Hi, I’m hoping somebody can help me out here, I’m upgrading from Pent2/300 to Pent3/500 and looking for practical guide. They have slightly different retention mechanisms, so I also need to know how to disassemble the cartridges, to assemble Pent3 in original cartridge for Pent2.And something else…is a fan for Pent3 essential? Grateful for any help folks, I’ve found a guide on the forum for an Athlon proc., but nothing for us of the dinosaur family.

do you need a fan? - well some have a fan and some do not, the ones that do not, normally have the PSU positioned so that the air being sucked into the PSU (by the PSU fan) is drawn accross the CPU heatsink. If your PSU does not suck air across the CPU then I would think you probably do need one. Personally I would not try to disassemble the CPU (unless they both have the big metal clip that you slide off type of heatsink retention).In this situation I have removed the retention mechanism from the Mobo (which unfortunately usually means getting at the back of the mobo) and then put the CPU in the slot with no retention at all (and hope it stays in ok - depends on computer layout and how much you move the computer around) or possibly use some of the flexible cable ties to hold it close to the mobo if anything to fix them to. p2/300 is usually 66mhz FSB, whereas p3/500 is usually 100mhz. I hope your mobo can provide 100mhz FSB otherwise your 500 will just run at 333 (that is 500 divided by 100 fsb and multiplied by 66 fsb). If your mobo only does 66mhz FSB then the fastest pentium you can do is the p2/333 but you might be able to do the Celeron 400 (Slot 1 type, NOT socket 370) which also has 66mhz FSB but is hindered by less cache memory than pentium.

Make sure you have a 440BX chipset. I had a 300mhz Compaq 4850 (not sure if this is your model) a couple years ago, and it had a 440LX, which didn't support P3s and P2s above 333.

You can download Belarc Advisor to make sure what is in your computer.cliffpage and jackbomb are definately leading you in the right direction.

You people are on the ball out there, thanks for the fast replies. My old bag-o’-bones here (Compaq Deskpro EN6333) still has sense enough to draw a nice cool breeze right over the proc., so I guess that solves fan problem. I think I’ll steer clear of disassembling cartridge. My mobo specs give switch settings for bus/core frequency up to 333/500, so I don’t think FSB at 100mhz will be a problem and chipset is 440BX. Belarc Advsor I have, but “Sandra Lite” gives more info & its more fun. I feel a little bit out of my depth here, something like this….. http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_3734_4348^6678,00.html would be perfect. Anyways you’ve all been a great help with my little pentium problem. Thank you and I wish all of you health, peace and prosperity for the coming year.

o.k., I’m back, I’ve installed Pent3, its a little loose but it works….we’re now staggering along contentedly at FSB100 and Proc 500. I have one more question, might sound like I don’t know what I’m doing here…with chipset 440BX, the maximum FSB speed is 100MHZ, yes?