old PC upgrade

[Guest]

hi
I have an old system, MSI kt6v mobo, sempron 2600, ati 9200, 256mb pc3200. When i play my favorite online game, the system will crash. Then VPU Recover appears. I don't know what vpu recover means, i think it has something to do with the Video Card.

I planned on upgrading my processor to a better socket 462 proc. Problem is, 462 processors are phased out here in our country.

If ever I will upgrade to AM2 mobo and proc, will i still be able to use my existing HDD, RAM memory?

Thanks

[isa-d]

Seem to be a problem with your ATI video card.

Try this to disable VPU recover
right click on desktop, property, settings (I think, because I'm Italian and I don't know exactily english XP menu's), advanced, open video card menu and then disable VPU.
If the problem disappear, your problem is a hot video card.
If the card have a fan change it, otherwise may be you have a lot of dust on the case fan and a PCI card near the video card so it can't cooling properly.

About the upgrade
you can change the MB but remember to chose a product with the support for DDR ram, and IDE hard disk (or your HD was SATA?) and remember you must reinstall your XP.

Your PC isn't so old, my suggestion is upgrade processor at the fastest Athlon XP+ available (this page show the upgrades available for your MB)
http://www.cpu-upgrade.com/mb-MSI/KT6-V_(MS-7021).html
upgrade DDR ram with other 512MB or 1GB
upgrade video card with a new AGP 8X and 256MB of memory but my suggestion is to chose a card with passive cooling without extra power connector so you don't have to change also the Power Supply.

[Guest]

sir isa-d tnx for the reply

Upgrading my processor to a new and better socket A processor will be hard for me, coz socket A procs are not available here anymore. I dont know why they stop selling these procs, it is not that old right.

I plan on changing my video card and upgrade my memory to 1Gb and stick with my sempron 2600. I hope this will fix my problem. I hope

tnx for the reply sir

[Marcin]

I don't know where you live but eBay is everywhere ! There you can get almost everything especially Athlons XP

[Guest]

Tnx for your replies

I upgraded my memory to 512mb now, and i made a bracket to hold a fan blowing directly to the heatsink of my video card. So far, I am able to play my favorite online game now (MU online).

Does anyone know if there is an AM2 board that supports DDR and IDE? AFAIK, AM2 boards only support DDR2/3, am I right on this?

Anyone?

[isa-d]

Some As Rock MB for socket 939 have an expansion slot for AM2 CPU's but you need to find the properly expansion board.

[Guest]

I have a Dell motherboard from about 1998, the
same motherboard being apparently used and
labeled throughout a lineup of pentium 75 to
pentium 133 cpu outfittings by merely changing
pin 1-2 versus pin 2-3 settings found in a row
and almost (but not quite) perfectly labeled. The
power (low voltage) on off connections are hard to
find but simply found on "top". This board is an
imitation of an AT 7 slots pci, isa board except that
a PS2 keyboard socket is found an inconvenient
quarter inch or 6 mm or so farther towards the
corner of the board than a big AT keyboard
socket and the mouse PS2 a half inch/ 12 mm
nearer, right where a slot "8"or "1" (incorrect name)
would be. Nonstandard. Also the motherboard uses
a proprietarily wired Dell power supply or it won`t
"go". I fired it up instead of throwing it away and
discovered that plugging in a 512 Kilobytes cache
card was needed, not merely to make the board
roll at an OK speed, but also to tell the cmos setup
bios to tell the video card to display any colors
made. I also discovered that the cmos setup
bios was not an Intel bios as labeled on it but
rather, a really excellent Amibios recorded on an
Intel blank. The board doesn`t work if the cache
slot is 256 Kilobytes and not disable (un-)jumpered.
The Amibios displays "test" and "accept or adjust"
areas on left and right screens with a vertical
line in between. Being able to take the test
suggestions from the left list and automatically
and simply enter (I forget which key stroke) them
onto the right, or hand type in one`s own values
at will, is a neato dream compared to overly
automatic bioses. Since the board is made from
and styled from components and Intel chipsets
from before the days of "MMX" CPUs, it should be
able to accept various CPUs without sabotaged
performance. Rather than merely replacing the
120 MHz Intel cpu ( = 8 Kilobytes L1 cache inside)
with a 133 or 166 MHz MMX cpu ( = 16 Kilobytes
L1 cache inside), and almost nothing else, I
decided to toss in a Cyrix M I I .... 300MHz ....
with 66 MHz bus, cpu, I got out of a cheap and
dirty Asus motherboard. In the Asus motherboard,
the cpu got ridiculously hot (in untested fable
but I`d tend to believe it) running it`s " overbuilt"
or "oversize" main core to big clocking while
it`s normal or undersized coprocessor held
the machine back with it`s normal (coprocessors
don`t multiply) 66 MHz (labeled) coprocessor.
An AMD K6-2 cpu replacement with a voltage drop,
an increased memory bus and coprocessor speed
setting and an un-overclocked frequency
multiplier setting upgraded both the speed and
style of performance of the Asus motherboard.
A SCSI card and hard drive had to be tossed in
because the ide hard drive couldn`t accept a
higher ribbon cable data speed without mistakes.
All the pci cards and isa cards were able to accept
the apparent increase here, though.
On the Dell motherboard, the Cyrix cpu will be
dropped into it`s plain maximum 66 MHz bus
speed, operate at it`s normal voltage, (an AMD
K6-2 couldn`t be added here though without
soldering in component substitutes to lower
voltage and it would still be a waste to run an
AMD K6-2 considerably below it`s usually, 95
or 100 MHz maximum bus limit), and the
"oversized" performance of the core (main)
processor should be nicely big sized without
being a misshaped heat throwing result.
Although I`m keeping the original 120 Mhz
Intel 80502 cpu on the side for voltage checking
and in case I`ve miscalculated grossly, and a
133 Mhz Intel 80503, = MMX, cpu on the side,
I think the Dell will be a nice performer with
it`s different Cyrix cpu.