Scotch Steve

Hope someone can point me in the right direction.

I'm planning to upgrade my hard drive in the near future, I have some info but not too clear, I believe that there are some restrictions on the size of hard drive that will be recognised by either my motherboard and/or BIOS.
I have the details of both (below) where can I find out what make, size of hard drive that I will be able to use, or alternativley do any of you guys know.

Motherboard : Tabor3 WS440BX
BIOS : 4W4SB0X0.15A.0015.P10

Obviously if I'm asking a daft question somebody tell me.

Not so bothered about processor, but based on this motherboard (currently with a P3 500Mhz)what processor upgrade options do I have, or where can I find out.

Thanks in advance.

Steve

super_si

Not to sure, but the motherboard may be the limiting factor of the CPU speed aswell!

Si

Scotch Steve

Si,
Thanks, I was aware that the motherboard would be the limiting factor in any processor upgrades but didn't know what the maximum would be that it would take. I've been on the Intel site and after much searching have discovered that this board is limited to 550Mhz, but I'm not too bothered as it's really a bigger hard drive I'm after I was only thinking of a change of processor as the case would be off for the new hard drive.

I'm still a bit stuck on the question of HDD size, as the Intel site couldn't help, a mate bought a 40Gb one but his system only recognised 20Gb or something like that, I'm aaware that there is some limiting factor, motherboard/BIOS or something else I don't understand, but I need to find out what and then ascertain what the max new HDD I can put in.

Everyone is probably at the pub just now but I'm sure somebody will be able to help?

Thanks

Steve

super_si

You im guessing you checked what the chipset was for the processor.

if your after a board, ive an old Tiny motherboard sat doing nothing, as i bought an Abit one and put it in another case.

You can have it for the p&p i dont need it.

It did have a 1000Mhz cpu and SD ram all i can tell you without looking

Si

towzer

There was a limiting factor some years ago, but I think it was around the time of Pentim's or Pentium MMX's. You could get a utility to allow use of the additional space. The other limiting factor may be your O/S W95a could only see a couple of gig, but W95 OSR2 overcame the limiting factor.

If I were you, I'd go for Si's MBD it'll do no harm.

Phil

ChrisB

A 440BX chipset isn't that old. BX chipset has UDMA 33 support.

Quick bit of digging gives this:

http://support.gateway.com/s/MOTHERB...000532nv.shtml

Which leads to this:

http://support.gateway.com/s/issues/151315301.shtml which to me says it's supports 80GB HDs.

I'd try a 60 or 80GB drive. The price breaks are on 80GB at the mo - the 100/120GBs are quite a bit more expensive.

super_si

i was 100% on the board, my desk start was £80ish for 80GB

Your more then welcome to it.

tiny werent brillaint, its just the motherboard no instructions im afraid.

We ram SD ram 133Mhz if i remember right.

Si

towzer

ChrisB - I'm thinking about the older Logical Block Address -LBA- problem from years ago?

Maybe I ain't a spring chicken anymore!!!

Phil

Scotch Steve

Si,
Thanks a lot for the offer, I know it probably makes more sense to upgrade the motherboard & processor, but for the time being I think I'll stick with what I've got, but cheers anyway.

Towzer,
Currently running 98 2nd edition so hopefully shouldn't be a problem on that front.

Chris,
Thanks a lot for the links, very useful, the first place I looked before posting on here was on the Gateway site but couldn't find any info, I think that this was due to the fact that I had the wrong part number for the board and was using this to search.

Anyway, problem solved, looks like it's a 80Gb drive for Xmas, if only the other half was as easy to please.

Thanks to all for your help.

Steve

ChrisB

LBA is more a hardware / BIOS issue than Windows side.

I'd be fairly confident the board will support an 80GB.

Worse case is it doesn't... a new PCI UDMA 100 or 133 controller card is needed for around £20. Not the end of the world.

Scotch Steve

Cheers for the reassurance Chris.

Steve