old packard bell platinum supreme 1956

Q

quartermilecamel

New Member
Hello. this is my first post here. Hoping Im in the right area for this. Anyway I have a packard bell platinum supreme 1956 266mhz. Im searching for info on how much faster a cpu I can put in there. I woiuld imagine its still no more than a pentium 2 slot processor. Maybe a 450 mhz? I tried packard bells website but my part number and serial number doesnt come up with anything for support info. Its s/n p183015810 and p/n 89487. Any suggestions as to what I should get would be great. He just wants to use it for printing, cd burning......nothing fast needed but 266 is dirt slow. If we could get to mud slow or even semi slow anythings better than 266.
 
I can't find anything about the computer online, so it's very difficult to say much of anything... heck I'm not even sure if it's a desktop or laptop :P Simply put;

Desktop; PII 450 should be fine, MAYBE some PIII's depending on the chipset and all.

Laptop; Probably not upgradable. Older laptops tended to have either soldered processors or used propriatary ones. You'd basically need to find a "better" laptop of the same make and model and swap the parts out.

Regardless, in the end, you're probably going to spend more upgrading than simply buying a new computer. Sub-$300 netbooks and sub-$400 laptops are not uncommon now-of-days.
 
well it is a desktop. Just tried to put a p2 350 mhz out of my gateway in it and it recognized it as a 233 mhz which is less than the original 266mhz processor. I was thinking about flashing the bios but cant find where to get that.
 
Hmm... Make sure there's not a jumper on there for 66/100 MHz front side bus. Older motherboards around that era sometimes require you manually set it; sometimes even manually set the multiplier. I know a lot of the PII 350's have a 100MHz FSB, so 3.5*100=350MHz. However, 3.5*66=231MHz.
 
Well I see several jumper spots on the board but none say multipier. On my Ibm 350 it had that and I was able to get a 533 mhz processor to work. Dunno how I would tell if one of those jumpers is the multiplier.
I cant even seem to get the video card which is a s3 virge gx2, to work normally other than in slow mode with no driver where the screen scroll several times just to display the picture. Not sure a driver is available anymore. Standard vga driver maybe? xp doesnt recognize the card.
 
Boards can really vary... I've seen boards with a single jumper for bus speeds, and others with about 3. Then some have the multiplier settings too. Look around the board. Most of the time there's some kind of little reference guide, a chart.

As for the GPU, I'm surprised XP does load the drivers for you... I'm not sure what to say aside from look around. There are problably some out there somewhere.
 
quartermilecamel said:
Well I see several jumper spots on the board but none say multipier. On my Ibm 350 it had that and I was able to get a 533 mhz processor to work. Dunno how I would tell if one of those jumpers is the multiplier.
I cant even seem to get the video card which is a s3 virge gx2, to work normally other than in slow mode with no driver where the screen scroll several times just to display the picture. Not sure a driver is available anymore. Standard vga driver maybe? xp doesnt recognize the card.
Click to expand...

Here are the memory specs:

Platinum Supreme 1952, 1956 Memory Specifications
Standard Memory 48 or 64 MB (removable)
Maximum Memory 384 MB
Memory Expansion 3 sockets
Memory Comments n/a
CPU Type 266MHz Intel Pentium II
Model Comments 100 MHz Front Side Bus

Some other stuff:

This configuration PackardBell provided was complete with a 266MHz Intel Pentium II n/a IDE PCI/ISA 6.4 GB n/a, 2 sockets (1 bank of 2) ATI 3D CHARGER(tm) with 3D RAGE(tm) IIC AGP Graphics/Video Accelerator and 4 MB SDRAM 4 MB 4 MB

Drivers for the S3 Virge:

Models
S3 ViRGE/GX2 4Meg
S3 Inc. ViRGE GX2

Manufacturers
GVC
S3

Supported Operating Systems
Windows 95, Windows 98

S3 Virge/GX2 (86c357 -chipset}

There may be a few others that apply to your device so be sure of the chipset before you try to install drivers.

May be found here

I can't find anything on the pin set for the multiplier (if it is set that way). If you are lucky the BIOS has the ability to change the multiplier if not you may be stuck with what you have. The other thing to do is to check the MB chipset. If it uses an Intel 440BX chipset it will support P III CPU on a slot 1 card (or one of those older package cards Intel made). Major problems with this is if the multiplier isn't high enough you are only going to get at most 400Mhz or so out of the CPU. Plus being as the MB only supports 384MB ram, pretty much no matter what you do it is still going to be dirt slow.

Good luck..
 
yeah I saw that max memory somewhere. What gets me is I have 512 megs in it now......start up recognizes it and so does windows xp....looking for chipset now... Many thanks.........we will see.
 
quartermilecamel said:
yeah I saw that max memory somewhere. What gets me is I have 512 megs in it now......start up recognizes it and so does windows xp....looking for chipset now... Many thanks.........we will see.
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Hmmmm well if it recognizes 512k then so be it.. I would assume that is 2x256 sticks and a matched pair I 'spose it wouldn't make any difference what the specs say. Anyway if you want to find out about the system and all of its particulars this or this are nice stand alone freeware programs that do a pretty good job of detecting hardware.
 
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Yeah I have everest on my computer.......shoiuld give that a try. Just found a s3 virge gx2 driver that says xp on driverguide.com so that might work.

