I've got my hands on an old Model 6200AT notebook and just for a bit of fun I'm trying to find out what sort of upgrade I can do to it. I haven't been able to find out what the motherboard is because I haven't been able to load anything onto it yet because the CD drive is broken and I'm still waiting for the replacement but I just had a few general questions about it... It currently has a Pentium 200MHz Socket 7 CPU, my question is, would the motherboard be designed specifically for Pentium CPUs or could I possibly but a 450MHz or 500 MHz AMD Socket 7 CPU in it? (I haven't determined the FSB of the motherboard yet) Also, just on the off chance, the laptop has a couple of PC Card slots, what are the chances of getting a PCMCIA USB card that isn't CardBus as I very much doubt this old thing would support CardBus. Many thanks for any advice/help!

I somehow doubt that the motherboard is a super socket7 mobo. It is likely that your upgrade path is limited to a Pentium 233. To be blunt, we're talking about an old laptop, I think the most productive upgrade you could give that old girl would be a new paintjob.

Hey Rimfire, good to have you onboard again. Aye, as I said, I'm only doing purely outof curiousity y'know, I'm not expecting any greta results, if any. So Super Socket 7 is different from Socket 7? The machine runs alright as it is, I was just wondering what my options are, y'know?! I guess once I work out what motherboard it has I can hopefully Google it and see what sort of processor and memory it will support. Are they any Socket 7 AMDs? Do you know, back in the day, was there much difference performance wise between a typical AMD Socket 7 CPU and a typical Pentium Socket 7 CPU?

I replied to your post before I saw your PM. The major difference between the socket 7 and the super socket 7 was the chipset and what it was capable of supporting. In fact, I think there were socket 7 mobos that didn't support the processor you have. Back when that hardware was designed it was expected that the Pentium Pro might be capable of reaching 300 or possibly 400 MHz. This of course used socket 8. The Pentium Pro of course fell by the wayside until it was reborn as the Pentium II. This used the Slot 1. There were pentium clones made by AMD and Cyrix. They fitted into standard socket 7 boards. This was the reason for the change to slot 1, Intel was able to patent the new slot to exclude the pesky cheap imitators. They were forced to stay with the socket 7 design. Cyrix did not survive this move. Because AMD (and in the early stages, Cyrix) were making processors that exceeded the capabiities of the socket 7, a new chipset was designed to handle the faster chips. They called this the Super Socket 7. As history would have it, Intel then moved into the value processor market with its Celeron processors. These early celerons were truely woeful. They actually caused AMD to increase its market share! Do some home work, what I have written is entirely from memory, you might be able to put a PR 300 or even 350 into that board. Finding one is another matter.

Sorry, PR 300 or 350? PR = Pentium? Many thanks again for the help. I'll update you with any success I have. Cheers!

Maybe I didn't go into enough depth! The Cyrix and AMD pentium clones were slightly more efficient than the pentium. In return the pentium was able to achieve higher clock speeds. To even out the playing field, the other manufacturers marketed their processors by performance as compared to the pentium. For example the P166+ was a 133 MHz processor that slightly out performed the pentium 166. You shouldn't have too much difficulty with this as AMD still do this. The Athlon XP 2400+ I'm using at the moment runs at just under 2 GHz. I refered to the processors by their PR (pentium rating) as they were the same over the two brands. If you get the choice, the AMD was a little better than the Cyrix.

http://www.ajp.co.uk/