Confused about A7v266 with Athlon XP

[Bruce]

Hi,

I have a plain A7v266 MB with a AMD Athlon 1.4GHz CPU.
With plain I mean no A7v266-E or A7v266-MX, just a A7v266.
Now I would like to upgrade my CPU to a Athlon XP (because of the SSE
instruction set) but I'm confused about what I read at Asus' website.
They say:
"A7v266: Socket A for AMD®: Athlon / Duron®: 550MHz ~ 1.4GHz+ CPU"
So then I would think, no Athlon XP for me.
But when I look at the BIOS updates they say;
"A7V266 BIOS rev 1011 - Support AMD AthlonXP 2600+"
So am I right if I say that I can install a Athlon XP if I make sure I have
the right BIOS update?
Because I'm a complete moron with this stuff I thought I would ask here.
Also, is there more I should think about if I want to do an upgrade like
this (do's/don'ts)?
Thanks very much for your reply!

 

[DaveW]

Flashing the BIOS with an update is never a sure thing. If it goes wrong
you may be left with an unusable motherboard. Are you OK with this?

 

[Bruce]

DaveW:

Flashing the BIOS with an update is never a sure thing. If it goes
wrong you may be left with an unusable motherboard. Are you OK with
this?

Well I did that already ) I now have BIOS rev 1011, but I still wonder
if I can put in a Athlon XP now...

 

[Ed]

DaveW:


Well I did that already ) I now have BIOS rev 1011, but I still wonder
if I can put in a Athlon XP now...

For a "A7v266" looks like a Athlon XP 2600+(266FSB)(Model
8)(Thoroughbred) is the fastest that board supports officially.

see... http://www.asus.com/support/cpusupport/cpusupport.aspx

btw....
Athlon XP 2600+(266FSB) OPN = AXDA2600DKV3C
Athlon XP 2600+(333FSB) OPN = AXDA2600DKV3D
Barton 2600+ (333FSB) OPN = AXDA2600DKV4D

Cheers,
Ed

 

[Ed]

For a "A7v266" looks like a Athlon XP 2600+(266FSB)(Model
8)(Thoroughbred) is the fastest that board supports officially.

see... http://www.asus.com/support/cpusupport/cpusupport.aspx

btw, you'll also notice you need at least a PCB revision of 1.05 or
later to run the faster chips, that # should be printed on the board,
most likely between the bottom PCI slots somewhere.

HTH,
Ed

 

[Bruce]

Ed:

btw, you'll also notice you need at least a PCB revision of 1.05 or
later to run the faster chips, that # should be printed on the board,
most likely between the bottom PCI slots somewhere.

Thanx for your reply Ed.
I found out that I have PCB rev. 1.06, so I guess "Athlon XP 2200+(Model
8)(Thoroughbred)" is the best I can get, but that's ok. Thanx again!

 

[Ian]

Ed:


Thanx for your reply Ed.
I found out that I have PCB rev. 1.06, so I guess "Athlon XP 2200+(Model
8)(Thoroughbred)" is the best I can get, but that's ok. Thanx again!

I have the same A7V266 rev 1.06 BIOS 1011 with Athlon 1400.

I replaced the processor a few months ago for a "Athlon XP 2200+
Thoroughbred" I had no problems and all works ok

You can see a improvement in speed when I run benchmark programs but in
everyday use its hard to much difference.

The biggest improvement is it runs cooler.

Ian

 

[Stephen Green]

oooeeerrr... here's me getting all excited about possible cpu upgrade to
2600 until me reads this .. :-((

checked my mobo and its rev1.04........ whats the best I could achieve
????

if mobo and cpu upgrade are in need of replacing whats works the best ?

budget of 300 UK pounds

tia

Stephen
a7a266 rev 1.04 (!)
1400 thunderbird
MSI G4Ti4200 64Mb
512Mb PC2100

 

[Lou Heitzler]

Hi,

I have a plain A7v266 MB with a AMD Athlon 1.4GHz CPU.
With plain I mean no A7v266-E or A7v266-MX, just a A7v266.
Now I would like to upgrade my CPU to a Athlon XP (because of the SSE
instruction set) but I'm confused about what I read at Asus' website.
They say:
"A7v266: Socket A for AMD®: Athlon / Duron®: 550MHz ~ 1.4GHz+ CPU"
So then I would think, no Athlon XP for me.
But when I look at the BIOS updates they say;
"A7V266 BIOS rev 1011 - Support AMD AthlonXP 2600+"
So am I right if I say that I can install a Athlon XP if I make sure I have
the right BIOS update?
Because I'm a complete moron with this stuff I thought I would ask here.
Also, is there more I should think about if I want to do an upgrade like
this (do's/don'ts)?
Thanks very much for your reply!

Yes after you update yourbios,go for it.

 

[Andy]

http://www.a7vtroubleshooting.com/info/cpu/index.htm