Compaq & Evergreen ...

[bdog]

I have a compaq presario 5151 with an amd k62 350. I was trying to sell it, but I decided to keep it for my wife. I am looking to put a faster k62 or k63 in it. So I called compaq to see what was the fastest it could handle and wether or not it supported k63. They said they did not know and told me to call evergreen as they handled upgrades for them. Ok, fine, I called them, told them what I had and they said that all they offered for my system was some kind of pci slot memory and cpu all-in-one thing that could get me 300 mhz. I told them I didn't want that, I only wanted to know what my mobo supported and that besides, as I said earlier I have a K62 350 already, they said "oh, you mean you already have an uprgrade?" I said no, I have a k62 350 which is stock. They said" 350 mhz? you must have a pentium 2 then" I said no it is an amd k62 350" They said " Sir, if it is 350mhz then you have a pentium 2" I then spent five minutes explaining to them that there are two main companies that make chips and finally got frustrated and hung up. Then I called compaq back and told them what a bunch of idiots evergreen was. This time they told me that my machine was a socket 7 that supported 100mhz bus, so any socket 7 100mhz chip would work. I asked them if there was a bios update or anything I needed to recognize the faster chips or k63 technology and they said nope, if it will fit in there then it will work. Well enough ranting, can anyone help me out on what chip I can put in this machine?

[dawgtuff]

If Compaq parted the job out to Evergreen,there's no telling what EG will tell you.Try calling back EG and ask for a supervisor. Perhaps he/she will know how to help you.

[Comtech]

Your subject line says it all. 'nuff said.

[grandslammer]

What a bunch of idiots. I hate dealing with morons! You have my pity on this one!

That seems to be the big problem in dealing with the "big boyz" like compaq, dell, especially gateway. Their machines seem to run well with their "initial" setup, but when you go to deviate from that, you're up sheet's creek... Why can't we all just be friends?

But you see, obviously the people you were talking to weren't computer people. They were just people who were taught a limited amount of data, all proprietary, and nothing more. Not enough information to do any on the fly thinking, and obviously not having the desire to know more than they already do.

In other words, "Damnit Chris, the Earth is flat!"

Oh well, I know I've been of no help in your situation, so I'll go b*tch about something else.

But, you might want to check all over your board and see if there aren't any identifying marks and go from there. Also, see what kind of chipset you have. Or at least the brand.

Good luck in your search...

Mike P.

[This message has been edited by grandslammer (edited 12-14-1999).]

[CMonster]

Check the multipliers on the board and see what the maximum is. Right now you are running at 3.5x100, see if there are 4, 4.5, and 5x settings - you may find the settings written down on the motherboard itself if you cannot find them in your manual. Obivously if you have a 4x multiplier you can run a 400mhz chip in there -4.5x~450mhz - 5x~500 etc.

See what happens when you pay your help desk people $10 an hour.

[Mntsnow]

I can hear you from a mile away on this one! LOL.
When I first got into computers I HAD a Compaq. (almost turned me off of computers!)

With the 5151 compaq you will need to download and install the latest "softpaq" from the "my presario" website (a web within compaq's website that deals with nothing but the "home and small business" presario line.
Once you have done that it will bring your computer up to supporting the K6-3 chips and also includes a Y2K bios patch.

Mntsnow

[bdog]

Thanks alot for the replies. I definitely got more useful information out of your posts then I did from the hour on the phone with the compaq ans evergreen folks. It amazes me that companies with that poor of support people ever made it to be the size and succesful as they are. I guess they just cater to the uninformed. I will check for jumper settings on the mobo. I saw some jumpers on it when I was putting the new video card in, but didn't see a legend as to what they were for. Also I am downloading the softpaq now.

[alpha]

I have to admit, that was **** moronic, but compaq do make **** good servers!

[OuTpaTienT]

Well hell, I can make **** good servers too. Especially if Compaq doesn't even know what a K6-3 is. The K6-3 is the king of servers (well practically). It even beats out many Intel Xeons that cost many times the price of a K6-3.

But anyways, bdog, I'd steer clear of Evergreen. They specilize in upgrades for machines that are not upgradable. The most extreme of their products I've seen is the "turn your 286 into a blazing 486" (I'm serious!!!). And others like "make your 486 a speed demon with our pentium compatible overdrive chip". And all their stuff is overpriced plus their "solutions" tend to be real half-assed. For example the 286 to 486 thing, what you really end up with is something a little faster than a 386. It wouldn't compare to a real 486.

