upgrade to new system questions GA-SINXP1394 ?

[No-Alibi]

Hi all, found some decent talks on mainboards on here, and linux luvers is a plus in my book too so I'd like to ask a question about an upcomming upgrade from my current system..

Current Wintendo system:
1200AMD Thunderbird, Asus mainboard A7M266, wintendo 2000 pro with sp3, Gforce4 4600ti, dx9, 512Meg ram, and a new nice koolance water cooler case(hopefully it will be ok durring the hot days of summer, too new to know yet) current temps from 21c to 36c(when I turn my heater on in room, durring winter) its not all that quiet either but quieter than a 2 fan Hub/Switch! heh lol

the above system is failing tho, on cold boots, it will reboot/kernel error on me 4-5 times before becomming stable, at which point i keep it on.... sigh not good for the electricity bill tho. its stable after them 4-5 boots for the most part. I dunno what to do about it, but it cant go on, plus my system is a tad slow vs my new laptop toshiba which is a 2.0g P4 intel running XP. So I am thinking of going all out in upgrading only 3-4 parts tho the Mainboard, CPU, Memory and maybe a new drive..

I am thinking of a Gigabit mobo the GA-SINXP1394, not to place ads on here but best place I have found pricewise so far on this is:
GA-SINXP1394
thing is I couldnt get the CPU here and I am not sure if the ram is decent enough price there either, the CPU I am lookn at is the 3.06 HT and the ram I am lookn at is the COR-TWINX512-3200LL-PLAT - why the Matched Pair? I am not sure but it says its suited for Dual Channel DDR use

so in brief:
GA-SINXP1394
Intel 3.06 HT CPU
COR-TWINX512-3200LL-PLAT

would this combo work? current price for all this is 900-1000
or would i be better off with the single COR 3200cas2 ram? I'd need two of em anyways ? up to 4!!

Side question on the twin ram deal it says 512-3200LL, is that two 256 modules or two 512 modules?

Or should I wait for the MSI Max2? or the Asus Board with the SiS 655 and 963 chipsets - hard part about ordering online is knowing if I'd get the B0 stepping revision or not....

Yeah might not have use for the serial ata drives yet, but maybe soon, the Raid is a plus tho on the IDE 133 channels, LAN, Sound all good too

Anyone have a place I could get the above system or another system? or got a better suggestion

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No-Alibi

EDIT: I have edited your link so it doesn't resize the page - EvLwMn

[Foolhardy]

Welcome to the board No-Alibi!

We have a resident mobo-fu master by the name of Toby who should be perusing these boards some time soon. Most of the regulars here don't seem to be the biggest Gigabyte fans. I didn't realize till just now that those dual channel Corsair sticks were also meant for the intel boards too...guess I always associated them with AMD powered nforce2 boards...That gigabyte board seems to have some great specs tho.

Bad windoze 2k installs do that kernel corruption reboot error you're describing. The only fix I know is a full reinstall. There was another case where that didin't need to be done. My neighbor was having the exact same problems but his temps were way worse than yours (yours look great btw). It turned out it was the outlet he was plugging the box into had an unclean signal that his generic line conditioner wasn't doing squat to fix. I called the electric company and they did some magic and everything was fine.

If your OS doesn't start on cold boots it maybe the harddisk that is acting up? Also, this is a long shot, unplug any usb devices you have connected on startup and see if it boots directly into windoze. That strange fix worked for some Abit boards back in the day.

I'm sorry I'm not much of help for Giga boards, but just wait a bit, I'm sure some of our folks would be able to do something for ya...

[Foolhardy]

Oh, I almost forgot. Try AMD, you just might like it...board suggestions include latest nforce2 entries from Asus, Epox and MSI.

Try the MAX2 boards from Abit if you want to go legacy free. They are awesome according to user reports.

[No-Alibi]

Well....

I've had the system a while now, durring the summer I think it got fried a bit. This room gets very warm/hot, somewhat like standing over a BBQ thats cookn up some of your favorite food stuffs. Well not quite, but close enough!

I had it in another case before this (way expensive) koolance case, and when these problems started I reinstalled several times, usually kernel errors durring the install, I think the only way I got it installed was to turn the turbo mode to normal and from 133bus to 100bus.

