What's new
By:
Guest viewing limit reached
  • You have reached the maximum number of guest views allowed
  • Please register below to remove this limitation
  • Already a member? Click here to login

New Athlon System

D

Diesel

Peak Forum Legend
PF Member
Messages
6,612
Highlights
0
Reaction score
1
Points
0
Peak Coin
0.000000¢
DB Transfer
0.000000¢
Aside from the extensive issues I had getting it up and running, I'm reasonably happy with it. Performance wise, it's nice and quick.

Running a T-bird 800 on an Abit KT7-RAID.
Anyone else using a similar setup under Windows 2000?


------------------
"It's always funny until someone gets hurt, and then it's just hilarious."
 
I've got a 900 MHz T-Bird Slot A Athlon on an ASUS K7M. It's running Windows 98 SE. I'm thinking an upgrade to 2000 might be in order, soon.

System specs (for DD):

Processor: Slot A T-Bird at 900 MHz.
Motherboard: ASUS K7M - UDMA 66, 1 AGP (2x), 5 PCI, 1 AMR, 1 ISA, and 3 DIMM slots.
Memory: 256 MB of PC133.
Video: GeForce 2 MX
HDD: Maxtor Diamondmax. 30 GB, 7200 RPM, and ATA 100.
DVD-ROM drive: just your 6x model. It gets the job done.
Case: Generic ATX. 4 5.25" bays and 4 3.5" bays - 2 internal.
PS: Enermax 350W - one of the ones recommended by AMD. That thing is a BEAST, to be sure - tons of connectors and 2 fans.
Sound: SB-Live Value
Modem: US Robotics Performance Pro.
NIC: D-Link 10/100.

My CD-RW stayed in the P3 as it is now my workhorse machine for scanning, printing, and burning. I had no issues as I just migrated all of the hardware in this machine from the P3. I didn't need to even format the drive as the system came up. I just did a ton of driver setup once Windows loaded.

------------------
Does driving a car from Saturn make me an alien?

I'm just a quick pee. - liltaz, fastest pee in the West!

That which does not make me barf, makes me stronger - possum37, fugly.net guru.

<FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE="1" FACE="Verdana, Arial">This message has been edited by JHowse on January 07, 2001 at 08:56 PM</font>
 
uhhhh...wow JH
mines nothing like those, but I'll say it anyway

Processor: 600 Mhz PIII overclocked to 800 Mhz
Memory: 128 MB RAM
Hard drive: 30 GB
OS: Windows ME
CD-RW: 8x burned for CD-R's and 4x for CD-RWs
Motherboard: CUSL2
Case: uh..I forget, something like Lightware...

------------------
Sit back, buckle up, and strap yourself in...this will be a bumpy ride on a joy ride!
Hey, it's the least I can do, and you know that's all I do
 
hmph.. JH.. the MX sounds missmatched in such a high end system.. anyways...

here's my system..

Processor: Slot A T-Bird at 850 MHz.
Motherboard: ABIT KA7-100
Memory: 256 MB PC133.
Video Card: Gullietmot (sp?) GeForce DDR
HDD: Maxtor 15 GB, 7200 RPM and Maxtor 40 GB, 7200 RPM
CD drive: Generic (sony clone) 52x (i think)
CD-RW Drive: Ricoh 6x/4x/24x (forgot the #)
Case: Fong Kai 320 w/ a 300W PS
Sound: SB-Live Value
Modem: None
NIC: Intel Management pro
TV Tuner: Happague(sp?) WinTV

I got a second system that i use for my sql server.. running Win2k.. celeron 500.. 128MB PC100.. has a dvd(4x).. it's a compaq so video and sound are all integrated.. installed win2k w/ no problems..

My third system's my linux machine.. P166.. 32MB EDO ram.. (yes people.. edo).. um.. 1MB video card (generic).. no sound.. no floppy, no cdrom.. has a 10/100 network card.
 
WB - you're right. The next two upgrades for this computer would be memory and and video. That was the main video in my P3-500, now it is the main video in this box. Anyway, I have too many computers:

Computer 2 - P3-515 (OC'd 500) - This is that Shopss.com machine. It's my general workhorse machine. Perfect for scanning, burning, and printing.

Processor: Katmai P3-500 OC'd to 515
Motherboard: Luckystar BX board. Decent board, but it's not as good as the venerable Abit BH6. UDMA 33, 1 AGP, 5 PCI, 2 ISA (one shared), and 3 DIMM slots.
Memory: 128 MB PC100.
Video: Voodoo3 3K.
HDD: 6 GB Maxtor.
Zip Drive: Gets the job done.
CD: 48X drive. Sounds like a jet plane taking off.
lol.gif

CD-RW: 2x4x6x.
Sound: ESS Solo.
Scanner: TWAIN compliant optical scanner complete with an 8bit interface card. Yup, this one goes back to the 486 days.
TV Tuner: Antec Teleview. This old gem uses a pass through cable like the Voodoo cards. It's an excellent piece of old hardware that I intend on hanging on to so long as I have a working PC with an ISA slot.

