I need your advice antp (I’m hoping you can help ). I have a old (very old) HP Pavilion XT 936 tower machine that I’m tinkering with, it’s not really worth upgrading because of its age. I’m not hoping to make a screamer out of it; I just need the upgrading experience.

The PC shipped new in summer 2001 with a 1 GHz AMD Athlon (thunderbird) 200 MHz FSB processor. http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=bph06583&tmp_task=prodinfoCa- tegory&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&site=null&key=null&product=59042

Hard to believe 128 MB of RAM was a lot back then ... I have upgraded it to 512 MB of RAM (2x 256 MB 133 MHz DIMM SDRAM). Wanted to put 1 GB of RAM in it, but HP and other sources say the mobo can’t support a gigabyte of RAM. Oh well ...

Back to my question, SiSoftware Sandra Lite tells me the motherboard/chipset FSB frequency is 200 MHz (2x 100 MHz) but has a maximum frequency of 266 MHz (2x 133 MHz).

So if this is correct, does that mean the mobo/chipset can handle an Athlon (thunderbird) with a 266 MHz FSB?

The reason I ask, is it seems the faster (1.2, 1.33, and 1.4 GHz) AMD Athlon thunderbirds are hard to find with the 200 MHz FSB. I have run across a few thunderbirds with the 266 MHz FSB. I don’t want to get the 266 and then mobo/chipset can’t support it resulting in the processor being underclocked.

Any advice/input would be appreciated, thanks.

I had a 1.2 Athlon (bought in summer 2001 too, replaced in summer 2007), but I do not remember the FSB...
It would not increase performance a lot to upgrade the CPU. One potential problem is the heat: the 1.2 and especially the 1.4 are quite hot; but being a HP computer and not one "custom made" I guess it was well designed to dissipate the heat.

If you go in the BIOS maybe you will find options to change the FSB. Check if you can change it (possibly by switching from automatic to manual mode). Of course do not save these settings, but it will allow you to see if the option is really there.

Went into the BIOS, didn’t find any options for the FSB or adjusting the processor.

Guess I’ll just keep checking eBay or Amazon to see if anyone is offering a older Athlon with the 200 MHz FSB. They are getting rare/hard to find.

I had thought about getting a newer Athlon XP processor, but they all seem to have the 266 MHz FSB, and I’m not sure if the system would recognize the newer CPU. Don’t want to waste my money ...


The PC came with Windows Millennium Edition (ME). Awful, awful operating system. Microsoft should have been kicked in the arse for releasing such crap. I upgraded it to Windows XP with a few added goodies (much better overall) I also went in with tweaking software to help remove any sluggishness that XP had. When support ends in 2014 for Windows XP, I may put some version of Linux on it.

Would adding a graphics cars help improve performance? I know gamers love them for playing resource hungry PC games, but do they also help improve overall system performance?

This is what I'm working with:



It’s a little hard to tell from the photos, but the HP case (chassis) is mid-to-small size. The motherboard is even smaller, but in ATX fashion. I’m pretty sure the mobo is a MircoATX form factor board. Not a lot of room, and not a lot of upgradability.

It should make a good pet project. But I’m glad my personal system is more modern and fast, else it would take forever to get to IMCDb ...

A better video card would improve performances for games ... from few years agp
What card does it have currently?
On the AMD 1200 I used first the nvidia TNT2 video card from my previous PC, then in late 2001 a Kyro2, then six months later I got a Geforce ti4200, which was then good for playing games of these years.

It currently does not have one, its using the factory integrated graphics system of the chipset.

It has the S3 ProSavage KM/KL 133 integrated graphics with 8 MB of video memory ...

I’m tempted to start shopping for a new motherboard to go in the case.

Oh, Antoine seems to be a real professional :king:

I'm still unable to send pictures by email, since I have the new PC. At my old PC I've used Outlook, for mails as for pics, but here only Mozilla for going in the www, plus the -quite shitty- mail-programme of my provider Freenet.
But the whole Outlook-stuff (Outlook Express or so, was named my old mail-programme) doesn't work here I cannot activate an email by clicking on @-adresses and when I want to send the pics from my desktop, the f.cking machine wants to have a password for Outlook - I never even had one for that!! And this password-frame shows the server-ID, my old PC was connected with. Now I have new datas - which has caused the main problems, also due the stupidity of the provider's employees, so that I needed 5 months, until the new computer was able to be connected to the Internet.
And the whole shit has cost me about 250 Euro, because I needed the help of the professional local computer-company. My friends with some knowledge couldn't make everything.
And I'm totally unable to make anything. I will not understand it, too, if somebody would try to explain my email-problems

At that point it is easier and better to make a complete new PC

I can't really help, it is difficult to solve problems without actually seeing what happens / what is there.

Myself I use gmail as mail client (I was using Eudora previously), even if it is a web-based thing and not a software installed on the PC, in the end it works much better (and it can go fetch e-mails on mailboxes like Outlook and other programs do)

@ ingo: Try downloading Mozilla Thunderbird to replace Live Mail. I had the same problem with it when I changed computers last year. It's a lot like Outlook and the attachment system is pretty easy.

The password issue is confusing. Is it the password for the e-mail account itself rather than the client? If it is that then what I have suggested will not help as you have to enter the address and the password to send e-mails.

Thanks for your attempting - when you will be in my area, you are invitated for energetic help

@Sandie: this is the real strange point. It's neither the password for my PC (the new has has one), neither for the email-account.
For using Windows Livemail I shall enter the password for my internet-access- IP - but it shows the IP-code of my former account, used at the old PC - the IP-code, but never a password (except the hidden one, which works, every time, the PC was started). I never had a password for the Outlook Express-system, I had back there!
This ominous password
a) was never used/uploaded on this new PC
b) had to be changed due the new type of connection (now via FritzBox, the former was an old DSL-router)
c) as told above: there was no password for Outlook Express

Maybe I should go again to the computer-expert. He had my PC for cleaning it, when it was new. All the many useless pre-genereated programmes were thrown off, all the junk, which you never uses and which slows down power and speed.
The PC was a bargain offer from ALDI, a Medion Akoya with 4 GB-working memory and a harddrive "1000 GB S-ATA"
Not bad (as me as a total computer-non-expert can overlook, and as the other owners are saying in internet-forums), but the problem is probably not caused by the machine itself, rather it has something to do with the internet-access. It took several weeks to solve that, caused by the stupdity of the provider, where noone was able to understand, what I have meant. Finally it was fond out, that the old IP-address cannot work with the new way of connection, the FritzBox.
So finally I was really happy, when I could use my new PC for the internet (at least nearly the only thing, I do with it, plus collecting our photos), that I don't bothered about the mail-problem. But I became more and more unsatisfied, because it's a big obstacle.