IOW, if you can't upgrade by just putting a faster CPU in, then I wouldn't do it.

A question I'd have for you is: are you sure a CPU upgrade is really necessary?

Even though I'm what one might consider a "power user" and always enjoy tweaking my machine, I gotta tell ya I only have a K6-2/300 and it gets me by just fine. A couple things that have really bred new life into my machine have been a video card upgrade (TNT2/32mb) and a RAM upgrade (now at 192mb).

If the machine only has 64mb RAM or less right now, upgrade that first. I went from 64 to 192 and it has made a huge difference in speed. However, the video card upgrade was even more of a speed boost.

[Zacko10000]

Evergreen is an upgrade company that sells 586 upgrades for 486s, as well as a few upgrades for low speed pentiums. They wouldn't know a thing about any motherboard or AMD chip because they don't deal with them. That's what those companies get for not hiring tech savvy support technicians.

Zach

[bdog]

Yeah, I thought that evergreen specialized in ugrading older computers that had no conventenal upgrade path. I finally found something on compaq's order page. It seems that my mobo was used in several different compaq machines of different speeds and it listed the jumper seetings from 300 to 500 in 50 mhz increments.I still am unsure if it supports k63 though. As for the upgrade helping, the machine has 96mb of ram, and I just put a V3 2000 in it. My machine is a P3 at 617 with 128mb and a viper 770 ultra, 7200rpm hd. My wife doesn't know much about computers, or even use them a lot, but after using mine for a while, hers seems awfully slow. We have tried playing lan games and and my computer is a lot smoother. I always hear "how come you always get the good computer". So I figure if I put a k62 500 or k63 450 or better in it that it should do better. She also uses Illustrater which is a lot slower on her machine than on mine.

[flagreen]

Check out what AMD has on their upgrade page:

"Processor Upgrade Kits
Give your system a boost!

Looking for an easy, affordable way to upgrade your computer? The following vendors offer high performance solutions featuring AMD processors.

CCT 486/586 Upgrade
CCT 686 Upgrade
A&P Technology AMD K6®-2 Upgrade
Concept Manufacturing AMD K6®-2 Upgrade
Kingston Technology TurboChip Processor Upgrades
Evergreen 586
MADEX Processor Upgrade with Socket 7 CPU Adapter
PowerLeap AMD-K6®-2 Upgrade
Note: These products have not been verified and are not supported by AMD. Contact the manufacturers directly for technical information. "

It's unbelievable that the person you spoke with isn't familiar with AMD!




[This message has been edited by flagreen (edited 12-15-1999).]

[EVGTech]

I think i know who you talked to here and i have explained to her that she was not correct. She is not a tech. Her only mission is to try and find an upgrade solution for people. Your system is in an area that has limited upgrade possibilities right now and as such we rarely deal with. Our fastest socket 5/7 upgrade is a 400 Mhz K62.

Your system needs no special hardware to support a k63. Except if you have an older VIA chipset the real issue here is BIOS. your BIOS most likely will only see 2 levels of cache. So you will most likely loose one if you go to a k63.

Evergreen is not affiliated with Compaq in any way. Them saying that we do there upgrades is a bit of a turn around for them as they used to tell people that using our upgrades would void the warranty and other bad things.

286 to 486 upgrade? that's really old man. Back then that was something. We had 386 to 486 upgrades based on the IBM chips that were freaking fast. take a 386dx to 486dx4 100 speeds.

Our PCI based CPU upgrade doesn’t work in super 7 boards as it can't grab the AGP bus off the board. That upgrade can take any system with a PCI slot to Celeron 500 levels and beyond. I have seen p60's and 486 boards running with this card. it can be very impressive.

Compaq’s are a difficult lot to upgrade. Bad bios support. Poor hardware control. Their site says your board could support a k62 500. did you check their website?

ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/supportinformation/techpubs/qrg/presario5100.pdf

[grandslammer]

Hey EVGTech!

I was always curious about those pci slot upgrades. I have seen some that are like a "computer on a card!" With a processor, cache and ram on a PCI card! Okay, doesn't a PCI bus run around 33mhz? So, how do you get that kind of performance across a 33mhz bus? I can't understand this, but perhaps if it were explained to me like I was a six year old...

