Comments:
The PB600 is in the garbage! I have played around with this ancient piece of crap long enough. Introducing..., my new system: -Image mini tower case w/ 230 watt power supply -FIC 503+ VIA VP3 apollo 66-124 bus speed MB -80mb of FPM -1mb of L2 cache -AMD K6-2 300 running at 66 bus speed (soon to OC) -large heatsink and BB fan for cpu -SB AWE 64 -USR 56K v.90 -4mb Vid w/ 3d enhancements -Win 95 Rev. B -CDrom -Floppy -new HD soon (looking at a OEM 10gb refurbished for $128, any comments?) All I can say is, it has been a trip PB. Take care everyone, EH

Comments:
O.k,before I found this website,I thought that packard bells can't be upgraded...boy was I wrong!!!!First was RAM,I upgraded to 16,and then decided to upgrade to 32.Then I tossed out the 75mhz CPU to put in the Evergreen MMX pro 200mmx chip in(runs great) Bought a 4.3 GIG Quantam Fireball hard drive,and got rid of the old 600mb hard drive.(BIGGEST IMPROVEMENT!!Very easy upgrade believe it or not,I decided to completely go from scratch and reinstall everything onto my new hard and just ditch the old one,as t was messing up all of the time)Threw out the old 4x CD-ROM for a 32x panasonic,got a new sound card(as starcraft didn't like the Aztec)and got a Sound Blaster 64 AWE,and put in a 56k V.90 modem.My system kicks butt now!!!Whoever said that packard Bells an't be upgraded were DEAD wrong!!!!!

Comments:
The first thing I did was upgrade to 48 RAM. That had some nice results but after experiencing world wide wait, upgraded to 56k USR modem. That was a pain for a while had two modems and only using one. The next thing I did was upgrade to 200 Mhz MMx proce sor. I really noticed difference after. Next to upgrade will be my hard drive.... orig. 1 gigabyte. Can you believe that was the norm in 96. Also will upgrade to 64 RAM. Installing RAM was easy, CPU was harder had to experiment with the jumpers to get to lock at 200.

Comments:
We had sold our old AST 486DX33 with all software, furniture, and everything and decided to completely get out of the computer business. Too expensive to try and keep up. Well, all that's still true, but we needed a computer anyway. This PB system seem d a good way to get going, since it came with a lot of software. Knew it would need upgrading soon, planned to just migrate everything usable to a new case/MB. At time of purchase, added the extra 1Mb of video mem and got the PB 17" monitor to use the c ol looking speakers. Recently added 16Mb SIMM. Well, we did get the new barebones system, but still keep the PB for networking with the kid's rooms and sharing the modem for internet surfing and e-mail and ICQ by using WinGate as a proxy server. Works reat, one internet account, everybody can surf at the same time. Even use their own e-mail boxes. Anyway, latest upgrades are SMC EZCard 10/100 1211TX (which conflicted with the original sound/modem card; switch the jumper from "BIOS settings" to "Softw re Set" to clear this), 16MB EDO SIMM, another different SIMM which didn't work (still troubleshooting-maybe just not compatible with existing one), Win98, about to install 3DBlaster 4Mb, and waiting for delivery of PowerLeap K6-2/400.

Comments:
My Platinum I, serial N06501261, bought 2/19/96, has a PB600 motherboard, Phoenix BIOS v. 4.04, Agoura release 1.20. The manual and Ray state a VLSI 82C590 chipset (591/522/593), but mine is 594/595/596, and the manual states upto Pentium 100, yet I have P133. To the original 16 megs, I added 32 megs EDO but only half of the EDO would be counted and Win 95 would give error messages. Added FPM instead of EDO is fine. Great site, Ray. Will a WinChip2 work in this socket 5 board as a direct replacement?

Comments:
Thanks to all the great advice on this site I decided to upgrade the RAM to 80 MB and the CPU to a Pentium 233 MMX using the Poweleap adapter. Everything went fine. Very easy to install and noticeable improvement in speed. Didn't need to upgrade the BI S--it still reports a Pentium 133 at startup but the Powerleap utility confirms that it is actually running at 233 MHz. Next upgraded the video to a Stealth II S220. Excellent results, but I bought some 3D games and needed a 3dfx card. Installed a Mons er 3D II Voodoo2 card along with the Stealth and now I have a system that will last another couple years. I don't have any L2 cache on the motherboard (big mistake), so I may have to upgrade the motherboard in another year to squeeze more life into the s stem. Powerleap is supposedly going to manufacture LPX motherboards that fit into the original Packard Bell cases. If other users report success, I may give it a try. Another problem with the motherboard is that it doesn't support NMI (non-masked inter upts). When I next installed a Soundblaster Live! Value card and a U.S. Robotics 56K modem to replace the original Packard Bell combo card, I found that I could not use Soundblaster 16 DOS emulation. So I tossed the few DOS games that I had and replaced the ones I liked with newer 3D versions that were recently released. Although I had initial regrets that the Soundblaster Live! DOS emulation did not work, now I'm free from DOS forever.

Comments:
I upgraded my ram to 32meg by adding 2 8 meg chips No problem. I have now removed the chips and added 4 16 meg chips. That should be a total of 64 meg. My system only reads 40 meg regardless of which chips I put where. Can anyone help me?

Comments:
Update to Powerleap MMX Pro overclocking experience......Setting an AMD K6-2 350 to run higher than 366 will cause disk errors and blue screens. Set it to 366 and it runs fine. Get a good video card to make your PB600 scream...i bought the ATI-All-in-wo der. Thanks to powerleap i can play games that require fast processors with really great frame rate results. The BIOS reports varied processor speeds depending on what you are clocked at, none of them accurate....but the bottom line is that regardless o what your BIOS reports your PC will still run at what you clock it to. Some Utility programs recommend that a BIOS that supports a DMI interface be used as Phoenix 4.04 Agoura release 1.20 does not support this. I havent found anything yet that will u grade this BIOS, if anyone finds a BIOS (update/fix) please post something about it here. The only alternative I have seen is buying an expensive daughter-card, but if you have the means to do that, then you might as well just get a new motherboard.

Comments:
upgrades...56k usr...40mb ram...16bit..sound..and Zerus mmxtreme 240mhz..PnP..went from 99.5 to 265.5mhz!!!benchmark.looking for suggestion on video upgrade(have 15" AOC digital) ...also has 256k cache..PB said can't upgrade...any suggestions?...Thanks mu h for this page..I hope the info on the Zerus helps out..I am very happy(no smoke yet!!!!).....dj

Comments:
Powerleap PL-Pro/MMX Plus! with AMD K6-2 350Mhz processor added. 72Meg of ram. Since the powerleap book lists only the 300 and 366 settings for the clock speeds, i set my 350 to run at 398 (slightly overclocked). It seems to be running fine and cool. I eft the original fan running in the case and have the additional CPU cooler fan that came with the Powerleap adapter running also. Wintune results and other test programs show that my system is running around 398 Mhz, with some test programs showing my s stem running as fast as some 450 Mhz systems. Practically i have noticed a HUGE performance increase and consider this one of the best purchases i have EVER made for my computer.