The family stepped on what?

  • Thread starter Thread starter James D
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James D

I recently was given an aold computer from a friedn who updated theirs and
it has been a while for me as well. I tried to find out information about
the processor and all I got is "x86 Family 6 Model 3 Stepping 0". I have
seen a couple freeware programs out there that tell the details, but the one
I downloaded will not work properly becasue this system has Workstation 4.0
and I don't have admin rights to it.

Can someone just explain (in simple terms) or point me in the right
direction so I can figure out what "86 Family 6 Model 3 Stepping 0" is?
Thanks.
 
I recently was given an aold computer from a friedn who updated theirs and
it has been a while for me as well. I tried to find out information about
the processor and all I got is "x86 Family 6 Model 3 Stepping 0". I have
seen a couple freeware programs out there that tell the details, but the one
I downloaded will not work properly becasue this system has Workstation 4.0
and I don't have admin rights to it.

Can someone just explain (in simple terms) or point me in the right
direction so I can figure out what "86 Family 6 Model 3 Stepping 0" is?
Thanks.
Click to expand...

What no markings? on system? mobo? CPU? nothing?

86 obviously means x86 architecture
Family 6 means i686 (instruction set)
Model 3 ...I'm not sure, is that mfg? duh, model?
Stepping 0 means the first die version (no fixes/patches)
Stepping really does not matter, unless you have SMP (many CPUs).

For example I have a couple of machines:
HP Pavilion w. P3 800MHz: family 6 model 8 stepping 3
DELL PowerEdge 1400SC w. 2 x P3 1GHz: family 6 model 8 stepping 6

All of my processors are P3 (Coppermine)

Yahoo found a page:
http://gentoo.slinky.surrey.sfu.ca/cflagcollect/results.php

Which lists an example: processor : 0 vendor_id : AuthenticAMD cpu
family: 6 model: 3 model name: AMD Duron(TM)Processor stepping: 1

Does that sound right? You'll have to get some legal software to load on
it. Then you should have some tools. Your BIOS might also show something?

I would recommend Linux but I may be biased (love *nix).
 
James D said:
I recently was given an aold computer from a friedn who updated
theirs and it has been a while for me as well. I tried to find out
information about the processor and all I got is "x86 Family 6 Model
3 Stepping 0". I have seen a couple freeware programs out there that
tell the details, but the one I downloaded will not work properly
becasue this system has Workstation 4.0 and I don't have admin rights
to it.
Click to expand...
Sooner or later (prob sooner), you're going to need admin rights, search for
a utility to reset the NT password, here's one;
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd, or ask your friend for the admin
password.
Creates a boot disk that allows you to change any password on your local NT
system.
Don't run as admin for day-to-day stuff, and yes it's quite easy to break NT
with admin rights.
Can someone just explain (in simple terms) or point me in the right
direction so I can figure out what "86 Family 6 Model 3 Stepping 0"
is? Thanks.
Click to expand...

The bios should tell you, if it shows a splash screen instead of the info,
enter the bios and disable the splash screen. If the bios is password
protected, google for a utility to clear that too.
 
James said:
I recently was given an aold computer from a friedn who updated
theirs and it has been a while for me as well. I tried to find out
information about the processor and all I got is "x86 Family 6 Model
3 Stepping 0". I have seen a couple freeware programs out there that
tell the details, but the one I downloaded will not work properly
becasue this system has Workstation 4.0 and I don't have admin rights
to it.

Can someone just explain (in simple terms) or point me in the right
direction so I can figure out what "86 Family 6 Model 3 Stepping 0"
is? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Go here:

http://grafi.ii.pw.edu.pl/gbm/x86/cpuid.html

It seems that it's probably a Pentium II 'Klamath". They came in speeds of
233Mhz to 333Mhz (I believe).

Google found that page for me in .018 seconds.
 
BIOS tells me it is an AMD Duron 600MHz. What might that be comparable to in
terms of Intel? Celeron 600? I want to run Windows XP on this machine,
should this processor be able to handle it? By the way, there is 256 MB of
RAM. Thanks.
 
James D said:
BIOS tells me it is an AMD Duron 600MHz. What might that be
comparable to in terms of Intel? Celeron 600? I want to run Windows
XP on this machine, should this processor be able to handle it? By
the way, there is 256 MB of RAM. Thanks.
Click to expand...

I think XP would install and run, I don't think that you'd enjoy the
experience though, slow as treacle. Why not run win 98se, it's still a good
operating system and you can pick a copy up cheap on Ebay or similar.

Or run linux with a light window manager such as fluxbox, that machine
should fly on linux as long as you avoid the huge window managers like kde
and gnome.

You may be able to upgrade the cpu, look on the mobo manufacturers site for
details of what cpu's your mobo can accept.

HTH
 
BIOS tells me it is an AMD Duron 600MHz. What might that be comparable to in
terms of Intel? Celeron 600? I want to run Windows XP on this machine,
should this processor be able to handle it? By the way, there is 256 MB of
RAM. Thanks.
Click to expand...

"x86 Family 6 Model 3 Stepping 0" is not a Duron... open up the
box and see what you have. Duron 600 would be closer to 700-800
MHz Celeron depending on application.
 
Thanks for the feedback kony, but now I am confused. If the POST screen
(not BIOS, my bad) says it's an AMD Duron 600MHz but within Windows NT the
properties screen says "x86 Family 6 Model 3 Stepping 0" then who should I
believe?
 
Thanks for the reply Apollo, For what I plan do use the computer for, which
is a second computer for the kids, you still think XP would be ok? I already
have a copy of Windows 98SE but I am trying to stay away from the "buggier"
version of Windows. The kids have managed to mess up a current XP machine,
but luckily no BSoD (that Win 98 so kindly offers) which saves from the pain
of having to run in and reboot it for them every 10 minutes. Since alot of
their programs are windows related, Linux would not be an option, but I may
like it!
 
Thanks for the feedback kony, but now I am confused. If the POST screen
(not BIOS, my bad) says it's an AMD Duron 600MHz but within Windows NT the
properties screen says "x86 Family 6 Model 3 Stepping 0" then who should I
believe?
Click to expand...

You should believe me when I tell you to "open the box and see
what you have".

Part of the windows instabilities might be game/etc softwares but
other problems were often drivers. By knowing exactly what's in
the box you may be able to download newer drivers per device from
the device's chipset manufacturer.

Back in the day many people claimed win98 was instable, and saw
improvement with later OS, but it needs to be recognized that
along with more mature OS came more mature drivers and apps. I
have a few boxes running win98 and saw much better stability with
more modern apps and drivers than those which were released in
'98. Of course one big difference is as you mentioned, that
win98 may bluescreen and whole box needs rebooted instead of
single-point crash with OS still (somewhat) working.


Of the two CPU reports I'd trust the bios, but there are of
course other indicators, like make/model of motherboard... there
are no boards that could run either/both a Celeron and Duron.
 
James said:
Thanks for the feedback kony, but now I am confused. If the POST screen
(not BIOS, my bad) says it's an AMD Duron 600MHz but within Windows NT the
properties screen says "x86 Family 6 Model 3 Stepping 0" then who should I
believe?
Click to expand...
The POST screen reads the ID string from the CPU. It may not display
the correct CPU if the BIOS doesn't know about that particular CPU. At
that point in the boot sequence, the operating system is not yet loaded.

The Windows properties screen uses NT's best guess from a limited
choice. In Windows 98, the "choices" are in sysdm.cpl, which you can edit.

Virg Wall
 
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