Should I keep trying drivers for the video card or is this cideo card not xp compatible. Im seeing drivers that say s3 virge gx2 that list win 3.1 all the way up to xp pro on driver guide.com. Oh and yes I looked on the card......says 357 on the chip.
 
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quartermilecamel said:
Yeah I have everest on my computer.......shoiuld give that a try. Just found a s3 virge gx2 driver that says xp on driverguide.com so that might work.

Should I keep trying drivers for the video card or is this cideo card not xp compatible. Im seeing drivers that say s3 virge gx2 that list win 3.1 all the way up to xp pro on driver guide.com. Oh and yes I looked on the card......says 357 on the chip.
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I would at least give it a try... if for nothing else so that you can set the resolution up to a more acceptable level, say 800x600 or 1024x768.

Here are the specs for that card:

S3D VIRGE GX2 (AGP)

Card Type Video card

Video Chip Set S3

Maximum Video Memory 4MB SGRAM

Video Types Supported VGA

Highest Resolution Supported 1600 x 1200

Data Bus AGP

CONNECTIONS

CN1 LPB feature connector

CN2 TV out via RCA jack

CN3 S-Video out

CN4 15-pin analog video port
Click to expand...

There isn't much else I can tell you about that item as my experience in running it under XP is nil. I know that it will run under win 2000 at 1024x768 but I never tested the S-Vid or RCA out.
 
Ok as far as mother board chipset goes where or which chips am I looking at? Is it one chip or more than 1? Ok I just spotted a sticker that has a big FC on it and says intel type AL440LX. Dunno if that qualifies as the chipset your looking for
 
Ok as far as mother board chipset goes where or which chips am I looking at? Is it one chip or more than 1? Ok I just spotted a sticker that has a big FC on it and says intel type AL440LX. Dunno if that qualifies as the chipset your looking for. I just tried putting a 400 mhz in there p2. It turned on but only as a 266. I tried putting the normal/configuration jumper in config and it came up into the bios screen and showed me processor speeds. Highest one was 333, selected that but it still shows 266 when rebooted.. Bios is 4A4LL0x0.11A.0009.P07. Would be nice if a bios flash would get it to recognize a 400 mhz. Dunno where I would get one. Probably not even around anymore. Only jumper I really see is one that has 2 jumper slots and 1/2 of a 3rd one. (one brass pin not there) Mother board has next to it WAVE TBL. Not sure what that is.
 
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quartermilecamel said:
Ok as far as mother board chipset goes where or which chips am I looking at? Is it one chip or more than 1? Ok I just spotted a sticker that has a big FC on it and says intel type AL440LX. Dunno if that qualifies as the chipset your looking for
Click to expand...

Close enough.

MB Specs:

INTEL CORPORATION

AL440LX

Processor....Pentium II

Processor Speed....Unidentified

Chip Set....Intel

Maximum Onboard Memory....384MB (this is per Intel's specs)

Cache....512KB

BIOS....Intel/Phoenix

Dimensions....305mm x 244mm

I/O Options

32-bit PCI slots (4), floppy drive interface, game/MIDI port, green PC connector, IDE interfaces (2), parallel port, PS/2 mouse port, serial ports (2), IR connector, USB connectors (2), ATX power connector, AGP slot, line in (2), line out, microphone in

NPU Options....None

A picture of the MB in question:

INTEL-CORPORATION-Pentium-II-AL440LX-1.png


A link to all the jumpers and pin settings..AL440LX


Here is the link from Intel with all the drivers and documentation for that MB.

AL440LX

Here is a link to someone who has done some pretty extensive work with this MB

How Can I Upgrade My AL440LX?

Hope that helps some..
 
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I only have the actual vga connector on the card, thats it. The s3 virge/gx2 is on the chip on the board. Ive tried some drivers that said winxp but when tried, it says this driver doesnt support xp. Btw the display right now is set to 1024 by 768. so I dont know if xp is using a default driver or not. When I drag windows around, you can see it drawing the window..its not smooth....probably no driver..not set up right.

schw32m said:
I would at least give it a try... if for nothing else so that you can set the resolution up to a more acceptable level, say 800x600 or 1024x768.
Here are the specs for that card:



There isn't much else I can tell you about that item as my experience in running it under XP is nil. I know that it will run under win 2000 at 1024x768 but I never tested the S-Vid or RCA out.
Click to expand...
 
dude, you should get a new pc for this person, 233mhz? i got a 3.5ghz quad core, im suprised that things runs xp and can even burn cds, how old is it?
 
ganzey said:
dude, you should get a new pc for this person, 233mhz? i got a 3.5ghz quad core, im suprised that things runs xp and can even burn cds, how old is it?
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He doesnt wanna game, autocad, take over the space shuttle with it. Btw, we are both getting LAYED OFF, ...plant closure.
I stuck a 5 dollar modem in it, 5 dollar sound card, 5 dollar video card ordered.
 
Just downloaded a video driver and burnt it onto a cd.......so that works too. Has tr ouble viewing youtube videos though. video just shows a freeze frame picture but sound plays.
 
My bios is 4A4LL0X0.11A,0009.P07........I read that link that has extensive work on this motherboard and I was reading the spot where it gives an intel link for bios upgrade. Will this bios work? Their bios number is 4A4LL0X0.86A.0031.P14
 
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