, many of the warnings are generic. If your computer is running fine then think twice before making major changes. If you do make major tweaks then make them one at a time and make a note of what you did and how you did it so that if you get problems you can put it back to how it was. If you run windows XP of ME then make a system restore point before you start (Start->All Programs ->Accessories->System Tools->System Restore then make a restore point) If it all goes horribly wrong then you can roll back to that point and undo all your changes. If you're messing about in the BIOS, then make a note of all the settings so you can put them back if necessary as some changes can prevent your computer from booting to windows or even starting up at all.

Ok, I decided to take some screenshots to make things easier:

Shot 1
Shot 2
Shot 3
Shot 4

I can't see anything that gives me information on my motherboard, but I'm clueless, so maybe these can help