need a litle help

[wapaaga]

i have a carpy compaq and i'm in the middle of try to figure out what to do with it

heres my first question
my chipset is a via technologies inc vt8c691/693a/apollo pro/133/133a

so does this mean that the mother can support 133 mhz fornt side bus also can anbody tell from this how high of a cpu m it can handel

and also what is the adress for the via site so that i can get off of this crapy compaq bios


next question
i want to take the old cpu maybe and put in an old 486 case
with added ventaltion holes so i might kneed a new mobo so what mother board is good for an intel but also kind of cheap
in the 100 dollar range

 

[wapaaga]

ohs=ay i forgot to put i have a p3 450 slot one right and that what i wan to upgrade form

 

[RocKo]

ummmm.. compaq? lol BURN IT! there is no escape!!!

<font color=red><b>-RocKo</b></font color=red>

 

[wapaaga]

yeh i know but you always have to have a little hope that you might be able to some thing

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by wapaaga on 02/14/01 06:07 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[RocKo]

im sorry :frown: I have no clue. But its just compaq really bites hehe

<font color=red><b>-RocKo</b></font color=red>

 

[wapaaga]

so does anybody know if my mother board with this chipset can handel 133fsb

 

[Guest]

Try an email to customer support at compaq

 

[wapaaga]

tried that and they gaveme the basic run around of that you you need too go t a service center and theres no way i'm paying somebody to in a proccser that i can do my self in 10 to 20 minutes at my home

 

[stable]

I would suppose it would, but then you have to ask yourself this question... If it does, what are the benefits of making it so? I mean you have to pull and replace the CPU, then pull and replace your RAM (with Proprietary Compaq RAM no less) and then go through that whole RAMPAC nightmare/fiasco.

By the time you are done, you could have built a brand new system, not to mention what are you going to do with the old CPU and proprietary 100MHz RAM?! You are better off keeping the 100MHz FSB Compaq to use as a server and building something new from scratch.

Steve Benoit

Stable Technologies
'The way IT should be!'

 

[wapaaga]

well ig ot a new idea over these last couple of day
ok her it goes
i think i'm going to get like a 800 with a fsb100 solt 1
then take my 450 and get a cheapmother board around a hundred dollars with a video card one and by some ram and put my old 450 in that and have a commputer that can be use for reports and stuff like that

does anybody know ifthis chipset will support a coppermine
if not can i just go in to the bios and set the voltage and not have the computer aoutmaticlaly detedt it

 

[stable]

You will still have to deal with several issues.

1) The motherboard power supply connectors for the Compaq are proprietary. You won't be able to use anybody else's motherboard in that case with that CPU except compaq.

2) Even if you did, you would still be dealing with proprietary RAM issues. The Compaq RAM would cost you twice as much as regular RAM.

3) Why would you want to go backwards in technology to a slot-1 based CPU? Especially with only 100MHz FSB?

Again, you are still better off starting from scratch and saving the compaq to do other things with. Makes a great system for your reports, running legacy DOS applications, or just for kids to play with (to keep them away from your new system!)

In any event, I would start out by getting a good ATX case and power supply, that way you can stick in anybody's motherboard. InWin makes a great general purpose Mid-Tower case (the S500), or if you want a full sized tower, check out the Q500. (See www.in-win.com) If you stick in a ton of hardware, I would recommend buying a better power supply, but for a general system (let's say an 800MHz Socket 370 Coppermine CPU with 133FSB) with only a couple of drives, the factory Power supply should be fine for you.

As a side note, while the compaq doesn't have much for upgrade options, it is built like a tank, you'd probably have to drop it off a two story building to kill it.

Good Luck
Steve Benoit

Stable Technologies
'The way IT should be!'

 

[wapaaga]

ok
i have a slot one mother board right know
i wanted to get a new mother board for the 450 that i'm might pull out

one more question i proably need a new power supply for the system i have right know so can i take the leds out of the compaq on and put them in a new one so that they will fit or will there still be a compatablity problem

i am the kid of the family i just happen to be the one that understands commputer more than anybody else in me house
and my dad want a commputer to dohis taxs on and other stuff other that the one i have right know but he dosen't want to spend over a few hundred dollars
i'm going to try to slavge alll the parts i can out of an old 486, it ihas ican use all the parts in execept for the mother board because this machince trying to get together is not being used for intensive stuff.

 

[kal326]

Wow im amazed that they even told you that! I was trying to upgrade my friends old compaq. I called tech support about what the system could handle, their responce was they dont know anything about the system other then the original configuration. Makes sense though, if they dont tell you what upgrades your current one will take then maybe, just maybe they think you will buy a new one! The only thing that sucks more then Compaq is Compaq service!

 

[kal326]

Properitary Compaq ram? WTF are you talking about? Ive worked on many many compaqs and never ran across any properitary ram. The strangest thing i ever ran across was a 144 pin sodimm in a compaq tower. I dont doubt compaq would try and pull some sh*t like that, but it would cost more to build the systems that way

 

[wapaaga]

i got sick of it and i'm the point of pulling alll the hardware and biulding a new system and put some old hardware that i have in this system but first i have find a couple more hundred dollars to do that because i would now need to get a viddeo card and a sound card becuase i'm not going to wwant to stay with this savage 4 if i build one

 

[wapaaga]

can anybody recomend a setup for around 400-500 using good retailers
i have a dvd drive, a cdbruner, only have two speakers so i don't need a greaat sound card, and have a moniter
i need a case but i proabbly get it form my friend that works in a computter store4 if i end up doing it
and i need a better graphics card then the savage 4 i'm using right now
and i would like to hyave at least a 96 megss of ram because that is what i have right now
and a hardive around 15 gigs at least
can anybody tell of good compents that will keep me under this price yet still meet the stuff i need

 

[wapaaga]

one more question
ASSY, PS 200W,ATX,MALIBU,MT,WW
would this number be for inout power or for output power
becuase i know that the poweer supply in the case onlt say 1not to exceed 125 watts
i would like to know if i should strat complaining to compa for not giving me the right power supply that was pay for

 

[stable]

I suspect the 200Watt number is the "combined" output power. You should be able to identify the exact unit that was supposed to be shipped by calling Compaq and asking for the part number of an exact replacement power supply (like if you had burned that one up) and get the specs from there. If the part numbers match, you’ll have your answer.

One thing our test have shown is that Compaq used to have terrific power supplies regardless of the wattage output. Very clean, very heavy duty and very well constructed. I'm not sure if they still make them that way anymore (or even if they source them now), but (up to the 486 lines) they were terrific. We have two Compaq Power Supplies that we use for our breadboard systems. (We don't throw anything away here!) Of course we've bastardized the connectors with about 10 adapters (with their own power mods for ATX etc.) but nevertheless they work great for everything that we need to test quickly and will probably last until the next magnetic shift of the planetary poles. We sometimes get flack about them, but usually from the same people that complain that we have a 5 Slot IBM PC as a cc:Mail gateway (with a Xircom parallel 10Base-T adapter as you can’t put an Ethernet card in the puppy) I stole this idea from FEMA who uses one in Pasadena, CA for the same thing. Theirs has been up and running for 8 straight years, nonstop. I wish I could get a regular system to last that long, never mind without crashing. “You’ve just got to love DOS!”

Steve Benoit




Stable Technologies
'The way IT should be!'

 

[stable]

Sorry about the RAM thing... Was working on another 386 issue at the time and was dealing with Compaq RAM there.. for some stupid issue I carried that over to this post and it doesn't apply to the Pentium III systems. OOps..My bad.

Thanks
Steve Benoit

Stable Technologies
'The way IT should be!'