What's the Duron like then ?

[Paul Cunningham]

Darren, You Back !! Good to see you again.

I was thinking of getting a Duron 600. But what's a good motherboard for it and do you need an AMD approved power supply ?

Also, (Minor point here) whats it go like ?

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[Darren Wilson]

Hi Paul

I will be spending a whole day on Friday playing with both a Duron 700 & 600 with a Microstar Board. I have the chips already but will not get the boards until Friday morning http://www.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/forum/frown.gif I know the Duron draws more power than a Celeron but nowhere near the amount of wattage that the Athlon uses. So you should in theory be able to get away with nearly any PSU out there.

If they are anythign like the Athlon's I have een having recently then I think I will push these to the back of the shelf as well.

Looks like I could go back to being Intel only distributing http://www.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/forum/smile.gif http://www.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/forum/smile.gif

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[sradicator]

Dear Darren, every system has its problems and incompatibilities. Do you remember Asus P3c-2000 (and others like that)?
I don't think Amd is the only one with a lot of problems....

[Darren Wilson]

sradicator

If you read my post carefully you will see that it states RECENTLY the problems have been occuring with the Athlons.

I for one have never fallen into the trap of using i820 based boards anyway.

I was stating a personal finding that I have been having problems recently with Athlons and compatiability with various cards , boards and other items of equipment, which for a funny reason all work fine when used in an Intel based system.

You cannot sell systems to your customers (and if you do then you shouldn't be in business to start with) that have problems can you??? What I am trying to put across is that I am still trying to find a set of components that will work together with a minimum of hassles and will be as reliable as an Intel based machine.

It is a funny coincidence that the only systems that we have the most problems with are the ones based on non-Intel chipsets & processors isn't it????

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[jmlozan]

couldn't have said it better myself Darren!

[CEDAR]

Built two Duron's in the last two weeks. Used the Gigabyte mainboard, PC133 SDRAM and a 300/w PS. No problems and systems outpermed an Athlon 600 on the benchmarks. I would like to try other mainboards now that there are more available. When I built the first two, the gigabyte board was most readily available at a decent price.

[dr cool]

i cannot understand what you have against AMD Darren, I have much experience with them even more than intel. I have found they perform the same if not better than intel processors and cost relitively less than the same clocked intel. I have not experienced any problems related to incompatiblity. This is a problem that today is the least likely circumstance to arrise when you are having problems.

[Bohemian]

Abit KT7

[LuvNCustomers]

Sorry to hear you say this, Darren. I am not going to launch a personal attack or get into a which chip is better argument. I have had great success with both manufacturers. I however did get sucked into the 820 chipset thing. Oh, well. Anyhow, I have built 27 Athlons and 23 Pentium machines and I have 50 happy customers so far this year. I had 3 machines come back. 1 Athlon with a bad dvd drive and 2 Intels with the 820 boards in them. All in all I have been happy with both brands and I am proud to sell them both out of my shop. My feelings are stick with what you like no matter what it is. Ultimatly, the customer makes the final call so you have to get to know how to get eveything to run correctly. I would rather sell an Athlon to a customer then have him buy one from someone else.

Sorry this is problably off the subject.

[sradicator]

I don't have understand: "I have been having problems recently with Athlons and compatiability with various cards , boards and other items of equipment, which for a funny reason all work fine when used in an Intel based system."
Could you be more specific? I build a lot of Athlon systems, and, if they had a problem, I was not able to solve it replacing cpu with an Intel one!
I'm not against Intel, but I havent't found a lot of problems with AMD cpu (I mean problems not resolved yet). I only have heard the bad performance of Voodoo5 with Athlon systems (but I think is a driver issue anyway). And what did you intend with "recently"? Did you find fake Athlons?

[Darren Wilson]

Firstly, I have nothing against AMD at all. I may have misrepresented my actual comments by not stating that the problem normally lies with the chipset on the motherboard. If I was anti-AMD then I would not be spending a few days messing around with the Duron would I??
I will now make myself clear, well try to. Recently I have been forced to chop and change around Motherboards and Video Cards due to suppliers changing their major stocks. Previously I have always used boards which use the 750 chipset and had very few problems. I am now forced into using NMC and QDI boards. I think a lot of the problem revolves around the VIA KX133 chipset that is used upon these boards. It doesn't matter how many or when you install the VIA SP4 onto the system to try to stabilise the system, it just doesn't want to know. This is with nearly all of the ATI cards and TNT/GeForce cards. Yes I am using a 300W AMD Approved PSU and the systems are not overheating as a thermal probe has been used to test for any temperature problems. I have contacted my suppliers regarding the ATI problem and they responded by telling me that there was a problem with compatiability with the Rage Fury Maxx cards and teh KX133 to which ATI couldn't get them to work in any colour scheme higher than 256 colours. I have managed to get them to work in higher resolution, so I have solved a problem somewhere along the line, yet no 3D or DirectX apps will work for longer than 45 seconds!!!!!! YET, if I swap out the mobo & processor and replace them with an Intel chipse based board and either Celeron or PIII , then the apps all work fine and the system is stable!!! BTW this is without formatting, just going into safe mode and removing the chipset drivers for the VIA.
Like I stated before this has only started happening recently.

