On 23 Mar 98 at 11:11, GSouth945 wrote:

> I have a friend who has a Packard Bell 486DX2-66 with 24MB RAM,
> 540MB hard drive running Windows 95. She would like to upgrade her
> processor with an overdrive processor. We have seen processors from
> Evergreen Technology and a couple other companies for about $100.
> Has anyone had any experience with any of these upgrade processors
> that could help us decide which one would give us good performance
> and relatively problem free upgrading. Thank you in advance for
> your advice.

  The Evergreen and similar products consist of three components:  a
3x ("DX4") or 4x (5x86) CPU, a voltage regulator to convert the 5v
power supplied by the board to the 3.3v needed by the CPU, and a
fan/heatsink.

  In theory, you could save some money by purchasing these components
separately.  You may not need a voltage regulator if the motherboard
can be switched to supply 3.3v -- I wouldn't expect this on a Packard
Bell, but it's possible.

  Your best bet is probably any of the packages (Evergreen, Kingston,
I think there's a least one more (PowerLeap?) using a 5x86-133 CPU.
AMD rates this CPU as about equivalent to a 75MHz Pentium.
  [Note that the 83 MHz Pentium OverDrive is also an option, but
don't be misled: its performance is actually somewhat less and its
price could easily run twice as much.]

David G