In <[log in to unmask]>, on 07/14/99
   at 01:13 PM, Eric Wertman <[log in to unmask]> said:

>Hello All-

>>...
> I need to know what sort of motherboard he has, so I can properly determine
>what sort of Upgrade possiblities it has. How do you get that
>information? I'll tell you what I know-

>486dx/66
>16M ram (4 slots, all full)
>trident svga card (i believe it sits in an agp slot, but I am not
>positive) I believe it is an AT form factor
>4 ISA, 3PCI slots
>Award Bios 4.03G? (I'm not sure about the number, but I think
>that's what it said. I also wrote down a number series from
>inside the bios setup, which I don't have on hand either, but I
>can  get)
>Anyhow, thanks for any input or general advice!

>Eric Wertman

Eric:
Your friend is probably blessed with a very early PCI board w/o
AGP. With 4 memory boards and only 16M, he is probably using FPM
72 pin SIMMs. They should be 60nS chips. The BIOS is probably
Award 4.50.  The bad news:

At best you might upgrade to an original Pentium but would be
limited to maybe 120MHz, but more likely an AMD K5 or 486/100 is
the upper limit.

You could replace the memory with 16M boards. That would make some
stuff run somewhat faster.

The Bios may not be Y2K compliant.

Upgrades:
486/100                  $ 25 (local surplus house)
(4) 16MB 60nS         $130 (non-parity, $150 for parity) BIOS
Upgrade          $  50 (just a guess!)
----------------------------------------------------
total                      $205

Now you've got a slightly faster obsolete computer, and lighter
wallet to lug around:)

In the bay area you can get the following:

MB+K6-2/400 or Celeron/366    ~ $180
PC100 128MB                          ~$130
----------------------------------
total                                     ~$310

Then, of course, you may need a new disk to hold Bloatware 2000.
And you may have to replace one or two of your ISA bus cards.

I have two simular systems running, but i'm not going to upgrade
them. It's much more cost effective to get a new system. The
existing systems will be relegated to an internet gateway and a
hardware engineering station.

jan lambert
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