First Glance–Slot A Thunderbird

  • Got a 750Mhz Slot A Thunderbird a while back.
  • Using it with an Asus K7M motherboard.
  • Did a strip-tease of the CPU, and found out that the 750 was actually a 900 core T-Bird.
  • This pleased me.
  • So far, that’s it.
  • You think BIOS updates don’t matter much?
  • This processor is supposed to do about a 70 in CPUMark.
  • Do you know what it does using BIOS version 1007?
  • 11.9.
  • That’s a big difference.
  • People who think that all they need is a 200Mhz processor should try this sometime.
  • Very unpleasant thoughts go through your mind when you watch it in inaction walking through benchmarks.
  • Even worse thoughts go through the head of the person for whom you’re designing a new system seeing this.
  • Better get BIOS version 1009 right away.
  • Have UDMA66 or better drives? I do.
  • Even after the BIOS updates, the benchmark numbers weren’t too good.
  • Ran Winbench, and the scores weren’t too good for an IBM 75GXP.
  • Leaving DMA unenabled in Win98 wasn’t too bright.
  • Turning it on was even dumber.
  • The K7M doesn’t like DMA.
  • It’s nothing personal; plenty of others are having that problem, too.
  • Didn’t see any answers, though.
  • Do you have one? Could you please tell me?
  • Actually, I do have one: Forget the regular IDE controller and use a PCI controller/RAID card.
  • I’m not the only one coming up with that answer, so are most of the mobo manufacturers.
  • Noticed some of these new Via mobos are getting a little pricey?
  • Noticed a lot of them have alternate controllers/RAID built in?
  • You think they’re doing that for their health?
  • Unless I find more things the K7M doesn’t like, we’ll have a full review in a couple days.

Email Ed


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