Anyway, I appreciate any info regarding this matter.

Thank you

Mike P.

[Todd Beck]

Looks like Evergreen's tech support is more helpful here, too.

[EVGTech]

You guys were really starting to beat us up you know. Linking us up with Compaq! sheesh. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

Well it's like this. The host system needs to be able to boot without the card. It doesn’t need much but it has to be able to boot. A 486 with 1 Meg of ram would do it. (we don’t recommend 486 systems as the PCI standard is not real secure back then) When the machine has finished it's POST cycle (counting up memory and such) the AcceleraPCI's BIOS will engage. Kind of like a SCSI card will. At that point the Accelera will take control away from the host CPU. The memory on the host is abandoned and the Acceleras memory is adopted. All the actual processing and such takes place on the card. The PCI bus is used as it normally would be except for ISA calls and such so It's not really much different then how the host CPU would work. think of it as moving the CPU and memory to the other side of the PCI bus. The card will go across the PCI bus and use the host CPU for serial, LPT and ISA calls but not much else.

We had plans to use the host CPU and memory to run dedicated software like a DSP or cacheing the hard disk and other IO but this has not happened yet.

The card is bigger then most PCI devices but not to bad. To upgrade your system all you have to do is plug it in. If you have trouble or want to upgrade a different machine pull it out and plug it in the other machine. You don’t need special motherboard voltage or bus speeds.

The card uses a ZX chipset and can support any socket 370 Celeron. The card has it's own bios with control over bus and voltage.

[EVGTech]

Thanks for pointing out that AMD upgrade page. We'll try and get that straightend out.

[OuTpaTienT]

EVGTech, wow. I'm impressed that you'd take the time to seek this thread out and explain the circumstances. Or maybe you just stumbled across this, well, either way I'm pleased to heard from the other side (that I kinda bashed there).

You've earned some of my respect just by taking this effort to communicate with us. I can't promise I'll start selling your products door-to-door, but next time the subject comes up, I'll at least give you guys the benifit of the doubt.

If more computer related companies had the intelligence to hire people specifically to cruise the bullitin boards and just "chat" with misc. users, that would go a LONG way towards making loyal and satisfied customers. Plus you'd have the benifit of doing damage control "on the fly".

[bdog]

EVGTech,
I wish I would have spoken to you when I called. I appreciate you posting here and clearing things up. Thanks for that link. I found it after my first post. I have seen your products in the past and thought they were interesting. I really don't have a need for them, but they do offer some good options to some people. I kinda wondered why compaq told me to call evergreen. I told them I didn't need someone to do it for me or sell me some kind of kit. I only need the specs. I build and repair computers on a daily basis. I don't need any hand holding to get this upgrade done. I all need to know is what the mobo/bios support. I don't understand why compaq can't tell me that. I mean, they built the computer, who else would know?

[U-96]

Wow! Is this a first? An employee from a concerned company helping out on this board? EVGTech, I am most impressed at your efforts to help bdog and clear up any misunderstandings about your company!
Thanks for dropping in, I hope you stick around http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

U96

[This message has been edited by U-96 (edited 12-16-1999).]

[EVGTech]

Well no one here gets paid to surf the web or forums but there are people here that have been posting here before and after they started working at evergreen.

[OuTpaTienT]

But that's what I'm saying, you should get paid to do this. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think a consistant presence on many net BBS' would really help with PR.

If you enjoy surfing, then maybe you should make a proposal to your boss, or someone higher, (CEO?). You never know. Could be a fun job...and you could work from home. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

[This message has been edited by OuTpaTienT (edited 12-16-1999).]

[EVGTech]

Sounds good to me. maybe i should show some initiative and just start doing it!! http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

We actually have a PR rep that does some web browsing for this kind of thing. She will inform us of certain sites that need our attention but this often involves simply checking out reviews and such of our products.
Do you have any recommendations of sites she should keep an eye on?

[socalgal]

EVGTech, I too must say that I'm impressed with your willingness to join our community and respond to questions about your product/company with your tech knowledge and help. (And not a sales pitch.)

As for PR relations, have you seen how many registered Members there are at SysOpt? Hint: Registered Members = 5233. (That's today, check back tomorrow.) http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

The best PR you can do at a site like this is to help with your knowledge and insight, and provide solutions to people having problems with their computers. That's what SysOpt is all about.

