CPU Upgrade for older ASUS A7V266

[hobby8691]

I have an older ASUS A7V266 board with the latest BIOS ver 1011 which is rated for an XP 2600+, my question is can I use an XP 2700+ or faster because they seem to be easier to find and not much more expensive than the 2600+, I'm curious if the 2600+ was named as the limit only because at the time it was the fastest of the XP chips available when the BIOS ver. 1011 was written. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

[phsstpok]

One problem to consider is the A7V266 with it's VIA KT266 chipset was never designed for bus speeds above 133 Mhz (266).

The fastest Socket A processor for 133 Mhz FSB was one of the variants of the XP2600+, a Thoroughbred B, running at 16 x 133 Mhz = 2133 Mhz. IIRC, AMD never produced a faster clocked processor for Socket A than the XP2600+ (266).

Back to the issue, since later processors use FSB speeds of 166 Mhz (333) and 200 Mhz (400) they aren't suitable for KT266 motherboards. This does not mean the newer processors won't work at all. They may. The problem is the processors will run below their rated speed (if at all).

For example, the Barton XP2500+ runs at 166 Mhz FSB and has a multiplier of 11X. (I'm just using the XP2500+ as an example because I can remember the multiplier). On your board the XP2500+ would default to 11 x 133 Mhz or 1466 Mhz. This is 367 Mhz slower than the processor is intended to run, which is 11 X 166 = 1833 Mhz. As of week 39, 2003, AMD began "super locking" the multipliers of all desktop processor Socket A processors which means you can't correct the above speed deficiency by adjusting multipliers.

And that somes up the main problem with using the newer processors on legacy motherboards. They run below their intended speeds (again, if they run at all).

There are possiblities for some owners of legacy motherboards.

There are the mobile Bartons which use 133 Mhz FSB. They might work. These mobile XPs are favs of overclockers (with new and legacy boards alike) because mobile XPs are unlocked. This means they can be used on FSB limited motherboards. The mobile XPs can easily reach the speed of an XP2600+ and well beyond. 2.5 Ghz is not uncommon.

Sorry. I'm getting sidetracked.

Unfortunately, not everyone can get the mobiles to work on all legacy motherboards.

I'm looking around some of the forums and Usenet groups. So far, I don't see any success stories using the Asus A7V266 family of motherboards.

I see some stories using other KT266 (and KT266A) motherboards but not a lot of success stories. The ones I saw (and can recall) included Shuttle AK31 and AK35GTR and Epox 8KHA (maybe the +).

There were a lot more successes reported with the old unlocked Tbred B's as I recall.

There don't seem to be enough people trying the mobile XPs with KT266(A) mobos to get a good feel for results.

<b>A mind is a terrible thing</b><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by phsstpok on 12/06/04 00:40 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[davemar14]

Highest you are gonna get is a 2600+. The FSB is 266 Mhz on that board. Your best bet is to save up and go Athlon64. You can get a 3000+ Athlon64 for a very reasonable price.