In a nutshell - I hope I get my money back, but let me explain why.  This is my story. The names have NOT been changed to protect the innocent. There ARE no innocents.

After spending a couple of weeks trying to find a supplier that actually had one in stock [ this should have been an omen ], I finally got it last night.  Oh, yeah, excited was I. Going from a PII 266MHz cpu to a 766MHz Celeron was going to be a big kick in the pants for speed......right?. Even with the old ATA-33 Western Digital drives.

So, I drove 55 miles to get the thing from my partner. No biggie - it was only raining buckets and was getting dark, but my CHIP WAS IN !! After fixing his Windows Upgrade error on his Dell, I grabbed the box and split. Drove a little too fast in places, but I've been on this road too many times to count, and the car knows the turns. Even managed to stop in time to keep from getting creamed by the flock of deer along side the road, who naturally dashed out in front of me, just to see if I could stop in time. No problem. Just got new brakes. Just wish the guy in the Toyota 4WD behind me would have been watching - it was close.

Anyway, I digress, as usual.

Get home, grab the box, a cup of coffee, my glasses, and excitedly open the box and start reading the instruction manual. I will say this: The documentation was adequate - pretty much everything it said was what happened on my unit as far as setting it up.

Here's the process:
  Insert the floppy boot disk that comes with it and restart the computer. The program reads your system and tells you whether or not you need a BIOS update. I did. And there was one on the CDRom that comes with the kit, so restart Windows, insert the CD and it copies the BIOS flash to the floppy. Restart with the boot floppy, and follow the directions for flashing, and it worked. Now I have S.M.A.R.T. capability for my hard drives, something new. And a few more cool BIOS features. Hey, this is pretty cool.

  Next, power down, remove the old PII 266 and insert the new slocket with the Celery, attach the heatsink fan to the power supply, and reboot. Very simple. Except, no boot. Hmmm. So I messed with the motherboard jumpers to see if that helps - trying every combination from a 233 to a 333MHz. Still no boot. Hmmmm. Bummer. What's wrong? Well, I pulled out the Celery, reseated it a few times, and THAT worked. Houston, we have lift off !

  First thing I did was pull up SiSoft Sandra for CPU benchmarks - it blew the doors off a PIII 750 ! Not bad.
Ok, let's try the Memory benchmark. This is where the crap started. The system immediately froze solid - to the point of holding in the power button for about 8 seconds. I have 64 megs of PC66 ram that came with the unit, and a 128 meg stick of Mushkin CAS2 PC100 ram. It worked rather perfectly at 266MHz, at CAS2 settings in the BIOS. Since it froze on the memory benchmark, I figured it may have something to do with the mismatching ram, so I pulled it, leaving the good 128 meg Mushkin in. Tried running the Memory benchmark, and same thing - frozen computer. Damn. So, I restarted, set the BIOS memory to a slower speed, 3-3-3, CAS3 and tried again. Same thing - locked up solid. Well, maybe the system just doesn't like the Memory benchmark, so I didn't try it again. Instead, I opened up the programs I use - Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks, MS Word, and they really opened FAST - no doubt. This is pretty cool - a cheap upgrade (well, $140 + shipping, cheap enough). So, I tried one last program - Adobe Photoshop 5.5. It usually takes around 15 to 20 seconds to open it on my unit. Well, THIS time it ----- FROZE solid again. ARGGGGHHHH... !! This can't be ! Crap, crap, crap. What now?

  OK, maybe it's something corrupt in Photoshop. So, I reinstalled it. No help. No open. Locked up. Not much left to do here except pull the Celery and put the 266 back in. It booted right up, and I tried opening Photoshop - and, well, it works perfectly with the original unit. So, I put all my ram back in, set the timings to CAS2 again, and decided to try Evergreen's site for tech support. This is the pisser: now my US Robotics ISA 56K D/F modem is dead. And I DO mean DEAD. Nothing. Windows even kicked it out of Control Panel. So, I tried cleaning the contacts, and switching ISA slots, and still no modem. It's gone. No more modem. No more internet. (which isn't probably a bad idea, but it's what I do for a living, meager as it is, so that wasn't an option.) And, at 3am in the middle of nowhere New Mexico, there wasn't much chance of dropping down to the CompUSA to pick up another one. Oh, wait, I think I have an old Winmodem in my junk parts box, I wonder if it works?

  Pop that puppy into a spare PCI slot, fire up Winders, and, wonder of wonders, Windows not only sees it, but actually has a driver for it! And, it worked, I can get back online. And, wonder of wonders, I actually found a site that had updated drivers for an Aztech modem. Too cool. And it's what I'm using at the moment. The throughput is actually faster than my USR, despite connecting at a much slower speed. Only thing about the Aztech, it seems to connect anywhere from 32666 all the way to 37000, and each speed produces different download speeds. Weird. At 32K, I was d/l better than 36K connection speed. So much for high connection rates, eh?

  I then started writing to Evergreen's tech support, only to find they wanted the info from the install log on the floppy. Which was all repacked. Dang it again. Unpack, read the floppy, get the info, and send Evergreen my problem child's symptoms. Have yet to hear from them. I also wrote to a couple of sites that had articles on the Performa upgrades to let them know my experience.

  It's now 4am, and I'm toast. At least I still have my original computer back, sans USR modem, but with a new BIOS. Somehow, that doesn't seem like a fair trade. You can get a BIOS flash from Biostar for nothing. My USR cost $60. And the computer is still at 266MHz. Except for SoftFSB, which gets me a stable 300MHz. Pretty toasty cpu, though, at that speed. I had to install another cooling fan, which I mounted in the case so that it blows right on the CPU, and some overflow onto the overclocked TNT card I have. It's bearable now.

   Now, I'm just waiting for Evergreen's reply, if I ever get one. I have no doubts that this upgrade will NOT work in my system, despite what their site says, the spec sheets, etc. I had even used their system analyzer to determine if I could use it. According to everything I'd read, it should have worked, and it did, sorta. Just refused me my most used program, that's all. Like I said, not an option, not in my business. Such is life in the slow lane.

  I don't doubt that this upgrade works wonders for some systems, but from my personal experience, it doesn't work in ALL systems, even if the docs say it will. I just hope I can get my money back from someone - either the supplier or Evergreeen. I have a feeling this is going to be a $150 lunch, in that I think I may have to eat this, and aside from it not working as advertised, I lost my good modem....and about 6 hours out of my life trying to get it to work. Oh, not a total loss, you say, I got experience ? BAH ! Who needs that kind of experience? I could have used the sleep, not to mention my modem.

  I guess the only way to really upgrade is to buy that ABIT KT7E board, a 1 gig Tbird, some more ram, another hard drive, and of course, a 300 watt power supply for the Athlon. That should bring the cost of my upgrade to around $350 or more...not counting the $150 I already ate. If I DO get a refund, I'll be sure to post it to this page, just to be fair, but I'm not counting chicks yet. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.