On 12 Jan 99, at 6:20, Harold E. Schumacher, Jr. wrote:

>   What would it take to upgrade a Pentium 100 (socket 7) to a
> Pentium 200 or even higher using the current socket 7 motherboard?
> Is it as easy as taking out the old chip and installing the newer
> one?  Any cautions that I should be aware of?

  Later Pentiums -- anything with MMX, and Cyrix's 6x86"L" series --
use "split voltage" to reduce power consumption.  Parts of the CPU that
connect to other motherboard components continue to use 3.3v, but the
rest of the chip (about 90% of it...) uses something less, typically
about 2.8v.
  Odds are, judging by the use of a P100, that your board doesn't
provide the lowered core voltage.  You have four basic options, then:

1.  Try to find a VRM (Voltage Regulator Module) for your board to add
this.  I never managed this trick, but you might bet lucky....

2.  Get something like a PowerStacker (from PowerLeap), a module which
sits between your CPU and the socket.  About $50 the last I saw.

3.  Consider an Intel OverDrive CPU or Evergreen CPU update, bothe
designed to provide new-CPU speed compatably to older motherboards.
[The Evergreen units look very much like a CPU already fitted with
something like the PowerStacker....)

4.  Get a new motherboard.  Drastic, but at about $80-120, it's
competitive with any of these other approaches, and may offer
additional benefits such as SDRAM, AGP, and/or 100 MHz FSB.

> Anything I need to do with Windows 95 after the upgrade?

  No.


David G

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