Computer 3: AMD K6-2 400. I plan to install LINUX on this one for general server stuff once I get my DSL up and running.

Processor: AMD K6-2 400
Motherboard: Matsonic 6260S using the ALi V chipset. 1 AGP, 3 PCI, 2 ISA, and 3 DIMM slots.
Memory: 128 MB PC100.
Video: Matrox G200 plus Voodoo2. Why not? I plan on making this a dual boot machine so that someone could come over and play games on it, too.
smile.gif

HDD: 1 WD 2 GB, 1 WD 1 GB, and one Fujitsu 1 GB drive. These old things do PIO Mode 4, so they are sloooooooooooooow.
lol.gif

CD: Mitsumi 24x.
Sound: SB AWE 32. I didn't want to use the POS Sound Pro 8330 that came with the Matsonic board.
NIC: I think I put the 3COM 3C509 in there. I have a few ISA NICs lying around.

I've also got a ton of tiny hard drives, a 486 board with 32 MB of RAM, a super7 board with a P133, a Reveal sound card and CD multimedia combo, a Diamond Stealth 64 DRAM, a couple of ISA NICs, a 28.8 Diamond Supra modem, a Lucent winmodem, various FPM sticks, and a couple of cases.

I think it's time to start unloading hardware.
lol.gif



------------------
Does driving a car from Saturn make me an alien?

I'm just a quick pee. - liltaz, fastest pee in the West!

That which does not make me barf, makes me stronger - possum37, fugly.net guru.
 
Just so we know what we're working with:

CPU: T-bird 800
Motherboard: Abit KT7-RAID
RAM: 640MB Crucial PC-133
Video: Elsa Gladiac GF2 GTS 32MB DDR
Hard Drives: IBM 75GXP 30GB, 2x 75GXP 30GB RAID 0, 2x Maxtor Diamond Max Plus 20GB RAID 0
CD-ROM: Plextor UltraPlex Wide 40x
DVD: Pioneer 303s
CD-RW: Plextor 12/4/32 SCSI
Sound: SB Live Value
Modem: 3Com Courier V. Everything external
NIC: 3Com Etherlink 10/100 PCI
Zip 250 External SCSI
SCSI: Diamond Fireport 40 Dual UW SCSI
OS: Windows 2000 Pro

I think that's everything relevant.
smile.gif


Basically, the only issues I have remaining are the sound card still crackling, and the system won't run in ACPI.
ACPI isn't a huge issue, other than that it won't power off automatically.
The sound card crackling is annoying the hell out of me, though. I've been scouring the Creative newsgroups, and running a lot of searches on Deja.com trying to find out more, but all it seems to have is people complaing about it being a known problem, but no one seems to have a definitive solution.


------------------
"It's always funny until someone gets hurt, and then it's just hilarious."
 
Dan, let's try a few things. I'm fairly certain that you have done all of the obvious things, but just in case, I'll list them here.

The obvious:

-Check your connections.
-Check your speakers.
-Make sure your mic is muted in the volume control. That's an easy one to miss.
-Make sure you have your latest drivers.
-Your board is not OC'd, is it?

The less obvious:

-Check the net for the latest BIOS for your board. Look also for your PCI (host to bridge, I think) drivers.

Other sites:

-Check www.3dfiles.com for various utils, too. Maybe something will come up on tweaking your sound card.

Dan, if you want, I can call you so that we can troubleshoot this problem, live. Just pm me with your info. I will be available, rather late, tonight, if you need me to help you...say like around 11:15 pm.

You might be able to adjust a performance vs. quality slider or also adjust a slider to a more stable setting to eliminate the crackling. I wonder if this is due to a clock issue, a driver issue, or a potential, yet subtle resource conflict.

------------------
Does driving a car from Saturn make me an alien?

I'm just a quick pee. - liltaz, fastest pee in the West!

That which does not make me barf, makes me stronger - possum37, fugly.net guru.
 
Definitely try updating the bios and all relevant drivers to your motherboard. Maybe that will help. The issue definitely has to do with something in your new configuration, so I'd check that out, for sure.

------------------
Does driving a car from Saturn make me an alien?

I'm just a quick pee. - liltaz, fastest pee in the West!

That which does not make me barf, makes me stronger - possum37, fugly.net guru.
 
JH&gt; I've done every single one of those. All of the connections are fine. All of the BIOS's are up to date, and all of the drivers are the newest versions.
And no, my system isn't overclocked because I'm trying to troubleshoot these issues.

Deja.com, and hence Usenet, is filled with descriptions of this sound crackling problem when using a SB Live card under Windows 2000.

