Upgrading processor on a A7V266 Board

[Hot Rats]

Hi,

I've had a a A7V266 board for some time, along with an Athlon 1600 XP. I
need to do DVD video capturing/editing and my current setup can't hack it.

So, I need to upgrade either the CPU, the m/b or both. I can't find
anything useful on the Asus website about which processors I could upgrade
to.

The thing is, do I have to just bite the bullet and upgrade the board? It's
a last resort cos I don't really know what I'm doing. I'd feel more
comfortable just doing the CPU.

Cost is an issue here as well, because I've just had to fork out for more
RAM and HDD.

I'd appreciate any comments. I'm in the UK, for price comparisons

 

[Tone-EQ]

I've had a a A7V266 board for some time, along with an Athlon 1600 XP. I

need to do DVD video capturing/editing and my current setup can't hack it.

So, I need to upgrade either the CPU, the m/b or both. I can't find
anything useful on the Asus website about which processors I could upgrade
to.

It's an obselete model now, not listed at all, which isn't very good for
support. Processor details below though...

The thing is, do I have to just bite the bullet and upgrade the board?
It's
a last resort cos I don't really know what I'm doing. I'd feel more
comfortable just doing the CPU.

If you can change the CPU then there is no reason (other than cost) why you
cannot change the motherboard too IMO. Changing the CPU requires you to
remove the motherboard from the case first and place on a flat surface
(that's how I've always done it anyway).

Cost is an issue here as well, because I've just had to fork out for more
RAM and HDD.

I'd appreciate any comments. I'm in the UK, for price comparisons

I had a A7V266 a few years ago, and if I remember correctly, it will only
accept Socket A CPUs based on the Palamino core (I think there is a jumper
on the motherboard to select Palamino or older processors, take a look in
your manual to check this). The Palamino was only made up to 2100+ speed
(1733Mhz), and your current processor, which is also a Palamino, should run
at 1400Mhz. Someone, please, correct me if I am wrong about this.

My point is that you will not get much of a performance increase as your
motherboard is a big limitation. There is a 2100+ on eBay now for £4.99:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=44935&item=6786381006&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

Please post more of your specs before I continue. RAM type and size, the HDD
you have just bought, graphics card, etc. It may be less expensive that you
think to get a new motherboard, as you do not sound like you need bleeding
edge performance.

Regards,
Tony.

 

[Paul]

Hi,

I've had a a A7V266 board for some time, along with an Athlon 1600 XP. I
need to do DVD video capturing/editing and my current setup can't hack it.

So, I need to upgrade either the CPU, the m/b or both. I can't find
anything useful on the Asus website about which processors I could upgrade
to.

The thing is, do I have to just bite the bullet and upgrade the board? It's
a last resort cos I don't really know what I'm doing. I'd feel more
comfortable just doing the CPU.

Cost is an issue here as well, because I've just had to fork out for more
RAM and HDD.

I'd appreciate any comments. I'm in the UK, for price comparisons

You can start here:

http://support.asus.com.tw/cpusupport/cpusupport.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

You need to know the board revision number. It should be printed
next to the "A7V266" board name.

If you had the right revision of board, the highest speed processor
listed is 2600+ FSB266. I believe those were hard to find, even when
they were in production. The 2600+ with FSB333 was more common and
not what you want.

XP Model 8   2133 (2600+) OPGA 133 256   16x   1.65V 85oC 62.0W

The only way you could achieve a higher clock frequency than that,
would be to use a AthlonXP-M unlocked mobile processor. The
core on one of those can do 2400 to 2600MHz, a little better than
the stock setting of 2133 of the highest official upgrade. Of course,
you still need to have a reasonable revision number on the PCB, as
if your particular board only supports the slower processors, it
might not be a good candidate for this option. The price is reasonable
($97 USD):

http://www.newegg.com/OldVersion/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=19-103-436&depa=1

The only question about that, is whether the fifth multiplier bit
is available in your hardware, to set the multiplier above 12.5
manually. This page has some information on multipliers:

http://fab51.com/cpu/barton/athlon-e23.html

The forums at www.a7vtroubleshooting.com might be one place to
look for more advice on using a mobile with your board. They
mention CPUMSR as a way to change the multiplier while in Windows
- perhaps that would be easier than doing the wire mod to get
multipliers above 12.5x . CPUMSR works with mobiles, except with
certain chipsets like Nforce2. (If using the search engine on this
site, change the "number of days" from 7 to 1000.)

http://www.a7vtroubleshooting.com/f...rd=a7v;action=display;num=1099432970;start=15

In terms of the chipset on your board, it uses a 266MB/sec V-link
between Northbridge and Southbridge. That means your PCI bus
should not have issues when capturing data to memory. That is
one area where it would be superior compared to an A7V.

