I have an older system and want to upgrade memory

http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/archives/mbp299.zip

RAM - 512Mb max
CPU - PII 266MHz-450MHz / PIII 450MHz and faster

I wouldn't put much faith in the "450MHz and faster" quote from them.

Due to the era of the motherboard, as spiderfix stated, yer not going to get much faster than a few steps into the P3 realm.  you are running 566.  i would venture to say that you MAY get it to go a tad bit higher than that with a bios update to support newer processors.

Straight from the Asus website:

http://www.motherboard.cz/mb/asus/P2-99.htm

Processor
Supports Intel® Pentium® III/ II 233MHz~550+MHz processors
Supports Intel® Celeron 266MHz and faster processors

System Memory
2x 168-pin DIMMs Sockets Support 8MB to 512MB SDRAM Capacity

etc

So to answer your question:

1. You are already using the fastest PIII the board will take. So no room for improvement there.

2. The m/b will take up to 512MB RAM so you could replace the old RAM with 512MB of new. If you want to do that have a look at Crucial's website:

http://www.crucial.com/

Do not go for a mixture of old and new RAM to go to say 384RAM as the chances are it will not work. If your are going to go for 512MB RAM I would suggest using 2 x 256MB but at all events take notice of Crucial's recommendations. Their website allows you to search for RAM sepcifically for your m/b.

Hope that helps

or even specifically !

Spiderfix is right...more than likely you would be better off saving your money for a better mobo/CPU.  Depending on what OS you're using, you will more than likely see no performance increase.  If you are using 98 or lower, you may actually see a decrease, as it doesn't handle that much memory very well.  Save up your money & buy a kit like what spiderfix said.

Thanx for the info,  I guess that means I'm going to have to get a new mobo.  I want to go to a P4. (Just personal preference)  Is there any info I can get so I get a mobo that will bolt up to the same case, with little or no trouble?  I'm not afraid to do it myself. I've replace hd's and cd roms before so that's not a prob.  What would be a good p4 mobo I'll upgrade memory at the same time.

The best bet would be to find a store that will do a Barebones updrade system.  Usually they come with a mobo/CPU/Memory/PSU & case

You want to use your current case?  What's your current case so that we can go from there?  I'd suggest any ATX motherboard from Abit, Intel itself, Asus, Gigabyte, Albatron, MSI, Soyo, and Soltek if it'll fit into your case.  If you'd like to start searching immeddiately, go to www.pricegrabber.com and/or www.pricewatch.com .  I'd suggest pricewatch because you go from a list to a specific item.  When you find a good board, find it on www.newegg.com if you've found it anywhere else, and look more closely at the pictures.  See the screw holes?  They're round, silver, and at the corners, I/O ports side, below the ram, and so on.  Match those with your existing screw holes.  I'd suggest that you get a motherboard with at least screw holes by the ram, the AGP slot, and all corners.  If that won't fit into your case, do as rustyrpage said.

You'll need a Socket478 board that supports PC-3200 (DDR400) ram.  Pretty good ram would be Crucial, Corsair, Samsung, and Kingston.  I have Samsung ram and I run it at 5-3-3-2 with no problems at all.  I also paid a lot less for it than I would have for Corsair or Kingston ram that runs just as fast or faster.  Basically, please worry about CAS latencies.  Get CL2 or 2.5 ram of a non-generic brand.

http://oldlook.experts-exchange.com/Hardware/Q_20836172.html
or
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Hardware/Q_20836172.html

Thank you,
Radomir Jordanovic

>>so I get a mobo that will bolt up to the same case<<
Cases are not expensive at all, the simpler the case the less expensive they are.
If you truly are planning on a new computer you don't want to restrict yourself
to a case from years ago. For one the power supply is not going to work with a
P4 so you'll end up having to add a new power supply to the costs. Many cases
come with a power supply (PS). Some maybe not the highest quality PS but the
computer doesn't care about the quality it just wants the "juice" the PS provides.
Quality usually is synonymous with longevity.

>>What would be a good p4 mobo<<
The latest release cpu is always going to be the highest price cpu. It all depends
on what you want to spend. To keep costs low AMD is the usual choice. AMDs
run hotter and want more juice so as long as you apply that thought to the choice
of cooling and PS this can make for a fairly decent speedy machine that costs very
little.

I do prefer Pentiums. If you want to keep costs down then a 3.2GHz P4 would not be
the way to go. For budget conscious users I suggest a 2.6GHz P4. You can get them
in 533MHz FSB or 800 FSB, 533MHz being less expensive of course. Newegg.com
sells a 2.6GHz for $169.00

Gigabyte makes a 845GV 800MHz board with a 800MHz FSB. Newegg.com is
selling them for $56.99 and they'll handle a 533MHz or a 800MHz P4. Gigabyte
is a good board to tweak up the system.

$30.00 - $60.00 for a cooling system, $70.00 for 512Mb RAM, and the rest would
be extras.

I think the best option would be a P4 3.0GHz 800MHz FSB with hyper-threading technology.  That would be the second-fastest CPU and not too overpriced.  Also, the performance difference would be minimal.

Actually the third fastes....If you count the regular 3.2gig and then the 3.2gig E processor....the 3.2gig cost about $300-400...the 3.2E runs about $1000.

Oops.  Well, go for the 3 or 2.8 or something, but not the fastest.  If you're worrying about the hardware getting outdated and being too slow, consider this:  when the 3GHz P4 is outdated, so will be the 3.2GHz EE P4.