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Asus P2B-D good dual?

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DocClock aka MadClocker

Senior Member
Joined
Dec 19, 2000
Location
Stockton Cal, USA, Earth
Hello everybody, I have a few slot one chips around, and while they are old school, I think a dual PIII 600 will be a much improvement on a celly 300A @450.
I have these two 600E's that both will run reliably at 900+ with crappy heatsinks..I might be able to get my hands on another Alpha PIII H.S.

The questions are, Does it have enough room btwn the two slots for the Alpha, and are these boards good clockers?

I found a few on ebay ranging from $39.00 us to $249.00 (I mean really, who is going to pay $250.00 for a refurbed board with outdated technology?)

Anyhow $50.00 (that includes shipping) for a dual slot board ain't too much to pay is it?
I have all the nessesary parts to make it a real screamer (for it's day).
Thanks in advance,
Doc
 
There's a decent amount of room in between the slots, so you should be fine unless you have absurdly large heatsinks. I'll try and remember to measure the exact distance this evening.

One thing I have noticed, is you have to watch out for the heatsink retainer clip on the back side of the CPU... some of 'em stick out a bit too much and can hit against the line of capacitors that are stupidly close to the slot. They can be bent out of the way to a certain extent, but it doesn't gain you much room.

As far as overclocking... well, it depends. The 1.06 D03 revision was the only version that you can be guaranteed of a working 133FSB setting, and even it requires some soldering to acheive that speed. Apparently a few 1.05's had it too, but it was pretty uncommon. It had to do with a change in clock generators, from an ICS9150 to an ICS9250. With a couple hardware mods, the 1.06 D03 should be able to do 140, maybe even 150FSB.

Unfortunately mine is a 1.05 revision, so it tops out at 124FSB. That gives you 30mhz PCI and 82mhz AGP due to the dividers... I personally prefer the 112FSB setting, which gives 37.5mhz PCI and 75mhz AGP. It's perfectly stable at either speed, though.

Older revisions also had a different voltage regulator which didn't go below 1.8V. That could pose a bit of a problem on Coppermine P3's that use 1.5-1.6V. It won't damage 'em, but it won't do good things for your cooling. I think most 1.05's had the new VRMs, but no guarantees there.

There was also a problem with the ACPI in most of the boards, causing the second CPU to always load at 50%. It can be fixed by moving an SMD resistor (which is a PITA, but doable). 1.06 boards solved that issue, AFAIK.

Basically what it comes down to is that it's a project board. It's OK out of the box at up to 112mhz, and with a little work can be made to do some nice clocks, but you have to be confident with your soldering skills. If you're OK with that, then it's definitely worth the $50 for a 1.06 D03. I'd recommend avoiding older revisions entirely, though.
 
Yes, I'd try and get a 1.06 D03.

I have one and it's been 100% for the last... many many years. I have early stepping 800s so although the board will do 133mhz, my cpus won't. I run them, like Old Thrashbag, at 8x 112 (37.5/75) = ~900mhz.

Distance between the slots, from the top surface of the first processor to the back of the 2nd SECC2 PCB, is almost exactly 50mm. There are some components on the back of the PCB 'tho so you'll end up with less then 50mm. 48mm maybe?
 
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