An alternative upgrade path for your aging and torpid PC

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): Aha! Another highly appreciated contribution from a reader! My tip last week was how to tell Microsoft Word that we wanted to type the word teh (tea) and not "the". Chris Watkins e-mailed me his much simpler solution. Type teh followed by a space, and as it changed to "the", just press Ctrl-Z or Alt- Backspace to undo it and then keep on typing. It's that easy. Thanks so much, Chris.

Unfortunately, the tip last week may also be the last, though. Starting this week we are experimenting with a new format of the IT Superhighway column, which will be expanded to cover other areas beyond computers and peripherals. We certainly would like your comment, which you can always send to me at zatni@cbn.net.id.

Another story I would like to share with you today is about the Prolink 1456PCI modem that I wrote so highly about in my article two weeks ago. Just after the article went to press, the modem started throwing my Compaq Presario into a comatose condition. It usually happened when I was accessing a Web site, downloading e-mail or sending a fax. I took the modem back to Subaru at Gajah Mada Plaza last week and asked for a new one. The replacement has been working flawlessly ever since. So you need to be aware that Prolink does make faulty modems sometimes, and if yours makes your PC hang like mine did, don't hesitate to insist on getting a new one. It's still a great modem for a great price, though.

Upgrade Fun

For many months, PT Zeuscom Indonesia, the distributor of Kronus PCs, has been offering me an upgrade kit for a test drive.

The PowerLeap kit, 'mbak Tetty from Zeuscom was telling me, can turn your clunker into a speed machine with an Intel Pentium 233 MHz with MMX Technology or even a AMD-K2 400 MHz. That's impressive. But, with a price tag of about Rp 1.3 million (US$150), wouldn't it make more sense just to replace the motherboard and throw in a faster processor?

'Mbak Tetty reminded me that there were cases in which PowerLeap just made more sense. If you have a branded PC, for example, it might not be easy to find a replacement motherboard that fits the chassis. She's right. Many old 486 machines such as the Acer 486 did use proprietary motherboards. The only way you can upgrade them is to use upgrade kits such as the PowerLeap.

"There are also companies with hundreds and even thousands of branded PCs, and they cannot run today's applications with the original computing power," 'mbak Tetty said. They may benefit more from using an upgrade kit like PowerLeap rather than replacing the motherboard of their PCs.

Besides, replacing the mainboard may also force you to buy new RAM modules. It will also take a little longer than just to unplug the old processor and plug in the kit. You might also end up having to reinstall Windows, because the new components may have their own drivers. With these considerations conquering my skepticism, I agreed to test drive a Powerleap on the Pentium 133 MHz PC that I assembled myself some years ago.

Zeuscom supplied me with a PowerLeap PL-Pro/MMX and an AMD K6- 2 400 MHz with the 3DNow! Multimedia and floating point accelerator. The kit itself comprised a fan, the processor and the PowerLeap board that would sit right between the processor socket on the motherboard and the processor. A power cable supplies power to this board. Putting all the parts together was a breeze.

How does it work?

The old -- sometimes called "classic" -- Pentium processors use 3.3 volt power. Their place on the motherboard is called Socket 5. This socket does not support Intel's MMX Technology, which is found only in the Pentium 166 MHz and later. These newer Intel processors -- up to Pentium 233 MHz with MMX Technology -- use two different voltage levels and are plugged into the dual- voltage Socket 7 of the motherboard.

PowerLeap basically acts as a mediator between the old socket and the newer processor. The device requires a separate power supply to power the AMD processor, which works on a 2.2 volt power. In addition, it also sets the clock multiplier required to achieve the maximum clock speed. If your motherboard has a 50 MHz bus speed, the maximum speed that you can achieve is 6.0 x 50 MHz, or 300 MHz. My motherboard has a bus speed of 66 MHz (it supports Pentium 100, 133, 166, 200 MHz), so I can have a max speed of 6.0 x 66 MHz, or 400 MHz.

The PC I used for the test was equipped with a 2.38 GB Fujitsu hard disk, a Matrox MGA Millennium graphics card, 32 MB of EDO RAM, and a Powerboard P586 TX motherboard with Award Modular v.451PG BIOS. I borrowed a friend's Creative 8x CD-ROM to install the test programs.

Installing PowerLeap on my PC was not difficult at all, although it didn't work at first (I might not have pressed the processor firmly enough to ensure that all the pins were securely inserted into their holes the first time). When turned on, the system recognized PowerLeap as a 66 MHz instead of a 400 MHz processor, but I could immediately feel the speed.

To be more objective, though, I installed Ziff-Davis' Winbench 99, one of the industry standard benchmarking tools that tells us the actual performance of the processor. CPUMark 99 test gave a "Before PowerLeap" score of 5.6 and "After PowerLeap" score of 9.28. This meant a processor performance gain of over 80 percent, and it confirmed the results of a similar test conducted by PC Magazine.

We need to keep in mind that a processor twice as fast does not bring a performance gain of 100 percent. Besides, a faster processor does not mean much unless it enables us to work faster. To find out what the difference was in terms of real-world use, I installed Business Application Launcher, a benchmark tool that I have had for some time courtesy of Intel Corp. The application had three test modules, but I only ran the Photoshop 5.0 test because my PC didn't have a sound card. The result was even better. The Pentium 133 MHz took 1,488.47 seconds to complete the test with a score of 14. The PowerLeap kit took only 734.59 seconds with a score of 29. That was a performance gain of more than 100 percent. I believe the performance improvement was also the result of a larger L1 cache the Pentium 133 MHz has 16 KB internal cache while the AMD K6-2 400 MHz has 64 KB.

Neat Utilities

PowerLeap supplies a set of utilities, like the CPU Control Panel that you can see on the upper right hand corner of the screen. It tells us the actual speed of the processor, and you can even set it to automatically shut down the computer if it detects overheating. There is also the Rain utility, which will automatically adjust the clock speed of the system until the heat becomes normal again.

One thing I couldn't figure out was that the utility kept telling me that the processor has slowed down due to overheating even when I just turned it on. The fan was working properly and the casing was left open all the time. Nonetheless, the system continued to work well even after I left it running the entire night. The product carries a lifetime warranty.

Zeuscom also has a PowerLeap upgrade kit that will turn your even older 486 system into a Pentium 133 MHz-class machine. The Web site, www.powerleap.com, lists a slew of other processor upgrade kits -- even for the Macs. PowerLeap is a sensible upgrade path if you want a faster PC with MMX but do not want the hassle of replacing your motherboard and reinstalling your system. It is also the only choice if you have a branded PC with a proprietary mainboard. If you have a jangkrik (non branded) PC like mine, you should compare prices first. You might be better off replacing the mainboard and the processor as you might be getting a more efficient system thanks to a newer chipset.