As for the fake Athlon question, yes in OEM circles there are a lot of remarked/overclocked chips in circulation, esp in the UK where I am. A few of the OC boys are actually hard soldering the resistors that determine the speed of the chip ala Toms Hardware.com (not that it is Toms People that are doing the clocking). This is one of the real problems that you can put down to the chip itself which is why I would rather buy a retail chip than an OEM.

For ref:

This is one of the systems that is causing the problems

AMD Athlon 750
NMC VA7 ATX Motherboard
128Mb PC133 SDRAM (Cube)
ATI or TNT2-GeForce based cards
15Gb Seagate DMA66 IDE
8x40 CTX DVD
onboard VIA sound
Rockwell HCF Modem (which works sweet)
300W AMD Approved PSU

Anyone care to try to shed any light on the subject ???

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[sradicator]

Mmm... Nothing to say about Ati Rage Maxx problem (I haven't tried it yet), but it seems the typical Ati driver problem. Ati seems to make not too much attention to their drivers (in win98SE appears a yellow mak on the driver of Ati Rage Pro Vivo, a known problem says Ati...), and for Ati Rage Maxx there isn't a Win2000 driver... I hope that with Radeon something will change...
But this is another question.

With Tnt-2 or Ge-Force I never had problems, even with economical m/b (I used Qdi, Asus, Abit and Lex (Jetway remarked))
I have read (I don't remember where) that if you install all the service pack of Via on kx-133 you could have troubles.
Try installing only "via agp 4.03" and "via inf".
Try also Nvidia detonators 2.
I have found that proprietary drivers cause a lot of problems (creative one, first of all...)

[Darren Wilson]

I think that I can safely say that it is one of three things that is causing the problems.


[1] Too higher power consumption of the system components which is very tricky to figure as I am using an approved 300W PSU.
[2] The chipset on the boards (VIA KX/KT133) is not compatiable with the drivers of the video cards.
[3] The 3D Now! instruction set is some how causing the system to fail in D3D & OGL apps.


I have concluded the chipset theory as I have now used the same components on a Duron with a Microsotar mobo (VIA SP4.20 installed) and the very same problems are occuring.

As previously stated, I know the other components are fine as they perform as expected on both a Celeron 566 & PIII 633 (both using i440BX chipset, 633 running on unsupported 133Mhz FSB for testing purposes).
The Intel board for reference is a QDI BrilianX9.

I will get this sorted if it kills me http://www.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/forum/smile.gif http://www.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/forum/smile.gif

BTW I have now added SIS 6326 (P.O.S. Card but normally fail safe!!) , Diamond Speedstar A90 (S3 Savage 4 , another P.O.S. Card) and VooDoo3 2000 AGP, to the list of cards that are causing the same problems!!!! Although I did get a bit further using the VooDoo 3 2000 as Unreal Tournament (v4.20) actually played without GPF's or droping back to the desktop.

I am still adamant that the chipset is the cause of this now , closely followed by the PSU not supplying enough power to the AGP.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGHHHHHHHHH I have a headache!!!!!!!!!! http://www.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/forum/smile.gif

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[This message has been edited by Darren Wilson (edited August 04, 2000).]

[Paul Cunningham]

Thanks for all the interest !

I had already half decided on the Gigabyte Baord as I have one now and it goes like $£%" off a shovel http://www.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/forum/smile.gif

I would also like to add a Matrox G400 Dual head but can find next to nothing about these as magazines tend to only review games cards and shy away from anything different.

Would this card work on this board, and does anyone know how well the dual head system works ?

Thankyou

Paul

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[dr cool]

darren i believe the problem may lie in your motherboard selection, i have not heard of these incompatabilities with video cards and the kt133 chipset. Have you tried a GeForce in any of your boards to see if it worked. Also you might want to go with the Asus A7V or if you can get your hands on an Abit KT7.

