A7V 266 E - Upgrade Questions

[Robert Hendy]

I have an Asus Motherboard running at 1.4Ghz, and have to upgrade in a month
or so. The 266E has been a very stable MB for the last 2 yrs, running solid
without a reinstall of WinXP, but have recently began noticing little
hiccups in performance.

(In the last few months, I've gotten a DOS screen, telling me that a file
could not be found or is corrupt
-- NT kern.dll, I think. And yesterday, while trying to scan and send some
pictures with my scanner, I got a "An error has been caused or is not
responding and program will have to shut down" When I did a cold boot
initially and entered Win explorer, the computer could see the HD(C but
couldn't see the floopy drive, CD-Rom(D, or any other letter.)

I was considering a BIOS Flash, A new CPU
(Athlon 2400 +) and fresh reinstall of WinXP OEM.
And maybe a new CD Burner(52x).
My question is:

The latest Asus Bios on their home page(1011) says it accomodates the Athlon
XP 2600+ (Barton Core)
If I flashed to this Bios, would I be able to install a TBred 2700 (FSB 333)
if I wanted to? Money is tight which would eliminate a full blown upgrade
and I couldn't on my family, or a late visit from Santa to help the
situation.

Might I also need a new PSU? Even though the literature on Antec site says
it's a 400W PS, I recently checked it when I opened the case and it said on
the unit that it was 380W?

Current Sys Specs:

Win XP Home
Athlon XP 1600+
256MB Ram (Crucial)
Plextor 16/10/40 Burner
Antec 1040B(ver1) Case and PS(380 - 400W)
GF2-400Mx 64 Graphics

Any help would be appreciated and I hope you all have a wonderful holiday
season ))


Rob

 

[Deathwish]

My question is:

The latest Asus Bios on their home page(1011) says it accomodates the Athlon
XP 2600+ (Barton Core)
If I flashed to this Bios, would I be able to install a TBred 2700 (FSB 333)
if I wanted to?

The A7V-266E has a Front Side Bus of 266MHz, so any Bios updates would
not allow you to use any type of CPU with an FSB greater than that, so you
won't be able to use the 2700. The best you could do is the Athlon XP
2600+, as long as you make sure it is the 266Mhz version. (Some CPU's come
in two different versions to accomodate different FSB's. If I remember
correctly, the 2600 only comes in a 266MHz version, but I could be wrong...)

Might I also need a new PSU? Even though the literature on Antec site says
it's a 400W PS, I recently checked it when I opened the case and it said on
the unit that it was 380W?

Your current PSU is plenty big enough for what you have. No worries there.
I just checked Price Watch and found the 2600+ for $108, so you could get a
decent upgrade without breaking the bank. Good luck.