two quick mb questions.

Hey fellas and girl techs. Been away for a while but glad to be back. :)

I doing research for two of my friends regarding upgrades on their existing systems.

One guy owns a classic athlon 750mhz system with an fic sd11 mb, 256 mb sdram, v3 3000 16 mb agp v.c., etc. He wishes to upgrade to a better 3d video card. I suggested an ati radeon 64 mb ddr v.c. for his computer. Reason being I suggested that to him was because the existing mb has the amd 751 northbridge chipset on it that controls the agp bus. I know for a fact that there are some lockup issues when using a nvidia based videocard on that type of chipset. I know there some ways of bypassing that issue by slowing the agp slot down to 1x. But I don't want to get into all that hassle. I'm just wondering if anyone who owns a classic athlon with a fic sd11 mb is currently using an ati radeon 64mb ddr v.c. and whether they are having lockup issues or not.

2nd question. Another friend owns a PIII 450mhz (not o/c) system with 128mb pc133 ram, geforce2mx v.c., asus p3b-f mb etc. He is asking me whether he can run a PIII-1 ghz processor on that board. I presume it can because it does have a setting for 133mhz bus speed even though it will o/c the agp slot, but his geforce card should handle that setting fine. I know the bx chipset doesn't officially support the 133mhz bus speed, but who cares nowadays???? Does anyone here run a PIII 1ghz on an asus p3bf and have any problems???? Thanks all in advance. G'night!!!! :o

I'm not an AMD man but I do know Intel so I'll help you with the second question.

According to Asus once the lates BIOS flash is applied (P3B-F BIOS Ver. 1006. 06/30/2000) the MOBO will be able to support Support 566MHz and 850MHz CPU with clock ratio equal or greater than 8.5x. As far as pushing the MOBO higher to 1GHz I haven't tried it. A jump to an 850MHz from a 450MHz would be a nice upgrade. Unless someone else has any promising words I would stay to the 850MHz but it's all a matter of how stable of a system he wants. I don't mind tinkering with my machines but if he can't do that himself you may spend alot of time working on his system just to squeeze an extra 150MHz. Bottom line... 850MHz = Stability.... 1GHz = ??????? At least with that MOBO.

for the first question - This problem may happen. The problem in the "early" Irongates was fixed in later editions. However, if you're not sure that your board is "patched" go with the ATI.

Thanks for the replies sennister and condor.
I think my buddy has his mind set for a 1ghz once the prices lower again by summertime. I don't think he plans to o/c it at the 150mhz bus speed. Just the 133mhz setting. He just wants to keep his board for another year or 2. I'll mention to him the 850 mhz PIII is the safest solution.
I think the other guy will go for a radeon 64 mb ddr. He can get a sweet deal for it. If he's interested in a Geforce 3 v.c. He'll get a different system for it. Right now, he too just wants to keep what he has for a little while yet. If anyone else has something to add. I'll be glad to hear about it. :cool: Later!