A search for "crackling sound' gave 817 results concentrated in 5 groups:
creative.products.sound_blaster.live
comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard.tech
alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus
alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.abit
alt.comp.periphs.soundcard.sblive

As I said, it's a known issue that appears to be out of my control. Unfortunately, that only serves to make it more frustrating.


------------------
"It's always funny until someone gets hurt, and then it's just hilarious."
 
Hopefully, I'll be getting a new system soon. I'm gonna go for a 1Ghz P4, 256 RAM, 45 GB HD, 17" monitor (by the way, mine now is 15"), GeForce 2 Pro (I have GeForce 2 Pro now...wanna overclock it too), dunno much about sound blaster but I really good speakers for it (Atlantic Lansing...forget the hertz though...), and a good case. Still looking through the cases though.

Does anyone here decorate theirs? If I can get this one (may not be that powerful, but whatever), I'm gonna put a lot of fans on one side (so it doesnt overheat of course), a window on top with a neon light inside, and spraypaint a trumpet on the otherside, then put some other design(s) on it maybe...
You all should do that. Practice on like cardboard. Go here:
www.virtualhideout.net
and check out what some other people have done. Some are relaly cool!

By the way, what exactly is a T-bird? Is that just what Athlon calls their processors?

------------------
Sit back, buckle up, and strap yourself in...this will be a bumpy ride on a joy ride!
Hey, it's the least I can do, and you know that's all I do
 
DD&gt; I suspected that you had tried all of these, but it couldn't hurt to try.
smile.gif
At least we both know the general approach to attack the problem. I think I just found a reason to hold off of Win2K for a bit as I have the same sound card as you. Please do share the fix, once you find it.

Nap&gt; A T-Bird is just a revision of the Athlon core. The cache has been reduced to 256 KB and migrated off of a PCB onto the chip, itself. This allows the cache to run at the CPU frequency. The classic core had 512 KB on chips on the cartridge PCB. These chips ran at a fraction of the CPU speed, thus limiting performance as the clock speed increased...kind of a law of diminishing returns.

------------------
Does driving a car from Saturn make me an alien?

I'm just a quick pee. - liltaz, fastest pee in the West!

That which does not make me barf, makes me stronger - possum37, fugly.net guru.
 
Nap&gt; I'm afraid your dream system will remain a dream, as you'll never find it in your power to build such a beast.
There is no P4 1GHz. They're currently available in 1.4GHz and 1.5GHz.
wink.gif


JH&gt; Someone on Deja (Usenet) suggested that you set the entire SB Live to it's own IRQ. I'll try that when I get home.
It seems to be mixed results with many people. About a 50-50 split, where half never experience the crackling and half do.


------------------
"It's always funny until someone gets hurt, and then it's just hilarious."
 
DD&gt; Yeah. That would make sense...the whole resource conflict theory I had. Let me know how that goes.

------------------
Does driving a car from Saturn make me an alien?

I'm just a quick pee. - liltaz, fastest pee in the West!

That which does not make me barf, makes me stronger - possum37, fugly.net guru.
 
Okay, here's the IRQ situation.

I checked into the IRQ mappings to see what gets shared with what based on PCI slot assignments.

AGP and PCI1 share
PCI2 and PCI3 share with ACPI (currently disabled)
PCI4 and PCI6 share with USB
PCI5 shares with the onboard IDE RAID controller

Currently, my cards are setup as follows:
AGP - Elsa Gladiac
PCI1 - empty
PCI2 - SCSI card
PCI3 - NIC
PCI4 - empty
PCI5 - SB Live
PCI6 - empty
ISA - empty

ACPI is disabled, which means that the SCSI and NIC are sharing only with each other, and appear to be happy with that.
PCI4 and PCI6 are emtpy, but that IRQ is also shared by the USB controller.

I could juggle my SCSI card and NIC around, but they seem happy sharing, and everything I've read says to not have the SB share with a NIC (really bad things happen).

For the sake of keeping things simple, I'd say it's a foregone conclusion that I'm not going back to using ACPI, as it will not only take another IRQ, but will throw those IRQs already set up all over the place as it sees fit, which broke this machine in the first place.
smile.gif


Let's map out my possible options at this point:

  1. put the SB Live in PCI1 and have it share an IRQ with the AGP card.
  2. put the SB Live in either PCI4 or PCI6 and have it share an IRQ with the USB controller.
  3. move the SCSI card to PCI4 and move the NIC to PCI6 and have them both share with the USB controller, and move the SB to PCI 2 or PCI3 to have it's own IRQ.
  4. move the NIC to either PCI4 or PCI6 to share with the USB controller, or to PCI5 and share with the RAID controller, and move the SB to PCI3 to share with the SCSI card.
  5. move the NIC to PCI4 or PCI6 to share with USB, move the SCSI card to PCI5 to share with RAID, and move SB to PCI 2 or PCI3 to have it's own IRQ.
    [/list=a]

    The real problem is that I don't know what will be happy sharing with either the RAID controller or the USB controller. If I knew things would be happy, I'd just start throwing card willy-nilly until I found some kooky combination that worked, but I'd rather proceed cautiously, since I now have a system that works well with one slight issue. I'd rather suffer through crappy sound than not have a working system.