Thanks for joining in and hopefully you'll continue to do so.

http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[EVGTech]

I am honored I am sure. I will do what I can to help.

[lost1]

EVGTech-
I'm with everyone else on this- welcome to the board! Hopefully you'll hang around and make this your second home- like me http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif
I became a fan of Evergreen products when I put one of the 586 upgrade chips in my old Packard Bell 486/66. It actually made an impressive difference- I could run Win95 as well as the 486 ran Win 3.1, which was pretty darned good. I still use that old machine for word processing and gaming, and I find its speed very acceptable for what it is used for.
My next project is to upgrade my old PacBell P100 with the PCI kit you mentioned earlier. These types of upgrades help keep a lot of machines current and out of the trash heap- hopefully Evergreen will keep up the R&D and keep producing these great products.
Again, welcome to the board! http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

[800XL]

I usually try to maintain a level of detachment from the company I work for, even when I am defending them. I've been put in situations before where my answers to to a challenge like the one above were questioned because I was affiliated with the company being 'dumped on'. I suppose I should have known that I would get a more reasonable response from the people of this board than I have seen in the past elsewhere. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

Just to fill in a blank, I also work for Evergreen. I'd weigh in officially on this one, which I don't normally do, but I think I'd just be repeating what EVGTech has already said. (Probably without as much specific info http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif ) Thanks for the warm reception here folks. Even the criticsm helps, so don't feel you have to hold your tongues for fear of hurting our feelings. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

[EVGTech]

Well i dont think i gave away any company secrets. i hope http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

strangely enough we can upgrade almost any packard bell or gateway machine.

if you know what the bios string is for the PB i can tell you what we have for it. or you can call into our customer service with the string and they will tell you what we have for it. the model info for PB ang GW doesnt really mean anything usefull to us.

For the Accelera card upgrade you can go to our website and download our prequal disk and that will tell you if the Accelera will work with your systems hardware.

[AQR8]

Welcome aboard!

I also feel that you should look into doing this officially for the company and let them pay you for it. Send them a proposal, better yet just have them read the thread and come to their own conclusions. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

[Nascar]

EVGTech: I have a question for you, if you don't mind trying to help me?! I need to know if your company sells bios upgrades for a 486 with a FIC mobo? I tried to install a new 56k modem today and after 1 1/2 hours with a great person from Viking, he came to the conclusion that the bios needed an upgrade, but I can't seem to find one. The bios is an Award, but the link in the website is to a company that doesn't have one and they have no idea where to get one.
I have also been told that I should just get a brand new system, because I may have to change the mobo and also buy more memory.
It's my moms system and I just wanted her to go faster on the web.
Can you help a poor, just learning, and not looking to take your job girl?
Thanks

[EVGTech]

bios upgrade because of a modem?? I think the tech was trying to get you off the phone. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif
seriously why did he say you needed a bios upgrade? what is the problem you are having.

we have bios upgrades but not for 486 boards. Assuming what the tech said accurate i would suggest two ideas.
look on wims bios page. http://www.ping.be/bios/

or get a different modem.

this may need a different topic you know.

i see this topics subject name was changed. thanks http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[Nascar]

I'm going to directly email you with the confusing details.
Thanks

[OuTpaTienT]

hmmm, well, if you do that, then you eliminate the possibility of anyone else being able to help.

Oh well, no worries. I'm sure evgtech can get ya going. He seems to have had the exact same questions come to mind as I did, "bios upgrade because of a modem???"

[Nascar]

OuTpaTienT, please don't be offended! I'll take help from anyone. I am a novice to this and would rather not get taken. I really wrote a novel to him, but if you'd like I'd either rewrite it here or send it to you also.
I don't mean to offend anyone.

[EVGTech]

ya well i was going to say... http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

i am at home right now and you wrote to my work e-mail http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif Our firewall makes it very difficult to check my work e-mail from home. Gotta love IP paranoia. i may be there sunday but go ahead and make a new topic and post your question there. I am pretty good with modems if i do say so myself but you'll get a more complete answer if you ask everyone.

[OuTpaTienT]

Nascar, it's cool. Really, I took no offense. I understand where your coming from and in spite of the fact I'm usually a pretty blatant smart-*** (but good natured), my last message had no "smart-***-ism's" in it.

No worries. - http://www.norcov.com/~donc/tounge.gif uTpaTienT