Superpuppy 2

Discussion relating to Socket 7 hardware.
Jim
K6'er Elite
Posts: 1745
Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2004 7:10 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by Jim »

Yeah, but as I understand it, the ASUS P5A Rev 106, (and presumably the ASUS P5A-B Rev 106), had working internal tagram, but also had the external tagram too. Hoping the Rev 105 is the same in that regard.
Superpuppy 3
K6-3+ 450 ACZ (6x100)
DFI K6BV3+/66 Rev B2 (2 Meg) w/ 2x28mm Chipset Fans
2x256 Meg PC 133 Hynix SDRAM
1x 20G Maxtor (7200)
2x 80G Maxtor (7200) Ducted w/ 2x486 Fans Mount
52/24/52/16 LG CDR/RW/DVD
8/4/3/12/24/16/32 LG Super Multi
ATI 9000 aiw Radeon AGP
SB Audigy 1 MP3 Sound
CMD 649 IDE Controller
NEC USB 2 Card
User avatar
Uranium235
Senior K6'er
Posts: 183
Joined: Mon Sep 12, 2005 9:59 pm

Post by Uranium235 »

My P5A Rev 1.06 has no external TagRam on it so it must use the internal TagRam. All you see is the solderpoints on the board where it was mounted to. It would make sense to me that if the motherboard was going to make use of the internal TagRam then there would be no need for the external TagRam. I can't say this holds true for every ALi V board ever made but it's something to look for.
Jim
K6'er Elite
Posts: 1745
Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2004 7:10 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by Jim »

You are right of course. I have never had a 106 so I have no direct knowledge of the subject. I had gathered they had both from reading some posts here. Question is if they had both, could they use both simultaneously to effect a gain in cache performance?
Superpuppy 3
K6-3+ 450 ACZ (6x100)
DFI K6BV3+/66 Rev B2 (2 Meg) w/ 2x28mm Chipset Fans
2x256 Meg PC 133 Hynix SDRAM
1x 20G Maxtor (7200)
2x 80G Maxtor (7200) Ducted w/ 2x486 Fans Mount
52/24/52/16 LG CDR/RW/DVD
8/4/3/12/24/16/32 LG Super Multi
ATI 9000 aiw Radeon AGP
SB Audigy 1 MP3 Sound
CMD 649 IDE Controller
NEC USB 2 Card
Jim
K6'er Elite
Posts: 1745
Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2004 7:10 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by Jim »

SP2's 8500LE arrived tonight. That is the last item I need there for the time being. So as soon as I get around to it, will start work on SP2. (When SP3 is finished). SP5 will then be getting scrapped, w/ the board going into reserve for SP3; the Hot swap rack being repaired, (if possible), then maybe serving as a common external drive used by all 3 machines, the lower HDD cooler, (similar to the one I used is SP3, except instead of being gold coloured its blue), going into SP2, the defective, (but working), K6-3+ 450 ACZ being given away to whoever wants it, the 300 watt AT server power supply going into SP2, and the various other parts going into reserve.
Superpuppy 3
K6-3+ 450 ACZ (6x100)
DFI K6BV3+/66 Rev B2 (2 Meg) w/ 2x28mm Chipset Fans
2x256 Meg PC 133 Hynix SDRAM
1x 20G Maxtor (7200)
2x 80G Maxtor (7200) Ducted w/ 2x486 Fans Mount
52/24/52/16 LG CDR/RW/DVD
8/4/3/12/24/16/32 LG Super Multi
ATI 9000 aiw Radeon AGP
SB Audigy 1 MP3 Sound
CMD 649 IDE Controller
NEC USB 2 Card
Jim
K6'er Elite
Posts: 1745
Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2004 7:10 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by Jim »

SP2 is now back up running in the case that I modded for SP4. Thanks, (many thanks), to Kalabok, it now features a K6-3+ 500ANZ on the ASUS P5A-B Rev 104, with 768 Meg of Hynix PC133 CL2 SDRAM. For the time being it still has the old Radeon 32Meg AIW card, 2x 40Gig WD 7200s in an internal ducted fan setup & 1x 80 Gig WD 7200 in a Vantec Easy Swap tray. Other features include switchable master slave relationships, an Enermax fan controller, (with a measly 2x thermal monitors), an LG DVD ROM drive, (16/52/32/52), a Mitsumi floppy with built in card readers and a switch controlled independent auxilliary power supply, (custom made for SP4's switching setup, - but now being used to power a D Link Hub, - which came with a power supply that coudn't be switched off, only unplugged!)

