Advent 3115 series' motherboard question

I have a friend who currently owns an Advent 3115 PC (http://www.uktsupport.co.uk/advent/faq/pc/3115.htm), and is currently deciding whether to simply upgrade and build on this system or buy/custom make a new one from scratch. The question is this: up to what speed of processor could the motherboard support and would it be compatible with a 64-bit processor? (I guessed the PSU could limit this as well...?)

P.S. I have seen that "Socket A supports the AMD K7 processor Full series of Athlon XP / Athlon / Duron processors" on the linked page, but I am still not completely sure whether there will be a limit on the processor speed in ghz (for whatever reason) or whether 64-bit would be an option.

Thanks :)

Well, its based on the Via KT400 - so pretty much any Athlon XP or Socket A Sempron should work. I could be wrong however. You might benefit from nipping into a local PC World and finding a disgruntled techie and asking his opinion on it - he's been dealing with broken Advents for some time! ;)

Ruairi

The KT400 chipset supports processors with a 166MHz FSB, but not the later 200FSB ones. Unfortunately, the specs on the page you linked show that it only has PC2100 memory which is only specced to run at 133FSB. The processor it has in it, the XP2600, is the fastest 133FSB processor AMD made; in fact they're quite rare as the XP2600 moved to a 166FSB shortly after it was launched. 64 bit is not an option on this board (not that it currently makes any difference anyway, thanks to the lack of 64bit Windows).

You could get a bit of a speed boost by removing the processor and using pin-mods to overclock it- see www.ocinside.de , you do this at your own risk obviously, but you could probably get it to 2.2 or 2.3GHz without too much difficulty. To get a noticeable speed boost though you could get yourself a mATX A64 board and bung in an A64 2800 or 3000; you could use the current RAM although you could get a further speed boost by upgrading to PC3200.

It's still not a slow computer for most tasks; I run an XP at 2.08 GHZ (albeit at 191FSB) and it still does the job for me pretty much. If he wants to upgrade to get a speed boost in games then the obvious place to start would be the video card. A 9600Pro or similar would be a big step up from an MX440, a 9700 or better would make the world of difference:).

Any further questions just ask.

Rich :¬)

Rich,

Thanks for clarifying that, you learn something every day!

Ruairi

Thanks for the replies rc55 (Ruairi :) ) and Rave (Rich :) ), this will undoubtedly help in the big decision! The impression the linked site gave me was that it would take "any" athlon xp: THANK GOD I ASKED!

Thanks again ;) :)

Well, for those who are interested

go to www.pcservicecall.co.uk
from the menu on the left, select Desktop Pc's
select Advent
select Advent 3000 series
select xx15 range
select Advent 3115
click on Hardware
click on the motherboard link for full info about the motherboard