On 9 Sep 00, at 1:11, Bill Nussbaumer wrote:

> You could certainly purchase a new motherboard that supports two
> processors and as long as your running an operating system that
> will support that (i.e. WinNT/2000 or Linux) then you'll be fine.
> (I don't know if there are any motherboards that support both
> slots/sockets at the same time but you could probably use a
> slocket).

  I've heard claims that people have succeeded in, for instance,
running a PII in one slot and a Celeron in the other; I don't think
this was using a slocket.
  In order to have any chance of success, both CPUs must run at the
same clocking (FSB and multiplier), and both must support the same
set of instruction set features.  (I believe PIII introduced the
built-in serial number and a couple of new instructions.  The risk is
that a program could start on one CPU, query it to determine if an
optional feature is available, and then get swapped to the other CPU.)

  Intel's recommendations for pairing processors are that they be a
whole lot closer than that -- not just the same type and speed, but
within one "stepping" of each other.  So my recommendation is
normally not to try to find a multi-CPU board to accomodate a mix of
CPUs, but to buy the CPUs together for the board -- possibly funding
this partly by selling off the CPUs you're upgrading from.

David G

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