    I know this is all really convoluted, but I drew it out, and it's not that bad. If necessary, I'll figure out a way to show it graphically.

    JH&gt; Thanks for the offer of phone support, but I haven't gotten so desperate that I'm going to bother anyone by calling them at home.
    smile.gif


    ------------------
    "It's always funny until someone gets hurt, and then it's just hilarious."
 
Originally posted by Diesel Dan:
Nap&gt; I'm afraid your dream system will remain a dream, as you'll never find it in your power to build such a beast.
There is no P4 1GHz. They're currently available in 1.4GHz and 1.5GHz.
wink.gif


Click to expand...


EW! Really? Ugh, that sucks. Oh well, I'll look around then. Isn't there someone with a 1Ghz processor? i thought there was...
Maybe Athlon or Celeron?


------------------
Sit back, buckle up, and strap yourself in...this will be a bumpy ride on a joy ride!
Hey, it's the least I can do, and you know that's all I do
 
Yes, you can get a 1GHz P3 or Athlon.
The fastest of each that one can actually purchase somewhere:
P3 - 1GHz
Celeron - 766MHz
T-bird Athlon - 1.2GHz
Athlon - 1GHz
Duron - 850MHz

The P4 was released only in 1.4 and 1.5GHz so far. Considering the extensive problems that Intel has had with the P4, plus the cost premium compared to AMD, plus the lack of performance over the P3 or T-bird, I really can't see any reason anyone would want a P4.

Example:
Pricewatch cheapest prices -
P4 1.4GHz - $591
P4 1.5GHz - $833
P3 1GHz - $439
Celeron 766 - $153

Now compare that to AMD's offerings.
T-bird 1.2GHz - $269
Athlon 1GHz - $218
Duron 850 - $108

What does this tell us?
That you can get a T-bird that's more than 20% faster for 40% less than the fastest P3.
If you're looking budget line, you can get a Duron that's almost 100MHz faster than the fastest Celeron, for roughly 33% less.

Of course, this is for the fastest available in each class, where there's always a price premium. Once you start getting one or 2 grades deep into the speed range, the disparity widens even further.
P3 933 - $297
T-bird 950 - $158
So, for a faster clocked chip, you're paying half.

Again, please explain why someone would want to go Intel at this point?
smile.gif



------------------
"It's always funny until someone gets hurt, and then it's just hilarious."
 
Hmmmmm...I guess I'll check into all that. But, does a T-bird perform better than a Pentium? Cuz I'm a big fan of pentium and what they've been doing!

You know what, I'm just going to go for the Athlon or the T-bird. Thanks DD!!!!!!!!
smile.gif

------------------
Sit back, buckle up, and strap yourself in...this will be a bumpy ride on a joy ride!
Hey, it's the least I can do, and you know that's all I do

<FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE="1" FACE="Verdana, Arial">This message has been edited by NapoliJ10 on January 09, 2001 at 06:44 PM</font>
 
Nap&gt; In most cases, the T-bird Athlon outperforms the P3 of the same clock speed and P4 despite it's higher clock speed. In some cases, a slower T-bird will outperform a faster P3.

Even when it's not faster, the margin of difference is so narrow that, when the price factor is considered, it's still the better price/performance choice.

Here's some reviews and benchmarks: http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1336 http://www4.tomshardware.com/cpu/01q1/010108/index.html http://www.arstechnica.com/reviews/2q00/duron/duron-1.html

NOTE: Keep in mind that when switching from an Intel-based system to an Athlon or Duron based system, a new motherboard is required, so factor that into your decision.


------------------
"It's always funny until someone gets hurt, and then it's just hilarious."
 
Well I'm getting a whole new system, not just upgrading this one. We'll have 4 active ones if I can (remember, I still gotta find out, cuz I'm asking trust fund to get me everything...hopefully no one there will know anything about computers and I can tell them 1Ghz is slow...
lol.gif
); moms laptop, my computer, my bros (which he is just now ordering the parts for), and the one I am currently on.

And my brother is more of a computer genius than me and he told me that he recommends me getting the T-bird too...and since you both recommend it, well hey, how can I turn it down? Heh...
(and yes, I read the review...only one, but anandtech is cool!
supergrin.gif
)

------------------
Sit back, buckle up, and strap yourself in...this will be a bumpy ride on a joy ride!
Hey, it's the least I can do, and you know that's all I do
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top