I remembered a while ago I had thought about doing a chip upgrade with a previous machine but never really got round to it. At the time I had looked at the Evertech range but never really went for it at the time.

I used their product chooser and they suggested a Spectra 400. With a deal price of $79.99 down from the usual $179.99 (perhaps the original price is what put me off before?). Aaaanyway - BAAARGAIN!, so I ordered one and paid the addition $30 for shipping.

I got the manual out of the box and put it aside (I'm a programmer remember). In the box was also a big installation poster, a floppy disk and a CD.

I put the floppy disk into the Compaq and turned the machine on. The Compaq booted from the disk and whirred and clunked a bit for a little while.

Firstly the disk said that I didn't need a BIOS upgrade (I wass pretty pleased about this because I really don't like flashing BIOS' and anyway I'd had enough fun with all that malarky in part one of the adventure).

And then after a bit more whirring and clunking it gave me some benchmark numbers I wrote these down.

I plinked the heatsink clamp and lifted it off, underneath was what I was expecting, a normal P1 size chip - Compaq had put a double width heatsink on it - they'd have been better off with a fan... but you know compaq...

I flipped over the ZIF lever and lifted out the old CPU - bless it - it looked like it had worked hard in it's life, the Heat Transfer compound looked like it had boiled in it's time - lol.

So the Compaq was all lined up and processor free ready for the new chip

I put the ZIF lever back down and clamped the chip down with the Evertech heatsink clamp.

There's a bit of plumbing to do. You have to plug the fan lead into the CPU riser PCB, ther's alittle socket on one of the corners. And then you have to plug the fly lead into one of the drive power connectors. Easy to do - but if you dont you're gonna fry something.

I thought 'sod it, shit or bust now'

The fan on the CPU span up and the BIOS screen showed.

The system booted from the Evertech floppy I had left in and went back to it's benchmarking routine.

Things looked like they might work.

I waited a bit as the benchmarking went on.

2.7 times quicker on the Dhrystone test, and

4.7 times quicker on the Mediastone test

That looks like a bit of a result really.

Bliiimey it seemed quick, rattling through it's setup

For the first time I noticed the animation on the SuSE install script screen.

After a short time the User Log in screen appeared and so I logged in.

KDE initialised and the desktop was smooth with windows floating around as they should, far more gracefully than with the old chip in.

I set the default screen saver to swarm and doubled the elements and waited for it to kick in.

Before the Evertech went in, this screen saver was very jerky, with the elements jittering around the screen. I thought that by doubling the elements I would push the compaq a bit harder.

The screen saver kicked in and it was as smooth as silk

The Evertech Spectra 400 upgrade was a piece of cake to install in the Compaq and goes like stink. The only slight fly in the ointment was a bent leg on the chip. This could have happened anywhere, manufacturing or transit. The manual gives instruction on how to cope with this (bend it back gently).

One note I made is that in the manual there are a lot of caveats about running versions of Windows on a Spectra upgraded machine. I can't comment on this because I haven't tried it - but most definitely the speed increase on SuSE Linux is fantastic.

The hard disk I donored into the Compaq initially now seems to be the bottle neck. As mentioned in part 1, it's a clanky old Seagate 8Mb, I think that I might buy a nice Maxtor (I like Maxtor HD's) and slap it in, probably a 40Gb because they are pretty cheap at the moment.

After that I dont really think there is anything else I can do with the hardware. I think thats it all maxed out - I don't want to get into overclocking malarky (I cant find any jumpers on the motherboard anyway).

So I was thinking I could set the Compaq up as a gateway machine, and have it as the hub for my networks internet connection. Because I've got SuSE Pro - It's got all the firewall and malarky in it.

The problem is that the modem currently in the Compaq is an unknown make WinModed. I know there starts to be some Linux drivers for these but I'll try and find a proper modem. I'd really like to have a go at shot-gunning modems onto a dual connection.

It may be we get broadband any minute anyway...