[Darren Wilson]

I agree Dr Cool.

I wish I could get hold of the Abit boards but my boss is careful with his money and wants to use the cheapest available. After this week (he has been away on holiday) I think he may change his mind http://www.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/forum/smile.gif

I have spent the best part of a week on the Athlon and the whole of today on teh Duron and the more I think about it the more I copnclude that it is a mobo incompatiability. I know that the ATI cards are definatly incompatiable (the Rage Fury Maxx) with the VIA KX/KT133 chipset as I have been told this by ATI themselves. The others do not make sense at all. Maybe it is an AGP power problem like the original TNT cards on LX boards. The more I write the more I am now thinking of this power problem so I may contridict myslef a couple of times in teh same post, as this is the way I think. It is very strange though how I get told by my supplier that they build identical systems and have no problems?? I think I am being told a blag here. Oh sod it. I am going to build Intel systems only, if Dell can be one of the major players by selling only Intel chips then I am sure that it won't affect us that much. I just haven't got the time to mess about with hardware incompatibilities all week when I could be selling new systems that are compatiable (i.e. Intel based). I kow a lot of you like AMD chips, but that is your own deciusion not mine. If a 100% compatiable chipset was available for the Athlon/Duron then I may think about selling them.

BTW, for reference. When I managed to get teh Duron to be relativly stable in a coule of apps using the VooDoo3 2000, it lagged behind a Celeron 566 (Duron was running at 600Mhz) in all of the benchmarks. I am not stating that it is definatly lower performance than the Intel chip, but until I get a stable setup like the Celeron then I cannot be 100% certain. I am going to spend 1 more day on it, and if it doesn't get any better then I think it will be pushed to the back of teh cupboard under my workbench.

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[Paul Cunningham]

Darren

Instead of pushing it to the back of a cupboard to lie there forlorn and unloved, push it into a jiffy bag and post it to me http://www.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/forum/wink.gif

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[WildTech]

Hey Darrin,

I"m an AMD lover and its killing me to admit this, but I too had some configuration problems with the Athlon processors. I played around with the configs and now I can honestly say that I have a very stable and conflict free configuration. I've sold a ton of em with no returns.

Here it is:
SuperCase with 250watt p/s (yes 250 watt works fine)
Asus K7V mobo
Athlon CPU of your choice (I use 650s and 800s)
128mg PC133 Ram (micron)
ATI 8mg Rage 3D Pro AGP vid card or any VooDoo (they all work fine)
Yamaha PCI or Soundblaster Live Sound Cards
DSI Creative Chipset modems
I also use Western Digital H/Ds, Mitsumi floppys, and Afreey CD Roms or DVDs

I know it cost a little more to use the ASUS motherboard, but I'm telling you, I've used em all, and the ASUS is trouble free with any combination of the parts listed above. Tell your boss too quit spending dollars to save pennies. Your spending too much time trying to make uncompatable configurations work when there are much easier options.

Like you, I don't hate any brand. But I do have a preference for the AMD's. Kind of a Ford vs Chevy thing.........hehe.

I hope this info helps you out. http://www.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/forum/smile.gif Good Luck

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:)

WildTech

**I'd rather be lucky than smart!!**

[Ribbon Cable]

Darren,

I think your experiences are the same as mine with AMD Athlons. Wonderful chips, good for demos where I can keep an eye on them, but need to be tested completely before someone walks out the door with them.

Perhaps the issue is with product testing, not at AMD, but with the other hardware manufacturers. How long is the "pipeline" between product design and product sale? For example, how long ago was it that a super-techy sat down to first devolpe the video processor chip in your current machine?

Next question, was the AMD Athlon around, and was the instruction set for said chip known and understood at the time? I know many SC and Video devices had trouble with 3D NOW technology when it first arrived on the K6s. Bottom line was nobody had tested their product on AMD K6 platforms, because none existed before the SC or Video cards went to market.

Could we be seeing the same thing here with Athlons?

Craig.

