Testing old Skt A Mobo's. Need Processors.

Hi guys,

Question about how to test some old socket A mobo's that I want to flog on fleabay to try and ease my dire cash flow situation.

The mobo's in question are three unmarkerd, and pretty much unidentifiable socket A affairs. I've scoured them for stickers and serial numbers and googled away but with little luck:( So I don't know if they work, what manufacturer they are etc, and even what bus speeds etc. When I got them as part of a bulk-buy auction lot they were sold as probably working, probably support up to a 1GHz processors.

What I want to do is test them by getting them to at least POST.Then I can hopefully sell them for a little bit more than they would fetch untested. But the only socket A processors I have are my main 2400+ (no way I'm sticking that in any of these) and my old 1400/266 t-bird, which again I'm reluctant to put in these mobo's as it currently works and I'd like to sell it.

Questions:
So, should I buy an old duron or something to test these with?
How easily can a mobo break a processor by using the wrong bus speeds etc?
What bus speeds are most likely to work? 100mhz? 133?
Do most mobo's support several bus speeds?

I think I've got both pc100 and pc133 ram lying about that I can use, but again I'd rather not ruin it if possible.

So in otherwords, If I bought an old Duron 800/100 or something, would I likely be able to test all the mobos. Or would I need another with a 133bus, and another with a 200 bus, just to make sure?

Thanks, Andrew.

Firstly any duron except the most recent ones all run on 100fsb. If the board supposts durons, then it will support 100fsb.

FSB is always backwards compatable, for example my nf7-s goes upto 230fsb with a little pushing :) but will happly run my duron at 100mhz fsb.

Runnignthe wrong fsb is unlikely to damage anything. Just make sure that you dont overclock past any of the components max becuase that will affect the test and maybe make it not post when really it should.

system ram is also backwards compatable. 133 will easly run at 100 and 66 maybe even lower!!

I have a duron 1100mhz if your interested. £15 inc postage?

I think your better off with a low clocked duron like a 700 / 800 as the newer ones might be be seen by the boards dependsing on which model they are.

I have an old asus which would not work with my duron 1.1 but works fine with the duron 900 which i currently have in it.

If you have any models / pictures maybe someting might have had one and know what make they are !

Thanks for that post. So I can use a low fsb processor and it should work on any mobo with a bit of luck. Is the same true the other way around?

I'm afarid I was thinking of something a bit cheaper (I really am very skint atm) so more like £5 for a nasty 6-800 mhz part. I have a look on ebay and in the for sale section.

Edit: I could probably get a few picks up but it would take a day or two. I only have film cameras so I'd need to get a film developed with a picture CD. As I mentioned how skint I am that would be a two day service to save costs :(

Quote:

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Originally Posted by stytagm

Thanks for that post. So I can use a low fsb processor and it should work on any mobo with a bit of luck. Is the same true the other way around?

I'm afarid I was thinking of something a bit cheaper (I really am very skint atm) so more like £5 for a nasty 6-800 mhz part. I have a look on ebay and in the for sale section.

Edit: I could probably get a few picks up but it would take a day or two. I only have film cameras so I'd need to get a film developed with a picture CD. As I mentioned how skint I am that would be a two day service to save costs :(

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Yes a low fsb cpu should work on any Socket A Mobo. But even when you know that they work ok with for example the duron 800 you have bought it does not help the buyer who will want to know if they take Athlon XPs etc.

If you mean the other way around as in it will slow down and run slower it depends on the cpu but i would have to say no really as athlon XP cpus might be be reconised by the bios and therefore it does not post. Maybe a 266mhz orginial athlon might slow down and post i am not sure.

Don't worry about the pictures then was just a thought!

You will be lucky to find one for £5 to be honest mate but you never know :) 800mhz were still going for around £10 last time i looked but like i say you never know :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gamesaregood

Yes a low fsb cpu should work on any Socket A Mobo. But even when you know that they work ok with for example the duron 800 you have bought it does not help the buyer who will want to know if they take Athlon XPs etc.

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I doubt these mobo's will support palominos onwards, I only really want to know if they work at all! I was hoping that If I could get them to post I could glean some info about them from the bios, that would allow me to at least write a fairly helpfull description. TBH I'm only hoping to get about a tenner for each of them if I'm lucky.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gamesaregood

You will be lucky to find one for £5 to be honest mate but you never know :) 800mhz were still going for around £10 last time i looked but like i say you never know :)

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Ahh well, I suppose I could probably stretch to 10 nuggets, I'll just have to cut down to only half a slice of dry bread a day;)

Once I've sold these mobo's I'll have no use for it so I can allways flog it again and hopefully get most of my money back.

post a pic of the boards and i'll try and id them for you if you want, im fairly good at id'ing the old sckt a boards

OK, give me a few days then I'll bounce this thread back up with some pics. It'd be great if I could get them identified, especially if I could sell them with the bioses up to date an at least a link to an online manual.

Dammit just checked ebay, and several duron 750's I noticed this morning all went for less than a fiver, I forgot to check on them. Bah :mad:

Are there no serial numbers or anything on the boards? It's usually worth a try bunging them into google, I've ID'd a few boards that way.

Rich :¬)