Asus A7M266-D Dualie Questions-Help!

[Lonely Raven]

I'm considering clearing up (selling) off my PIII systems in my farm
and replacing them with a pair of Dualie AMD boards. Everything
I've read said that the Asus A7M266-D can only handle ONE
AMD XP Processor. That as soon as the BIOS recognises the
XP processor, it shuts off the second socket.

Can any of you guys running these boards shed some light
on this? Am I going to regret bidding on one of these boards
on EBAY?

Any and all help is greatly apprecaited.
I might also be selling 3 PIII systems, inclusing one that's a
dualie, and one T-bird system that runs very happy at 160FSB!

 

[Yodums]

toomanymods and Jon use that board, and if there was any type of incident I don't think Jon would have (3) of those boards

I think that's nonsense though! Asus would have fixed it ..

Yodums

 

[LandShark]

well........check my sig. i'm running dual XP1800+ in my A7M266-D. the BIOS said it's a MP chip. however, Win2k/Sandra said it's a XP1800+?? but, i don't care....as long as Win2k does recognized the 2nd XP and using it fine.

when u buy it, just make sure u get the newest reversion, version 1.04!! 'cos this is the 'only' version that allow cpu voltage change up to 1.85 for BOTH cpu!! any earlier version 'only' allow volt. change on cpu1!! (weird and dunno why they did that the first 3 reversion)

as far as i know, Toomny, Audiman, and Jon r running this mobo w/ some mix experience too. and Jon has 3 (at least?!) of this mobo w/ varies chip. from XP to Morgan.

so far, i really have no problem w/ it at all. not even a single crash.....well, besides clocked over 1.7G

some of my trouble free experience is due to i disable the onboard sound (most problem is from it!! make sure u ditch it!!), and not using the USB2.0 card neither. that's the most problem i heard from other owners, either from oc.com or amdmb.com (yeah, sometimes those damn frog does have some good use )

good luck bro.

 

[lonewolf1983]

from what ive heard the Asus doesnt officially support anything but MP processors.
However in practice it will run dual XP's,MP's and Morgan cored durons.

 

[Jon]

XP, MP and Morgan Durons will work in it no problem. Some problems are becoming evident in newer XP 1900 and 2000+ chips in SMP though, so I would stick with 1500-1800 XPs for now. That's plenty of horsepower as it is.

 

[toomnymods]

From my experience with this board if I had to do it again I would definatly go with the 2000+ mp's Just too much damn hassle getting the xp's to post and be stable.. I had to switch out 5 seperate xp 1800's before I found 2 that could do the SMP role.. On the forums on the 2cpu.com site a few readers shed some light that all xp's and mp's are definatly alike in each and every way.. but mp processors are guarnteed to work in the SMP role.. Not all xp processors can handle the job as i found out first hand.. Finally found 2 out of 5 that could run in it stable over 140 fsb.. Ohh make sure you get registerred ddr corsair ram.. It rocks... Every other normal unbuffered ram i tried got BSOD like on every boot if I had the fsb over 135.. If you plan to build a nice system dont skimp on the ram, power supply (enermax 651 watt) and processors trust me.. Or you will be pulling your hair out later like i was...
Good Luck

 

[Lonely Raven]

Thanx for the tips.

I have a couple more questions.

Do I *have* to run Registered DDR? I have some REALLY nice
sticks of OCZ PC-3000 that I respect much more now that I've
gotten all of them to at least 175Mhz FSB. I'd really like to use
that stuff, at least till I can find/afford better.

What kinda overclocks are you guys getting? Is there a chance of
me getting my 175FSB with my unlocked processors?

As I mentioned, I'm thinking about selling off at least two of my
systems (which might already be sold!) and I've decided on
getting at least one A7M266-D with a pair of XP1500+ for starters.
After all the reading I've done, and some testing, I think I have
one XP1700+ that should work as part of a dualie setup because
even CPUID thinks it at an MP:

I don't like the fact that more then one person has recommended
to me to NOT use the USB, cause I might just need it (rumor has
it that all serial and parallel ports will be gone on future boards
by the end of this year), and I was planning on using an Adaptec
64Bit Ultra 2 Wide SCSI card to power the drives on this system.
As well as this other nifty card I have that does Ultra2Wide and
Firewire specfically designed for Video Editing!
(Systems alternate use will be audio and video editing)

Well, computer show is coming up this Sunday. Lets see what
kinda deals I can get!

 

[Lonely Raven]

Hey, check this out:

http://www.abit.com.tw/abitweb/webjsp/english/server-workstation/wa2a.htm

 

[LandShark]

i'm using 2 sticks of 256MB Corsair PC2400 non ECC/non registered, and running at 145MHz turbo, 2-2-2 right now. w/ 2 XP1800+ (locked), it's been running SETI for almost a week now w/out a single crash. (knock wood.....!!)

as for FSB goes, i should say i'm pretty good luck to hit 145MHz on it! 'cos i've heard lots of people couldn't do this high whether ECC/registered or not.

i would highly doubt if u could hit 155MHz from it, not saying 170+!! it runs 150MHz for a WUs time, then locks up when it try to upload the WU back to berkeley..... don't know if it's the board, cpu, or the NIC?? 'cos i'm tested my Corsair could hit "at least" 155+MHz 2-2-2.

if u gonna get one, be sure to get the latest version 1.04 tho!!

good luck!

 

[Lonely Raven]

I just spent the past 2 hours reading up on 2CPU.com

Not only does my head hurt, but I don't want Dualies anymore.

I'll give myself a few days to think about it. I'm kinda wondering
if it's worth it not to be able to use my GeForce 3, SB Live,
and whatever else the hell wont work!

Plus, I really don't want to pay a premium for MP processors
for stability when I was hoping to consolidate my setups to
save space and money!

And gambling that a pair of 1500+ will play nice with eachother
and that Asus doesn't suddenly LOCK OUT all XP processors
doesn't sound cost effective...

Grrrrr...

 

[toomnymods]

Yea those guys over at 2cpu.com definatly know thier mobos and the correct configurations to run them in.. After buying the asus i read some horrible posts describing what i posted above.. xp's not working in this mobo, but it was already to late for me i had it and 2 new xp's lol.. Then i went on a cpu changin spree thru all of my boxes till i found 2 that would:
1) post
2) get thru the first 45 seconds of booting into the os without getting damn bsod's
3) later found out most if not all of my BSOD's were from using unbuffered crucial ram.. Lotsa peeps there said never to use unbuffered ram in a dual cpu system.. Guess the ecc registerred corrects a crud load of messed up data being transmitted from the cpu to the ram.. All i know is soon as i put in my Corsair pc2100 ecc registered 512mb stick all was well havent crashed since and that was 2 weeks ago.. Also posted at 140 fsb no probs running seti 24/7
Soon as i finish my watercooling setup on this rig im' gonna try for 150 and leave it at that if it can handle it..
Take care

 

[Lonely Raven]

Ouch, sounds expensive. I was hoping to consolidate two
or more machines into one nice dualie to save space and
save electricity. Since I built these 6 machines (well 5 pluss
the one I had), my electrical bill has gone up almost $30 a
month!

Well, the computer show is this Sunday, I'll see what happens
between now and then.