[jamesalexw]

Hey guys
I think you are missing one major point.
The VIA KX133 Chipset on those Athlon Mobo's is alomost identical to the VIA 133 Chipset on Pentium 3 Boards.
I now your all gonna say that your using Intel's 820 or 815 chipset but do remeber the 815 is the replacement to the 820 because Intel screwed up. VIA chipset's are the most readily available chipsets for either Intel or AMD. I would be interested to see if Darren's AGP problem resurfaced with a VIA 693 or 694 Pentium 3 Mobo.
I've used Athlons since they were first made available and I found most problems were down to drivers.
My advice is to use the latest drivers you can get your hands on, put them on a CD, install windows and then install them one by one till a problem surfaces. Then reinstall windows and try a different order.
All problems have solutions.
and my final point is that you can't blame AMD for chipset problems, unfortunately AMD don't have the manufacturing capacity to make chipsets as well, but they never will do if we don't stick our necks out and try and sort these problems. We can all help by emailing problems to either AMD, VIA or any other comapany who is involved.

[Darren Wilson]

James

Firstly I know that the VIA chipsets are the same for both types of processor but what you must remember is that the Athlon & Duron BOTH DRAW A BLOODY LOT OF POWER!!!!!! I don't like using Non-Intel chipsets on Intel based systems, so I cannot comment on twether or not similar probs would occur.

Secondly, AMD do make their own chipsets (what about the Irongate and the new one for the Durons???). Agreed that their are more boards around using the VIA chipset but I would rather use the AMD version instead.

Thridly, already done the driver 'solution' and it was still freezzing/crashing/BSOD/etc with just Win9x/Win2K (Not with the ATI as no drivers available) and Windows ME so I know it is not a driver issue with the cards. Which leaves only the CPU (nor iffy as it idoes the same on both a Duron & Athlon(slot) on different boards), bad RAM (changed a few times and double checked with a RAM tester), bad PSU (changed 3 times) or bad boards (two different boards totally) which leaves one common denominator, The CHIPSET (both VIA). As previously stated all the components work 100% on a Celeron 566 on a QDI BrillianX9 (i440BX) and on a PIII 500 on a Gigabyte GA6-BX2000 (my own system), so it still leads to a problem with the VIA chipset.

I am though still working on it though.

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[Paul Cunningham]

Thanks for all your input everybody.

I have ordered a Gigabyte GA71XE 4 and A Duron 600.

I should be gettong this within 3 or 4 days si I'll let you how it goes !!

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[jrobinson]

Got my new system last night with the Gigabyte GA-71XE and a 700mhz Athlon. Runs nicely after I enabled floppy drive seek. Can you honestly say they tested my system before they shipped? I think not! Just remember to check you bios Paul!

[Paul Cunningham]

J

How was floppy drive seek affecting your performance ?

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[jrobinson]

The performance was terrible, I couldn't boot up to load an o/s! LOL

Joel

[Ruslan]

Originally posted by paul cunningham:
J

How was floppy drive seek affecting your performance ?


"Windows 98 is excellent multytasking OS -
wait for minute,untill then my floppy drive finished formatting disk, and then we can switch to another task.
Bill Gates."
(from russian anecdots sources.)

[Paul Cunningham]

Good point Ruslan, Why does formatting a floppy need the entire resources of the computer.

I wonder if the department of defense have this problem ?

"Oh, sorry, can't have a war now, someones formatting a box of floppies !"

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[DesertEagle]

I agree with Darren's assesment. It IS the VIA chipset that is causing the problem with the video cards. I have tested this for weeks and I am 99.9% certain, thanks to some engineer friends and alot of expensive equipment, there is a timing issue with the chipset.

[Darren Wilson]

Just seen the latest update for the VIA 4 in 1 drivers ont eh Windrivers homepage. Will give them a try when I get to work and let you know if they help or not

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[Veriance]

Here is my 2 cents worth of statistical data.
I have no idea if things would work better with Intel since we do AMD only. Anyway we have our problems too. Here are this weeks findings.

Microstar MB
InWIN 250W
128 meg 133 ram
Tunderbird 750
WD 18 gig 7200/66
Adaptec 2940
ATI all in one Wonder (rage pro 8meg 2X)
8/20X CDRW scsi
100 mbit Cnet
Win2000

This system runs flawless no lockups at all.

Gigabyte GA-7ZM flashed bios
InWin 250
Tbird 750 / Duron 650
128Meg 133 ram
100 mbit Cnet
Seagate 13.5 7200/66

52X CD delta .. will not play Diablo II
52X Creative no problems

S3 A200 8meg flashed bios, still hangup
S3 540 32meg more hangups than A200
S3 S4 Acer 16meg hangs
RIVA TNT2 32meg works but freq. problems with some 19" monitors
Vodoo 3000 Works but could be faster

It seems Win2000 machines are MUCH more stable compared to the same machine with Win98 running. I have the Acer Savage4 working in a system with 2000. So for now I think drivers are still #1 suspect.