Now, if I keep the machine on 100bus and non turbo(1200Mhz(CPU speed) vs 900Mhz Saftey mode? or underclocked mode) the system will cold boot fine. Since I dont want to keep turning off full use of the cpu letting it warm up? heh then rebooting to bios to turn it back on. Ok I am confused, but this is exactly how things are with the system.

I have 5 different computers here, mostly older puters with AMDs and 1 Intel(which is 2.0Ghz notebook) while thats 800Mhz different than my fastest AMD machine right now, I really would like to try a full desktop Intel system.

Oh I got a Apple G2 too also had a Alpha Multia -worth 40(US) and sold it to some M$ exec at thier campus for like 400(US) with OpenBSD on it. Oh the root password was set to BSOD just for the M$ guy. (cackle)

Oh windows starts on a cold boot, just will reboot itself 2-5 times sometimes mid boot, will reboot, ect. Will get to splash screen, reboot, get to desktop reboot, sometimes kernel dump/bluescreen freeze. But the funny thing is it happens like only the 2-5 times.. Then becomes pretty stable with long hours of gameing. I do notice when it becomes stable the temp display reads around 22c + (maybe the cpu got used to running very hot durring the summer) strange but I dunno!

Since its been 2 different cases and two different PS, and this one is an insane PS in the koolance, well doubt its that. I don't think its a USB problem either. Wall outlit line conditioning? Spikes? only on a cold reboot, well I don't think so.

Again on AMD, I think this time around I'll try for a real Intel system, it's been a long time, last one was a celron 400system. So any help with the first post question on a new Intel system(cutting edge). Would be cool

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No-Alibi

[Axl]

so in brief:
GA-SINXP1394
Intel 3.06 HT CPU
COR-TWINX512-3200LL-PLAT

The above system looks nice. I don't have any experience with Gigabyte but think they are equal to others like Abit. Remember that you have to buy two memory modules of the same size and type for dual channel mode. Otherwise it will only run in single channel mode and give you worse performance. For 512Mb RAM you need two 256Mb modules (or 4 128Mb modules).

So far I cannot find any better system for you than that. The MAX2 from MSI is supposed to be little bit faster but with a very tiny margin. Besides, you get a lot of connections with Gigabyte board.

[EvLwMn]

Welcome to the board No-Alibi!

Have you looked for a bios update for that Asus board you are using now? It may be something that simple that is causing your problems. I've seen stranger things happen.

Find out if there's an update for your bios and if there is, try flashing it and THEN re-install Windoze 2000 and see if that fixes it.

You definitely want to stick with matched pairs in that Gigabyte board if you end up buying. If you don't the performance will not be up to par. Personally, I won't have a Gigabyte board - I've had lots of experience with the lower end crap and I think they suck. I've also heard that the higher end stuff isn't so good either. But since I won't buy one to try it, I can't say from experience. But you can ask anybody here - I'm the resident Asus freak - so consider the source.

No matter what board you end up with - stick with Corsair or Crucial RAM. You won't be sorry.

Also - before ordering anything, check out the vendor on http://www.resellerratings.com to make sure they have a decent rating and so you can read some customer reviews. It may save you a lot of grief later.

I'll try to get ahold of Toby and send him here. I'm sure he has something to add.

Good luck!

[No-Alibi]

EvLwMn:
Cool cool cool, exactly the info I needed on the memory set up for one of these newer boards.

As for the Bios,
am261007.zip 1007 2002/04/30 Others A7M266 BIOS 1007
I had put in after the problems, and still have the problems, and that one looks to be the latest for the board in question. Ya, did reinstall before and after, was usen 1006 before.

Oh people lookn for Boot disks, simple like if u got XP or 2000 and such:
http://www.bootdisk.com/
I use the DrDos DrFlash disk, beats tryn to find that corupted 3.5 disk copy of your old emergancy 95se startup disk or that Dos6.11 disk

Found the best price so far for the mobo/XP upgrade(laugh) at
http://www.krex.com/products_detail_pop ... mCode=1935
at 209.00(US) so far, will wait till later in the day, might get more info
CPU at this place seems too high for the top 3.06(retail) and only Samsung Memory available there. So gota find a better place for CPU/Memory.

