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OK here is a long story of my little 'puter My first upgrade was from 16 megs of edo ram to 32 megs ( done by radio shack techie who knocked off my fan power wire ) I was lucky my cpu did not explode, ran for four months that way Then I went to 48 megs of ram I tried a 4 meg video card which would not go into svga mode ( Packard bells proprietory design of windows 95 messed things up) returned card and popped in the extra one meg of video ram the total 2 megs In June the sound 3 combo-card cratered on me , My friend gave me his sound blaster 16 and I bought a webcruiser 56 k internal modem I also discovered the extra video memory was not working properly due the a speed differences between the original and the new chips The computer shop gave me full credit for the video chips and I used it to get an ATI expert@play4 meg video card This made my video nicer to watch and I can run in 32 bit color , MW-2 has had problems with the card but I hardly play the game Next was a 32x cd rom and I went with LG electronics , this was a nice touch to my system, the pile of old parts was growing and I eventauly built a system for my Dad Fall 98 I slipped a cpu fan and heat sink into the case About Jan of 99 I upgraded to 64 megs of ram and I patiently waited for my tax return Jan 99 upgraded to Windows 98 Feb 99 my 'puter got spoiled, I installed a Quantum 10.2 gig fireball and partitioned it into three partitions , I have a 1 gig Quantum for back up and download purposes, MY dads computer got the original 1.2-gig Seagate The combo card in my dads machine died so I gave him the SB 16 and I upgraded to a sounblaster awe 64 and I also upgraded my video memory from 4 megs to 8 megs My last upgrade was the power supply ( weird eh ) I was having problems through out my sytem so I had to change my power supply from the 204 watt liteon to a 250 watt crown and now my computer has more juice to power all these toys It was a job to do I had to modify the case to get it to fit, email me if you considering a power supply change All I need is some cache memory to speed things up Thanks Ray for the site now if only there was a Mr. bios in Canada

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Upgrades include Intel 200 Mhz MMX CPU, 64 MB (FastPage) Ram (totals 80 MB now), BIOS V 1.00.07 Flash upgrade, 1 MB Video (chips) upgrade (2 MB onboard now), 512K 'COAST' Cache module upgrade (using onboard CELP socket), 56K ComPro ISA modem/3D soundcard ombo, Altec Lansing ACS40 speakers w/Altec-Lansing 250 subwoofer, Windows 98. All of this was done for lees than $200.00. Followed your web site jumber settings to take this board to 66 Mhz 3X clock speeds for the new CPU, crossed my fingers, booted it up, and it works FANTASTICALLY!!! Windows 98 identifies the CPU as having MMX techonology, and the processor speed at boot up is now 200 mhz. Windows 98 performs seamlessly. The installation of the ComPro modem/sound card went flawlessly (I downloaded the V90 update, which took about 1 minute to install) under plug and play with the accompanying CD-ROM. The installation o the cache module, video RAM chips, and memory RAM chips was a snap - took more time to get the case off than to do all this. Unfortunately, I didn't do any Wintune97 testing under the old setup, but this machine is now a 'screamer' with the upgrades and improvements. It reacts as quickly as many newer systems I'm familiar with, and does it all flawlessly. I feel as though I've gotten a few more years of enjoyment out of this workhorse as a result of Rays Packard Bell pages, and am extremely thankful fo the postings and the services they provide.

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Very, very green when I bought this but as I got to learn about PCs I found out what a piece of overpriced junk it really was. Horrified to see that PB hadn't even put in any L2 cache so I put in 256K COAST module. Added 32Mb RAM to make total 40Mb. Boy, did THAT make a difference! Added another 1Mb to video memory to make total 2Mb. Last year, I added a 3.2Gb Quantum hard drive as slave to the installed Seagate 1.2Gb. Then added a Pace PCI webcam but it could only record video, no audio. Pace couldn't understand why. Then I mentioned it was in a PB and they sorta sighed. Bought a second-hand 17" monitor and a Labtec subwoofer speaker system. Last September, I tried to disable the onboard Cirrus Logic video and replace it with an STB Velocity 128. No way! Nothing worked. Finally, I decided that it was the last straw and built my own PC from scratch. Installed STB in that - no problem whatsoeve . I then realised just how lousy the Cirrus Logic had been. Streaks of colour which I had thought were a fault with my monitor were no longer there! DOS games which had garbled words (PB support told me that was because a Pentium was simply too fast) were now perfect! The Pace webcam now records audio and video together - exactly as its supposed to! I now have AMD K6-2/300MHz CPU with 3D NOW and MMX, DIMM slots, USB, an adult BIOS with lots of options (not the pathetic childproof BIOS in the PB), 56K modem, 32x CD-ROM, AWE64 sound, etc, etc. And it runs like a dream! The best thing is: the new PC cost no more than the price I got from selling the Packard Bell garbage. Brand-name computers? Never again!!!

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Upgraded CPU to 200 - Evergreen MMX. Original RAM 16meg in 4 meg modules 70ns. Upgrade to 40mb - 2 x 4meg 70ns in bank zero. 2 x 16meg 60ns in bank 1. This is the only set up that will boot and won't work if reversed. 70ns fastpage. 60ns EDO. With his config. going into Windows registry loop and will not run. Putting original 16MB back and runs fine so 200mz CPU installed no problem but RAM is locking system. Does anyone know if using 70ns EDO will solve this problem or any suggestions to upgrade Also getting error messages with progamme - can't initialize file - check path. This also problem with original RAM. Anyone had similar problems??

