Updating an ECS K7S5A Pro mobo with a modern processor....

[nissanguy]

My computer has a ECS Elitegroup K7S5A Pro motherboard with a socket "A" 900 mhz processor. The old girl is starting to get a little slow, and I want to upgrade to a new processor so my music programs will run like they should. I know that these boards were designed for AMD processors, but I can't get a definitive answer from anybody about what I can replace my old processor with. I'd like to try to get up to at least a 2 gig processor for this machine, but I don't know what will work. Any suggestions? Also, will I need to update the bios for this board?

[Unzlbunzl]

i used this board for quite a while, as far as i remember i could be used with athlon xp 2600+, there was also a very good modded bios for it which allowed quite good overclocking. how much of which ram (sd/ddr-ram) do u have?

[nissanguy]

I just loaded 1024 of DDR the other night (512 X 2), which is all the board will supposedly handle.

I hear a lot about overclocking. What's that all about ? ( Older dude who is a non-geek here - layman's terms please !!)

[thomsonicus]

I had about 5 or 6 of K7S5A's cheap and quite reliable stuff. The fastest processor that this motherboard supports is the Athlon XP 2600+ but only on the Thoroughbred-B core, Bartons are not supported (officialy). It's quite hard to find a 2600+ as this Mobo supports, that is why i would recommend a 2400+ (not mobile), cheaper, lots of 'em and not much slower than 2600+.
Overclocking is running a processor faster than it was supposed to run Sometimes it is very easy to OC (overclock) a cpu, sometimes very problematic, everything depends on the hardware you've got in yer rig. I remember modding the K7S5A to run my Duron700 at 1001mhz (stable) and it was quite a success; some other hardware may overclock easily at even over 150% of its factory settings but as I have said before, everything depends on what you've got (and some luck)

[Anas]

lol, i know what you mean, i jus bought a t-bred B 2600+ a while and it turns out it wus something completley messed up, it only had 64kb l2 cache but the bridge was cut so i put that back n its a thorough bred now but its only at 1050mhz (10.5x100 - 100 due to old motherboard) though it was only for 13 dollors , never trust ebay for good processors, only for short time replacements lol