Another 420 CPU Upgrade Question

I tried a Powerleap upgrade on my Precision 420 and it would boot for 1 - 2 seconds and then shut down.  I tried all the Dell bios with no success.  I also spoke with Powerleap technical support but we could never get my system to complete the boot up.  If anyone has any luck please reply.  It's interesting the other older Precision models seem to be upgradeable.

I could use a little help too.

I have succesfully installed an upgradeware Slot-T adapter with a single 1.2ghz PIII 133 processor (about $75+ $20 for the Slot-T, those 1.4 S things are still >$200) I had to go back to BIOS A03, and swap the terminator to the lower slot in order to fit the heat sink and fan to the Slot-T in the top slot.

BIOS reports 1.2ghz and Win2K resources reports 1187mhz, dropping the Slot-T to 100mhz gives over 900mhz.

However, even with the heat sink, fan and Slot-T jumpers set for 1.5v, or even 1.45v (the 1.2ghz wants 1.475v) this processor gets screaming hot and cannot reliably run. It will burn your fingers after twenty minutes. So I shut it down.

Anybody know why? I think it is still getting 2.0v from the motherboard and the Slot-T is not dropping it.

I have this same CPU and Slot-T running in a Compaq Deskpro-EN at 847mhz and it is running cool, so it must be the motherboard voltage.

Message Edited by eugp on 09-12-2003 12:26 PM

Hi,

So, it is working pretty well. I'm not sure whether it was clearing NVRAM that did it, or that the fan was simply not turning and I had not noticed it at first.

In any case, for under $100 this 420 is running at 1.2ghz.

The 1.4-S would be nice when the price drops a bit.

In case you need a reminder, clearing NVRAM for the 420 is-

engage numlock, capslock and scrolllock, then hit alt+E, you get beeps. Reboot.

Probably a good idea after any major hardware change to do this to reassign resources.

OK Guys,

It's been more then a few months and I finally broke down and bought an old Precision 220 for its 733 processor.  The irony of this is that the 220 will work with dual PIII 1400 PL-P3 SWP from Powerleap at a 133 MHZ bus speed - check teh server section of Powerleap (with BIOS A09).  The end result is that my 420 gets its second processor with some breathing room and I can build the 220 for the kids.

P.S. after the 420 and 220 have served their useful purpose, I will need to avoid Dell Products for anything but entry level users as the 420 line was only really supported for 1.5 years and I bought it with the thought that Dell provided better support to its power user.

Good Luck