Dual P3's -- slightly off topic

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guppergoo
Posts: 20
Joined: Sun Mar 28, 2004 10:09 pm
Location: Nashville, TN
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Dual P3's -- slightly off topic

Post by guppergoo »

Appologies in advance. This is a non-BP6 question. I have numerous p3's laying around ranging from 366-8??. So I decided to pick up this board (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... %3AIT&rd=1) (http://www.giga-byte.com/Server/Product ... TXDR-C.htm#) on ebay to get up and running with the server again while I try to sort out the RMA with abit on my '6. Specs:

Form Factor 30.5 cm x 24.8 cm ATX size form factor, 6 layers PCB.
CPU 2 Socket 370 processor
Supports all new Pentium III processors (FC-PGA & FC-PGA2
package)
Supports100/133MHz system bus frequency
Can’t Support processor with Vcore above 1.8V
L2 cache in CPU (Depend on CPU)
Chipset VT82C694T (VIA Apollo Pro 133T)
VT82C686B, Rev C
Clock Generator ICS 9248AF-63
100/133 MHz system bus speeds (PCI 33MHz)
Memory 4 168-pin DIMM sockets
Support PC-100 / PC-133 SDRAM and VCM SDRAM
Support up to 4GB DRAM (Max)
Support only 3.3V SDRAM DIMM
Support 72bit ECC type DRAM integrity mode
Support registered or un-buffered DRAM
I/O Control VT82C686B,Rev C
Slots 5 PCI slot supports 33MHz & PCI 2.2 compliant
1 AMR (Audio Modem Riser) slot
On-Board IDE IDE 1and IDE 2 Support PIO mode 3, 4, UDMA 33 /
ATA 66 IDE & ATAPI CD-ROM
IDE 3 and IDE 4 Compatible with RAID, Ultra ATA/100,
Ultra ATA/66, UDMA 33, EIDE
4 IDE bus master IDE ports for up to 8 ATAPI devices
On-Board
Peripherals
1 floppy port supports 2 FDD with 360K, 720K, 1.2M,
1.44M and 2.88M bytes
1 parallel ports supports Normal/EPP/ECP mode
1 serial ports (COM 1)
4 USB ports
1 IrDA connector for Fast IrDA
On-Board VGA Onboard AGP ATI RAGE XL 2X
On-Board LAN Onboard INTEL 82559 Ethernet

Now the question is do I have to have the Tualitin p3's for this board or can I use the older coppermines? Also, what the heck is the difference between the two, besides the fact that the Tualitins are like 2x the price? I looked on pricewatch.com and was REALLY shocked at how expensive the chips are with the 512k cache. I have never run a p3 and am all sorts of confused as to what I can run in it now. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

~Todd
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davd_bob
Confused
Posts: 1043
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2004 2:30 am
Location: Houston, TX

Post by davd_bob »

Here is my opinion.

What are you using it for will define what cpus to use.

C'mines are fine.
Tullies are fine and more powerful if using software that uses their full capabilities.
Can't combine one of each though.
You can use a single celeron of either class but no celly that works on that board will "DUAL"...sorry.

They say you can mix diff speeds as long as cpus are the same core but most people recomend against it. If you do mix speeds put the faster in the socket that the board will use as primary.(ie a 700Mhz and 1.1Gig...use the 1.1 in the primary socket)
FC-PGA is copermine. P-IIIs will dual but celerons wont. You can probably use a UNI-celeron if you want.
FC-PGA2 is Tuallatin. I don't know anything about dualling them, except their comaprable celleron are also limited to UNI-processing only.
Try use a CPU that runs on 133FSB as it will pull the best overall preformance from the rest of the system.

You want as much ram as budget will allow. This is the biggest enhancment to speed, genericly speaking, to ANY system.
Use PC-133 only. Try get CL2 grade which is faster then CL3. Depends on your usage if you pay extra to get ECC, but be aware that extra correction step slows the ram down one CL step.
NON-ECC is faster, and thats why.
I dont know about registered, or un-buffered.

Check around and see if IDE 3 and 4 have issues. If not you then try use all ULTRA100 harddrives. Many people aslo will recomend not to bother with IDE but instead go with SCSI. If IDE 3 and 4 have issues then stick with IDE1 for your boot drive.

VGA...
Again, it depends what you are using it for. I didn't see an onboard video socket, but it may be under the parallel...try it as it may meet all your needs. I didn't see an AGP slot so if you plan to game with this rig the video cards will cost a bit more as you will have to use PCI cards.

The onboard LAN should work fine.

BTW, look at the caps by the ram slots. One looks like it is leaning which is a sign that it may be bulging at the bottom.

You know what. That board and all those P-IIIs you have lying around are just junk so why don't you just throw them out. And since its bad to put electornics in the landfill...just send it to me and I will proberly handel it. (hehe)
Really though, I think i will be getting a board that takes a C'mine from a friend and gave my last celeron to someone on this site in Janruary so maybe you and I can discuss if one of yours is available.
David
There are *almost* no bad BP6s. There are mostly bad caps.

No BP6s remaining
Athlon 2800
Sempron 2000
ViaCPU laptop with Vista.(Works great after bumping ram to 2Gig)
P-III 850@100
guppergoo
Posts: 20
Joined: Sun Mar 28, 2004 10:09 pm
Location: Nashville, TN
Contact:

Post by guppergoo »

WOW! I'm impressed with the thorough response! I love this community!

I guess what I will do is just throw a matched pair of p3 coppermines in...I know I have matched 650's (wonder if i can overclock.....) and I have at least 768mb of ram from the '6 that is now in RMA limbo. I am sure I can find some more ram around here somewhere. I have a plethora of cdroms as well as a bunch of 4-8gb hard drives. I'm thinking of putting in a 40gb ata 100 on its own chain as master, then take as many of the smaller drives as the case/psu can handle and set as a raid stripe for data etc. My ultimate goal is to get this setup to use as my in home web/ftp/media server. As of now I was going to put in 2k3 server or 2k server as I am more familiar with M$ stuff. But....if I can get my hands on a ClarkConnect pro or office distro I will install that as it is easy as cake to setup and manage. As I become more comfortable that things are working well I will have another drive in a removable cage to try out redhat or something along those lines.

Any experiene with a NOOB linux distro for web/ftp/media sharing?

Regards,

~T
Dave Rave
G'Day Mate!
Posts: 894
Joined: Thu Sep 26, 2002 4:28 am
Location: Sydney Australia
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Post by Dave Rave »

I've tried Linux Redhat and Fedora
as a NOOB myself, totally frustrating trying to figure it out.

don't know if it will web/ftp share, but seeing as it's Debian, I'm sure someone will point you in the right direction,.....
Knoppix works, it will install once someone holds your newby hand a bit.
and there is a web community that does answer questions, so it isn't totally freqing annoying.
http://www.knoppix.net
bp6's 3 x dual @ 533
. . . . 1 x dual @ 466
. . . . 1 sngl @ 400
[( 2 x dual xeon 2.4ghz )]
[( 2 x dual xeon 2.66ghz )]
[( 1 x 2.4C ghz )]
[( 1 x 2.4B ghz )]
[( 1 x dual AMD 1800MP )]
[( 1 x P4 1600 )]
[( 1 x 500 ppga )]
3 x piii 866
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