Smp support questions....

[superfly]

O.k.here's the deal....

A friend of mine has a supermicro p3DME motherboard(dual slot 1 variant),he's currently using it along with 2 p3 650's but wants to upgrade that to a dual p3 1000,which his motherboard supports with just an updated bios flash that he's already downloaded and has flashed the board sucessfully,so far so good.

But here's the problem,he's searched everywhere and can't find retail versions of the p3 1000 133mhz fsb slot 1's(for warranty purposes),and the only ones he can find are either OEM slot 1 versions with at most a 90 day warranty or retail versions that come in fc-pga packaging.

He's already checked with supermicro's tech support and they don't have slot 1 to fc-pga adapters that support smp for their boards,their version only supports single cpu motherboards.

However,i found out that asus also makes that type of adapter,and their version of it does indeed support smp with coppermine cpu's as well as the older versions of the celerons.

So to sum it up,the motherboard is ready for dual p3 ghz,the cpu's themselves support smp and the asus version of the adapter also supports p3's in smp.

So if he orders the fc-pga versions of the p3 and use the asus adapters,the odds are pretty good that it should work fine,no???

I'm asking this because i'm the sucker who'll be doing the brain transplant,since no service department in the area will to say for sure that it will work,much less touch that upgrade with a ten foot pole... .

What do you guys think....

Thanks... .

[paulcs]

Guys, this is an i840 "Carmel" chipset-based board with "official" 133 MHz CPU bus and PC100 SDRAM support.

It's theoretically possible. He'll need a couple of Asus S370-DL slockets.

There. I touched it with a ten foot pole, but I wouldn't get any closer. I've never heard of anyone trying this or even buying this board. It's very expensive and only supports a 100 MHz memory bus.

Why doesn't he buy a couple of retail SECC 933's and be done with it?

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[This message has been edited by paulcs (edited 31 January 2001).]

[superfly]

That's the whole problem,it seems that in the area that he lives,no store(he's tried at least half dozen)is capable of getting retail slot 1 p3's higher than the 800 mhz version.

There was one one store that could get them.but they were 100mhz fsb,not 133mhz versions.

Going from a dual 650's to dual 800's isn't much of an improvement anyways.

The most frustrating is that intel still makes p3 1ghz slot 1's,but for the most part they're oem versions,not retail.

[paulcs]

I don't think it matters if the CPU supports a 100 or 133 MHz bus. There's a jumper on the board that allows you to select the CPU bus or have the board autodetect it.

http://207.33.24.2/TECHSUPPORT/TechN...0_TechNote.htm

As for performance differences, I doubt you'll see much of a difference at 100 or 133 MHz. I suspect the board's 100 MHz memory bus acts as a bottleneck.

Buy.com Canada seems to have both the SECC 933 (133 MHz) and the 1 GHz (100 MHz) units. Frankly, I think the 933 is a better deal. You really pay for all those zeroes.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[superfly]

Actually there isn't that much of a price difference between both(about 50$ can each).

On average the 933 is going for about 450.

Oh well..thanks anyways... .

[superfly]

Actually you'd be surprised how well it performs,to the point of matching the memory benchmark scores of systems equipped with pc1600 DDR memory... .

I ran sandra on it was very surprised about the scores,check this out:

460 integer
510 floating point.

Not bad for just 650's.

Even though it still uses those MTH sdram hubs,there's still two memory channels,just like the 840/850 rdram models,and the board interleaves it's memory banks,so you still have to use pairs of memory modules,otherwise the system won't even start.

[Grail]

Superfly, have you checked out the boys over at www.2cpu.com ? They might be able to answer that question.


Doh! Their forums are down for the moment for maintanence.

[This message has been edited by Grail (edited 31 January 2001).]

[paulcs]

Those are good scores and the i840 is a good performer. I was thinking about the performance differences between 1 GHz (10x100) vs 1 GHz (7.5x133) with a 100 MHz memory bus.

It would have been nice to see a true 133 MHz FSB with this board.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[superfly]

I'm a member at 2cpu and i opened a thread about this very subject yesterday.

but since the forums have been down since early this morning,so i don't know if someone answered and there are a few members there that have the same model that could offer some advice.

I've been trying to find out if there are some comparison articles between those 2 cpu's,but can seem to find any anywhere.

Everybody has reviews of both 933/133 and 1000/133,but there aren't any of the p3 1ghz/100 mhz fsb.

[This message has been edited by superfly (edited 31 January 2001).]

[superfly]

I decided that i'm going to try the adapter route.

I'll post later with the results.

Gut check time... ,wish me luck.

[superfly]

Well...got the cpu's and adapters,but it looks like it'll have to wait until tomorrow since the stock heatsink that ships with the retail cpu's are freeking huge and one rubs against some capacitors along the slot,and the chipset is in the way for the second processor as well.... .

I'm going to see if i can find smaller heatsinks tomorrow.

[paulcs]

Alpha makes a low profile heatsink:

http://www.inflowdirect.com/newalfcpal152.html

I haven't tried, however, so I don't know how effective it is.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[superfly]

Thank's for the info... .

But the last 12 hours were kinda nightmarish since even before i could install the cpu's, the system crashed hard(bsod) and when it tried to start,all i could hear was the motherboard beeping and there was no image on the monitor.

According to the manual,it was either the keyboard,video card or the motherboard itself that was causing it,luckily i could swap both the video card and keyboard with the ones that are installed in my system to see if that was the problem,but it wasn't,the system still beeped the same codes.

Installed his video card and keyboard on my system and they work fine,leaving only the motherboard as the possiblity or that the updated bios caused the problem.

I tried the reset the cmos several times but no dice,still the same problem and even the emergency bios recovery procedure woundn't work as well(i tried several times).

So,in a last ditch attempt,i removed every last piece of harware that wasn't needed to boot the system(only used one cpu,removed 3 out of 4 memory dimms,sound card and network card as well).

By some miracle,the sistem booted without beeping,but still was still locking up,sometimes in widows and a couple of other times in the bios setup screen itself!!!.

So i quickly re-flashed the bios with the previous version before the system locked up,and it works fine now,even with all the hardware installed... .

<font size="3">OH</font size>

<font size="5">HELL</font size>

<font size="8">YEAH!!!!</font size>.

When supermicro said it was a beta bios release,they weren't kidding.... .

I'm going to call them up again to see if it's mandatory to have the update done.

[superfly]

As it turns out,the bios update isn't mandatory if i force 133mhz bus operation through the motherboard jumper.

The bios is also needed if you want to see the currect cpu speed displayed on the bios screen,but the tech support guy assured me that the cpu's would run at the correct speed regardless of what the bios screen displays.

[Gurm]

You are aware that a nice Abit VP6 with dual socket-370's and hardware RAID is well under $150, right?

- Gurm

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