Needless to say I am having my usual mess of problems getting it all working. So far I have not been able to get one of the 2 card readers in the Mitsumi working, and also my webcam isn't working either.

EDIT : The statement above about not being able to get ONE of the Mitsumi's two card readers working is inaccurate. I gatherd that ONE was not working from "Device Manages" which reported that "a", (single), USB device needed its driver reloaded. In fact neither of the two are working, since neither show up on the list of "Drives" in "My Computer" had forgotten that they appear there. Have also remembered the "Fix", see my third post following.

Photos to follow when the webcam works.
Last edited by Jim on Tue Apr 29, 2008 7:58 am, edited 2 times in total.
Superpuppy 3
K6-3+ 450 ACZ (6x100)
DFI K6BV3+/66 Rev B2 (2 Meg) w/ 2x28mm Chipset Fans
2x256 Meg PC 133 Hynix SDRAM
1x 20G Maxtor (7200)
2x 80G Maxtor (7200) Ducted w/ 2x486 Fans Mount
52/24/52/16 LG CDR/RW/DVD
8/4/3/12/24/16/32 LG Super Multi
ATI 9000 aiw Radeon AGP
SB Audigy 1 MP3 Sound
CMD 649 IDE Controller
NEC USB 2 Card
Jim
K6'er Elite
Posts: 1745
Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2004 7:10 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by Jim »

This thing is not very stable. Not sure what is causing the problem. Either the "Tweak UI" that comes with "The Unofficial Service Pack", or the CAS Latency setting of "2" in the Bios instead of the "3" that you get with "By Spd". The RAM is CL2 so I am going to try reinstalling everything without "Tweak UI".. Fun Fun Fun.
Superpuppy 3
K6-3+ 450 ACZ (6x100)
DFI K6BV3+/66 Rev B2 (2 Meg) w/ 2x28mm Chipset Fans
2x256 Meg PC 133 Hynix SDRAM
1x 20G Maxtor (7200)
2x 80G Maxtor (7200) Ducted w/ 2x486 Fans Mount
52/24/52/16 LG CDR/RW/DVD
8/4/3/12/24/16/32 LG Super Multi
ATI 9000 aiw Radeon AGP
SB Audigy 1 MP3 Sound
CMD 649 IDE Controller
NEC USB 2 Card
DonPedro
K6'er Elite
Posts: 578
Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2005 2:11 pm

Post by DonPedro »

in what terms not stable? does a certain programm crash? you use win98, right?
Jim
K6'er Elite
Posts: 1745
Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2004 7:10 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by Jim »

Yeah, getting freezes fairly frequently. Sometimes I have a fair bit happening at the time, but not always. It is really far less stable than the DFI, which allows me to have as many as 30 internet windows open at once.
Superpuppy 3
K6-3+ 450 ACZ (6x100)
DFI K6BV3+/66 Rev B2 (2 Meg) w/ 2x28mm Chipset Fans
2x256 Meg PC 133 Hynix SDRAM
1x 20G Maxtor (7200)
2x 80G Maxtor (7200) Ducted w/ 2x486 Fans Mount
52/24/52/16 LG CDR/RW/DVD
8/4/3/12/24/16/32 LG Super Multi
ATI 9000 aiw Radeon AGP
SB Audigy 1 MP3 Sound
CMD 649 IDE Controller
NEC USB 2 Card
Jim
K6'er Elite
Posts: 1745
Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2004 7:10 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by Jim »

K, the freezing problem seems to have been resolved by setting the bios RAM timing setting back to "By Spd" which gives 3/2/2/ (And presumably 133Mhz) RAM timings; as oposed to "7ns", which gives 2/2/2 (143Mhz) RAM timings; or "8ns", which gives 3/3/3 (124Mhz) RAM timings.

Careless of me to not notice the "143Mhz" bit, though going back through the thread, I find I was able to get away with the "7ns" setting on the previous board with all the chip coolers installed which this one has not yet got. Reason for that being it is quite a bit of labour to do; and I have 4 P5A-Bs to choose from, so before I mod one, I want to make sure it is a GOOD board that is getting the mods. i.e. Can handle 112 Mhz and possibly 115 w/ the 5.5 multiplier.

