| Pentium3 in a Celeron-Only
Socket370 Motherboard
| By:
Haut^Karl |
Saturday,
November 16, 2002 |
This was a relatively straight
forward mod to put a Pentium 3 700 Mhz CPU in
an Abit BM-6 motherboard. This board was designed
to accept only Celeron processors (233 Mhz up
to 1.1Ghz). Your board will also need to have
a Voltage Regulation Module(VRM) that can actively
output 1.5 volts and support a Front Side Bus(FSB)
speed of 100 Mhz. If your board only supplies
2.0 volts, then this mod may not be for you(Powerleap
does make the NEO-S370
and the PL-370-T
which do the job nicely. Check their site for
compatibility).
OVERVIEW:
While there were a few pin
changes to the Pentium 3 chip, only 2 were critical
to basic functionality in the original S370
boards. An unlabeled "key" pin was
installed and the RESET pin was moved. So all
we do is insulate or remove the key pin, AM2,
and solder a thin wire from pin X4 to pin AH4.
DETAILS:
AN2: The ideal
way to take care of pin AN2 is to pry open the
S370 ZIF socket and use non-conductive tape
on the contact. This is reversible and "believably"
maintains your motherboard's warranty. An alternative
is to cut off the AN2 pin from the processor(I
did this when I had 16 of these mods to do)
but this will void your processor's warranty.
If you bought an OEM processor, your warranty
has probably expired as it only lasted 15-30
days so who cares now!
X4-AH4: I soldered
a thin piece of wire onto the back of the motherboard
to make this connection. I have some very thin
wire in the workshop, not sure what gauge this
is, but a short strand of IDE cable will work
or even a wire from an ethernet cable. This
connection is not one of the high speed data
lines the processor uses to crunch numbers so
we are only concerned with making a basic connection.
Length should be kept under 2 inches(5 cm).
You could also use conductive paint but weaving
in and out of the processor's pins is difficult
and may make contact with unwanted pins.
RESULTS:
I have had this
mod running in those 16 computers for 2.5 years
now and not a problem yet. I did not reinstall
Win 98 SE after this mod but I did have to upgrade
the RAM to PC100 from the old PC66. If you are
an overclocker, the Pentium 3 700 Mhz processor
is a perfect candidate for 933 Mhz operation
if your board supports the 133 Mhz Front Side
Bus(FSB) speed and you install PC133 RAM.
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