A7V266 uses V-link to connect North and South bridge.
http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/chipsets/legacy/kt266/

A7V uses the PCI bus to connect North and Southbridges. More
congestion results.
http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/chipsets/legacy/kt133/

The one area that you cannot change, is the limited FSB and
memory bus. AthlonXP is starved for bandwidth on the busses,
and this is one reason you cannot expect a processor upgrade
on the A7V266 to solve all your problems.

Since you say "cost is an issue", I'm going to assume you only
have money for a CPU. Otherwise, you could hunt for a better
platform to build on. There are Athlon64 boards that accept
DDR memory and AGP video cards, and that would be one progression.
Another way to get a processor core with a higher clock speed, would
be to get a P4 board, and put a Celeron D in it. The Celeron D
doesn't have a high FSB (FSB533), but the high end ones do reach
3GHz core clock. (If you have more money to burn than this, by
all means buy a FSB800 processor. The 865PE Northbridge will
allow you to reuse your current DDR memory.)

Intel Celeron D 345J 3.06 GHz, 533MHz FSB, 256K L2, LGA775 $126 USD
http://www.newegg.com/OldVersion/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=19-112-200&depa=1

P5P800 LGA775 P4 board, dual channel, 865PE chipset $95 USD
http://www.newegg.com/OldVersion/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-131-511&depa=1

It would be good to understand whether the applications you use,
work better with Intel processors or with AMD processors. That
might suggest a preference for one solution over the others.
I don't work with DVDs or movies, so have no idea what your tool
flow looks like.

HTH,
Paul

 

[Hot Rats]

Please post more of your specs before I continue. RAM type and size, the HDD
you have just bought, graphics card, etc. It may be less expensive that you
think to get a new motherboard, as you do not sound like you need bleeding
edge performance.

Regards,
Tony.

Hi Tony, thanks a lot for the reply, it's a big help.

Here are some of my specs:

I had 512mb of generic RAM, but I just added a Kingston 1024MB DDR266 PC2100
Cl25 memory Module, because I thought the capturing problems I was having
were down to insufficient RAM.

I just added this HDD purely for capturing video - Seagate ST3120026A 120GB
7200rpm 8mb Cache Barracuda 7200.7 Plus

My graphics card is a 9200 Radeon, 128MB.

I've only just bought the extra RAM and HDD so funds are a bit low. But it
looks like I'll have to keep spending. I must admit I don't fancy changing
the m/b as I've never done that. Plus my PC works at the moment, which it
might not do if I start mucking about with its innards! The PC works fine
for my other uses (games etc) but I'm really disappointed I can't use it for
the DVD capturing, I suppose I was expecting too much from my old gear.

Anyway, I'd be interested in your advice.

Dewi

 

[Paul]

Hi Tony, thanks a lot for the reply, it's a big help.

Here are some of my specs:

I had 512mb of generic RAM, but I just added a Kingston 1024MB DDR266 PC2100
Cl25 memory Module, because I thought the capturing problems I was having
were down to insufficient RAM.

I just added this HDD purely for capturing video - Seagate ST3120026A 120GB
7200rpm 8mb Cache Barracuda 7200.7 Plus

My graphics card is a 9200 Radeon, 128MB.

I've only just bought the extra RAM and HDD so funds are a bit low. But it
looks like I'll have to keep spending. I must admit I don't fancy changing
the m/b as I've never done that. Plus my PC works at the moment, which it
might not do if I start mucking about with its innards! The PC works fine
for my other uses (games etc) but I'm really disappointed I can't use it for
the DVD capturing, I suppose I was expecting too much from my old gear.

Anyway, I'd be interested in your advice.

Dewi

Could you describe your capturing problems ? Are you dropping
frames, or is capture stopped dead in its tracks by some kind of
error ? If there is an error message, what is the exact text of
the error message ?

What interface are you using to capture video ?

In terms of a disk to use for recording video, the one with the
fewest issues, will be a disk drive connected to the Southbridge.
Some RAID chips, for example, are not good destination devices
for video capture, due to driver issues.

Paul

 

[Hot Rats]

Could you describe your capturing problems ? Are you dropping
frames, or is capture stopped dead in its tracks by some kind of
error ? If there is an error message, what is the exact text of
the error message ?

What interface are you using to capture video ?

In terms of a disk to use for recording video, the one with the
fewest issues, will be a disk drive connected to the Southbridge.
Some RAID chips, for example, are not good destination devices
for video capture, due to driver issues.

Paul

Hi Paul,

I'm using the Pinnacle AV/DV capture card which was supplied with Pinnacle
Studio 9. I can't find many specs on the card or the blue breakout box that
comes with it but they should be able to cope with capturing DVD.

I just discovered that my CPU had been running at 1045mhz instead of
1400mhz. I changed this in the bios and I can now capture a longer piece of
video before it starts to drops frames. But sure, enough after been fine
for half a minute or so it drops frames, and the resulting mpeg is useless.
The quality of what it captured is fine except it's jumpy due to the dropped
frames.

I'm going to make sure my m/b bios is up to date and I can't think of much
else to be honest.

All comments welcome!