Axl:
I can't find the MaX2 from MSI anywhere yet. Tho have read several reviews.

The new Asus board with the SiS955 chip(couldnt find on the site at all(USA one) is even rarer than the MSI Max2.

Only thing I am worried about not knowing if the GA-SINXP1394 I get from an Online Vender will have the B0 stepping SiS955 chip or the A0,
I'd really like to have the B0 if im gona fork over 600 odd dollers for a stinkn(laugh) CPU alone to put on a spendy Mainboard(209-310 prices seen)

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No-Alibi

[Foolhardy]

max2 is an abit model

[No-Alibi]

Woopse
The MSI board is the 655 Max

MSI board: 655 Max
MSI

Asus board: P4SDX (AnandTech review only thing found)
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1786

Gigabyte: GA-SINXP1394
http://www.giga-byte.com/products/products.htm

The Asus board looks sweet with B0 Stepping (no question about it), I am not sure if the Gigabyte one will be B0 or A0..sigh..

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No-Alibi

EDIT: Once again I have edited your link to prevent it from resizing the page - EvLwMn

[EvLwMn]

Dudes - I have recently found some new information. It appears that when Motherboards.org reviewed the new Asus P4G8X (Granite Bay) board that the person who set it up and reviewed it either didn't set it up correctly or was incompetent. Therefore they didn't get the performance out of it they should have. Check this thread Motherboards.org - starting with the 4th post. This is an unusual occurance - Motherboards.org is usually totally on top of things. But I guess that everyone makes an occasional mistake here and there.

So rumor has it that they are planning on a new review or at least a total rewrite. So stay tuned.

I think I'll ask Toby if he knows any details about this.

Just FYI

[No-Alibi]

EvLwMn has been messen with my oversized url links!

heh, ok EvLwMn how do I put up nice URL one word(or two) links in phpbb?

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No-Alibi

[Axl]

Only thing I am worried about not knowing if the GA-SINXP1394 I get from an Online Vender will have the B0 stepping SiS955 chip or the A0,
I'd really like to have the B0 if im gona fork over 600 odd dollers for a stinkn(laugh) CPU alone to put on a spendy Mainboard(209-310 prices seen)No-Alibi

I think the SINXP1394 motherboard (spelled Muttikarte in German) uses the SiS655 chip.

[No-Alibi]

955 was a typo, yeah 655 chip it is

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No-Alibi

[EvLwMn]

OK - first of all, the only reason I fix links that resize the page is that Peter doesn't like it - and HE'S the boss here!

Now - I will try this a certain way here so the code shows up.

Type it like this:

Code: Select all

 [url=http://www.kvm-switches-online.com/gcs62.html]kvm switch[/url]

So basically - look along the top of the page when you are writing a post. See the buttons that say things like B i u Quote Code List, etc? Click on the one that says URL and you will get this:

Code: Select all

 [url]

Space over to the left hand side of the close bracket ( ] ) and type an = sign, then paste in your link, go to the right of the close bracket and type your text (in the above example it's "kvm switch" then click the URL button at the top of the page again in order to get the close tag - i.e.

Code: Select all

 [/url]

You can also just type it all in by hand.

I hope I explained it plainly enough. I don't know if you know any coding languages or not and sometimes I just assume that EVERYBODY writes code!!

If it's not clear let me know and I'll try again.

[No-Alibi]

Called a dealer in this mobo, stated that on Monday of next week, a shipment of boards will come in and will check for me if they have the new revision of SiS655 chip with B0 stepping. If it is I think I'll go ahead a buy it.

Now if I go though with this, I'll try out the twin matched pair of Corsiar memory at Cas2, which is LL? Not sure if this is good, but I suppect it has something to do with being more matched.

The board can hold 2 matched pair of DDR ram, I hope I dont need 4 exact same pieces, heh only see matching pairs(2).

Gota find a CPU deal too, might even go for a 2.4 Intel CPU just cause of the price... and wait till Intel has 3.08/9/10/11 (heheh) before I get 3.06 or so.

Sound good? if I do should I tell ya how it all goes? or anyone got better suggestion on board/cpu/ram?

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No-Alibi