On 13 Jan 99, at 10:31, Robert Turnbull wrote:

> I too have been toying with the idea of upgrading my Pentium 100 bench
> built system to a Pentium 200 chipset, so I am very interested in this
> discussion. If this would involve more than plugging in a new chip, I will
> put off the upgrade until I am prepared to do a total upgrade. Here is the
> source of my confusion:
>
> I used Ctbios to determine that I have an Award BIOS, an Asus
> motherboard, an 82430HX chipset, and a BIOS ID string of 05/21/96-
> 82430HX-PI55T2P4C-00.
>
> I also used Ctpci to determine that I have an Intel 82439HX TXC Chipset
> (P54).
>
> I notice the difference between 82430HX and 82439HX and wonder
> what this means.

  "430HX" is the overall name of the chipset.  "82439HX" is one of the
several chips which, collectively, make up the "set".

  [The T2P4 board, with its 430HX chipset, is a classic.  Intel stopped
production of the HX line, rather than enhancing it, to force server
operators towards the Pentium II instead.]

> Anyway, I used this data to find an Asus manual for a P55T2P4
> motherboard and I assume (?)  that this is for my motherboard. [I could
> not find an Asus motherboard with this designation ending with C-00 as
> in the string mentioned above.]

  I believe there were a couple of revisions to the T2P4 over time.

> The manual states that the motherboard DOES NOT support  Dual Power
> Plane CPUs. The manual also states that the motherboard supports one
> Pentium 75MHz thru 200MHz.
>
> This leaves me confused. Can I safely assume that this manual
> describes my motherboard? Does it really mean that I can simply plug
> in a Pentium 200 chip? How does this all fit with the previous
> discussion?

  75-200 indicates that the bus speed can be set to 50/60/66 MHz, and
the CPU multiplier to 1.5, 2.0, 2.5 or 3.0.  [Most 233 MHz CPUs treat
1.5 as 3.5.]
  However, the lack of Dual Power Plane eliminates all MMX CPUs, and
the Cyrix/IBM 6x86L versions.

  P100 is 66 x 1.5.  If you *just* drop in a (non-MMX) P200, it will
still be running at 100 MHz.  You'll need to change the multiplier
jumpers to 3.0x in order to get 200 MHz out of it.


David G

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