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My upgrade path mirrors the one Ray describes for his system. I encountered NO problems at any stage, aside from some software driver issues I inflicted on myself. My first "tweak" was replacing the 14.4K modem/soundcard, then going to a 166Mhz Pentium verclocked to 200Mhz with the "hidden" 3.0x multiplier I found. I stumbled on Ray's site about a month ago, and really went nuts. I am now running my system with the following upgrades: -PowerLeapMMX/Pro adapter -K6-2 300Mhz overclocked @ 333Mhz -96 Mbytes RAM -Diamond Monster Fusion 2D/3D card w/ 16Mb -4.3 Gig Western Digital HD w/ EZ-BIOS installed on the boot sector -1.6 Gig Maxtor HD -24x CDROM -Unicore MR.BIOS replacing old AMI-BIOS -56.6K USR Winmodem -Soundblaster 16 card As a result of all these changes, my system has remained well within the technology curve for the last 3 years, and should make it about 1-2 more years before becoming hopelessly obsolete. Not bad for a $1600 investment w/ about $600 of add-ons. Many th nks for the information Ray!

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I neglected to mention in my original post that I updated the BIOS. It was easy enough, but I was v-e-r-y careful.....at any rate, in the past 2 weeks I've added another 32 MB RAM for a total of 64, all EDO. WOW! Web surfing was never this much fun. T is morning I installed an ATI Rage video card (it was given to me by someone who couldn't use it) with 2 MB RAM and expansion room for another 2 (soon, I hope!). I was dreading it because I keep thinking that sooner or later this machine is gonna rebel a ainst all the adjustments and changes I've made, but as I write this I'm running on the new card--and I haven't even put the case back on yet. Next step will either be a bigger HD or the 2 extra MB of video RAM.

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I started upgrading by changing the video card to a Creative Labs Graphics Blaster 3D with 4 megs of memory. Later I put 16 more megs of RAM in then I decided that wasn't enough so I put in 48 more for a total of 80 megabytes. I just changed the CPU for an Evergreen MxPro 233. This was the easiest upgrade of the bunch. I'm thinking of getting another hard drive. I only have 1 gig so I'm looking at a 4 to 6 gig drive. I haven't had any trouble with any of these upgrades and everything is running fine. Mike

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I was excited to have my first Pentium Class computer, I previous model was a IBM Model 30 upgraded to a 486 Processor using a Kinston upgrade chip (50MHz processor and a 10MHz motherboard, yuck!) I knew nothing about Level 2 cache (which this model had one of; which is what makes the Pentium II such a great processor) and I knew nothing about Front Side Bus speed (which means my 150MHz processor used a 60MHz FSB ran the system at about the same speed as a 133MHz processor using a 66MHz FSB because the m in memory and all of the cards ran slower even though the processor ran faster). I live very close to the Ziff-Davis testing facility in RTP near Raleigh, NC. so I went over and picked up some free Benchmark CD-ROMs and gave my system a few tests. The t sts produced horrible scores, and this aggrevated me greatly since I spent about 1500 dollars and I didn't really have the money to buy the system (gotta love those credit cards). I found two very useful information pages: Tom's Hardware page http://www. omshardware.com and Anandtech http://www.anandtech.com. These pages explained my problems. I upgraded the CD-ROM drive from 6X to 24X and I installed a 33.6 Modem, leaving the Modem/Soundcard in the computer and just I disabled the 28.8 Modem in Windows 95. I could not find a cost effective processor upgrade since my PB640 motherboard only supported VR and VRE voltage (3.3-3.5 volts outter and inner voltage). The new Processors from AMD and INTEL required a lower inner voltage (around 2.9 volts) so I g ve up on that until just recently when Anandtech did a review of the IDT Winchip 2 which not only ran at the old, higher voltages, it also included MMX AND 3D-Now! technology. I ordered a 200 MHz chip since my motherboard only supported a 66MHz FSB(3X66) I received a 225MHz chip, which left me the option to attempt to set the Motherboard to a 75MHz FSB(3X75). There was an unmarked, undocumented jumper setting for FSB on the motherboard, but it did not work, so now I am running the processor at my inten ed goal of 200MHz using the 66MHz FSB. The BIOS showed the speed to be 199MHz, so I upgraded to BIOS version 1.00.07 and now it shows 200MHz. The processor upgrade only cost me $60 Dollars! The system was running about twice as fast. I also added some generic video memory, 2 512KB modules, bringing my total video ram up to 2MB for only $10. I added a 256KB Level 2 cache module for $29.00 which added another 50% speed increase from that of the original system. I also swapped the 1.5Gigabyte hard drive for a 4 gigabyte hard drive. The CD-ROM, the Modem, and the Hard Drive I had laying around so I don't have costs for them. The hard drive is PIO 4 and I'm sure I could upgrade the whole system to UDMA/UATA with a promise technology (www.promise.com) car and a new hard drive but that seemed too expensive. I also could have upgraded the system to a new AMD processor using a voltage regulator from Powerleap (www.powerleap.com) and a BIOS such as Mr.BIOS (www.unicore.com) but it would have cost me a little more. I spent 100 bucks, and used some old hardware to make my system more than twice as good as it originally was. You have to love that.