"Pae" on AMD Athlon XP 2200+? [Solved]

[MtnDewManiac]

I guess it's all in the subject title. I have two computers: An old HP laptop with the 32-bit OEM core2duo CPU that was slow and weak when new, maybe 2004 era, and a circa 2002 desktop that has an AMD Athlon XP 2200+ CPU, the one that runs at ~1800mHz (1792 mHz, actually). I'd really like to have the same OS on both of my computers for full compatibility and comfort (especially since things seem so much better on my laptop since I installed Mint 14 Xfce on it!).

But I read that Mint 14 requires one to run the "pae" kernel. I am unsure if that is compatible with the Athlon 2200+ (I was pretty surprised that it works on my laptop). Is there a web page somewhere that lists all CPUs and whether or not that pae critter is compatible with each? Such a web page would be very handy to those of us who happen to be the person that our friends come to for computer help and doubly-so for me since I and many of my friends are, well, quite poor and basically unable to upgrade to newer hardware. (If I had $30 or whatever a fancy new CPU cost for my motherboard, I would spend it at the grocery store and enjoy a week of eating more than once per day.)

BtW, in case it makes a difference, my motherboard is an Abit NF7. Or NF7 2.0. Possibly an Abit NF7-S (I've never been able to figure that out). It is an nVidia nForce or nForce2 (again, I don't know how to tell which) one. I have upgraded to 1152 megs of ram (512 + 512 + 128; I think I broke the other memory port trying to install one of them) and I believe that it is "DDR" memory. It has an option for the higher-performance "8x" AGP instead of the older "4x" (or, I guess, plain old "1x") video cards - although I am unsure as to whether my video card is actually one of those 8x ones or not. The video board is an nVidia type, it's a 5200FX or maybe it's an FX5200, and it has 128 megs of ram (I do not know what kind of ram it is). It has built-in sound. And it has a Logitech wireless mouse and keyboard that came together (along with a remote control that uses the same wireless receiver that I've never really used) in a package along with the receiver; that receiver is a little thing that plugs into the USB and it has a neat "wire with a little socket stand thingie on the end of it" so that you can use just the receiver for, say, a laptop, or plug it into the connector on the wire, set it right there in front of your monitor where it's close to your mouse/keyboard, and plug the other end of the wire into the USB port. Probably that's mainly important for people who only have the ports on the back of their computer. Mine also has two in the front, but I still use the wire to plug it into the back of my desktop so that I have the two USB ports on the front of my tower for things such as plugging my USB flash drive in without having to crawl underneath my desk.

Those are all the specifications I can think of that might be relevant to my question. I hope they help. Also, I just found this web page which has the specifications for the CPU chip itself:

Code: Select all

www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K7/AMD-Athlon XP 2200+ - AXDA2200DUV3C.html

I hope that helps. I looked on that page for the word "pae," but I did not see it listed. Also, on that page is a list of other CPUs in the same family (2600+, 2800+, et cetera). If anyone has purchased one of the ones which would be an upgrade to mine in the past couple of months, do you remember what it cost you (this is for people who purchased it in the United States, as that is where I am located) to buy it? I would like to upgrade mine some day and in a good year I get enough work in the summer time that I can spend $50-100 in a year for non-essential things and still manage to make it through the winter. Last summer was not a good one, though, and I am really worried that I'll lose my house before work starts coming in this year, so if you aren't sure exactly and only have a ballpark that is more than good enough since it'll be at least mid-summer of 2014 before I have any hope of getting to buy it. I'm mainly just wondering so I will know what to expect and whether or not I should even try to save up for it, but I have been walking for the past few years and it doesn't look like I'll be able to purchase another vehicle that runs any time soon (maybe before 2020 I hope, kind of getting old) and I just thought that it would be nice to have something to look forward to. Something to hope for, it makes life a little more bearable somehow. IDK, probably just silly I guess.

Thanks in advance,
MDM

[ludude75]

From what I read about PAE only cpus that you would need worry about would be older then pentium 2



PAE is provided by Intel Pentium Pro (and above) CPUs - including all later Pentium-series processors except the 400 MHz bus versions of the Pentium M, as well as by other processors such as the AMD Athlon and later AMD processor models with similar or more advanced versions of the same architecture.

cut from this site: http://serverfault.com/questions/85980/ ... upport-pae

[MtnDewManiac]

Thank you for your reply.

Oh, okay, so PAE is an abbreviation for "physical address extensions," I did not realize that. I searched on the page I provided the link to for "pae" and there was nothing, but "physical address extension" is listed under the list of other features included in that CPU. That is very reassuring. It is running Ultimate Edition 2.7 now which, like UE 2.6.x, is based on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (I was using 2.6 but one of the updates to that seemed to turn my graphics to a screen full of garbage characters; oddly, 2.7 always worked fine) and the support for 10.04LTS on desktops ends in April and I didn't know how to make it be a server so that I could keep receiving updates.

Since recently trying, installing, and really liking Mint 14 Xfce, I wanted to install it on my desktop computer as well, but greatly feared that it was so old that it didn't have PAE capabilities (there are lots of things it does not have, such as multiple cores, 64 bits (if two bits is a quarter, then 64 of them ought to only cost $8, lol, but it doesn't work that way ), et cetera, so I wasn't expecting it to have that pae critter, either) and that I wouldn't be able to. Now I can upgrade to the latest and greatest on it, too, if I can find a blank DVD (add not having a "boot from USB flash drive" feature to the other things it lacks). That should be really helpful in that what I install on each computer will be the same version, have the same features/abilities, and suchlike.

Thanks,
MDM

[MtnDewManiac]

I just wanted to return to this thread and state that, yes, that "Pae" kernel does work on an AMD Athlon XP 2200+ which is installed in an Abit NF7 motherboard.