For those that don't yet run away screaming when they see my name...

I'm working on upgrading a damn-near non functioning HP Pavilion 8565C... based on the ohh so fun, non-commercial ASUS P2B-VT...

Decided to contact HP first... and they say that a 500MHz CPU is the max the board can handle (it's based on the VIA Pro chipset... according to the info page on it at hp.com..), as I don't particularly trust HP, I decided to take a look at the comp... I found that they've pretty much killed the ability to modify FSB (set at 100~), but they've left the CPU multipliers accessible... I'm curious if anyone would know if i could/can upgrade to a P3 800MHz proc? (for some reason Winxp seems a bit slow on 800mhz with only 64mb ram... :-P)

Thanks y'all

Hi, I try!
But I have a little problem. Where you got the info that the board is a P2B-VT ???
I ask because all asus p2b boards on the asus support site have the intel 440bx chipset. And there is no p2b-vt in that list!
I have the normal Asus P2B Rev 1.04 board myself so I know that you can run any coppermine core FCPGA cpu on a P2B board. They go up to 1,1GHz, either Pentium3 and Celeron.
You need a slot1 to FCPGA (socket370) adapter card to fit the cpu.
I use a Celeron 733MHz now instead of the Pentium2 I used before and the Celeron is now overclocked by 500MHz to 1232MHz (lucky shot!)!!!

For more info please recheck the board!
Here the Asus list I found:
http://www.asuscom.de/support/contact/mainboard/p2_mb_all.htm

I got the name of board from... well.. off the board itself, labeled P2B-VT, http://www.centrix-intl.com/p2b.htm is the about what I have (cept on hp site it says Via PRO chipset... grr)

as far as an adapter card... i still have the problem that I can't tamper with FSB, and can only set the CPU multiplier upto 8... Slot-Ket's have a way of changing FSB/Multiplier? (I've never used em, personally)

Input highly valued... and/or welcomed!!! :)

Upgrading to 128 Meg of RAM should be your first step.

The multiplier is no problem. My Celeron has a multiplier of 11 and my p2b board only goes up to 8. But thanks to the fixed multipliers on intel cpus they ignore that board settings and take the original multiplier anyway.

About the FSB the coppermine core Pentium3 and Celeron up to 1,1GHz also work with 100MHz FSB.
As the board is a smaller version of the P2B and also uses the 440bx chip I think it should also work as with my board.
Normally the adapters like my MSI 6905 Master Vers. 2.3 work with the FSB set on the board.
So take a coppermine core FCPGA Pentium3 or Celeron with 1,7 or 1,75V VCore and 100MHz FSB based.
Also an adaptercard with adjustable VCore to be on the safe side!
An check what cpu the bios update on the above site will support!

BTW:
Since my upgrade I found this adapter at powerlead which allows up to 1,4GHz with Tualatin core. But I'm not sure if you need 133MHz FSB for that:

http://plpadmin.tempdomainname.com/index2.html

click on "Desktop" - "Slot1" - "PL-iP3/T" under Product Familiy!

More questions????

another BTW:
64MB Ram is extremly low for XP. To make it really work you should have at least 256MB and 512MB will be even better. As your board only supports 384MB Ram try 256 or 384MB first.
You maybe surprised about the difference!!!!