I also think I know how to get the Mitsumi's card readers working. Though I don't have any instructions on the thing, I seem to recall that you have to load the drivers BEFORE you install the hardware, which I did not do.

That will leave the webcam issue still to be solved, though once the "Mitsumi" is straightened out that might resolve itself, as they are both USB devices.

The HDDs in this one are running beautifully, haven't gone over 31 degrees C at the most so far. And it is also what I consider to be a really good looking machine, which is the main reason I stuck with ATs as long as I have. Early ATXs were so UGLY in comparison to my mind. Photos to follow when possible.
Superpuppy 3
K6-3+ 450 ACZ (6x100)
DFI K6BV3+/66 Rev B2 (2 Meg) w/ 2x28mm Chipset Fans
2x256 Meg PC 133 Hynix SDRAM
1x 20G Maxtor (7200)
2x 80G Maxtor (7200) Ducted w/ 2x486 Fans Mount
52/24/52/16 LG CDR/RW/DVD
8/4/3/12/24/16/32 LG Super Multi
ATI 9000 aiw Radeon AGP
SB Audigy 1 MP3 Sound
CMD 649 IDE Controller
NEC USB 2 Card
Jim
K6'er Elite
Posts: 1745
Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2004 7:10 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by Jim »

Something else I have done for the first time, is take a chance and ignore the warning in WP Credit that says : "Vender ID / Device ID differs !! Does it continue?" and loaded the PCR file for the ALi hostbridge anyway. Haven't tried tweaking it yet; but it seems to be a remarkably tweakable board. One thing I noticed was that it appears that you can set it up to recognize HIGH DENSITY SDRAM with 256MBit chips !! Lots of other interesting possibilities in there too. Pity it is limited by the ATA33 factor.
Superpuppy 3
K6-3+ 450 ACZ (6x100)
DFI K6BV3+/66 Rev B2 (2 Meg) w/ 2x28mm Chipset Fans
2x256 Meg PC 133 Hynix SDRAM
1x 20G Maxtor (7200)
2x 80G Maxtor (7200) Ducted w/ 2x486 Fans Mount
52/24/52/16 LG CDR/RW/DVD
8/4/3/12/24/16/32 LG Super Multi
ATI 9000 aiw Radeon AGP
SB Audigy 1 MP3 Sound
CMD 649 IDE Controller
NEC USB 2 Card
DonPedro
K6'er Elite
Posts: 578
Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2005 2:11 pm

Post by DonPedro »

mmh, very strange to me that you have stability programms an a p5a-board because of a cas-latency of 2. I would try a) to rearrange the order of placement of the sticks or b) try to find which ram-stick is giving head-ache.

I am also wondering why you get a warning message from wpcredit because of a mismatch of device/vendor id!? there is either a textual error in the underlying wpcredit file used in that respect or something more sinister is going on.

what must match within wpcredit is marked yellow in the attached picture. please take note that in the data-part of wpcredit the low byte and hi-byte are displayed in reversed order.
Attachments
ali-5 hostbridge wpcredit.png
ali-5 hostbridge wpcredit.png (14.96 KiB) Viewed 11306 times
Jim
K6'er Elite
Posts: 1745
Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2004 7:10 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by Jim »

@ Peter : 1) Not sure about the RAM timing bit. Could be this board bought used is in less than perfect shape. Have 1 other Rev 104 I can try.

2) I have always gotten that message from WP Credit on P5A-Bs (2 0r 3 of them). And that is the reason I have never tweaked a P5A-B with WP Credit. I am not sure if it is because of the confusion surrounding the ALi vs ULi chipset, or because there is some unknown difference between a P5A-B and a P5A which seems to be what everyone else uses. The data shown in the relevant areas that you have highlighted is identical, both before and after loading the PCR file. The same is true of the machine code in the Bin line and also identical to what you have posted. Makes me suspect there is some unknown difference between a P5A and a P5A-B.
Superpuppy 3
K6-3+ 450 ACZ (6x100)
DFI K6BV3+/66 Rev B2 (2 Meg) w/ 2x28mm Chipset Fans
2x256 Meg PC 133 Hynix SDRAM
1x 20G Maxtor (7200)
2x 80G Maxtor (7200) Ducted w/ 2x486 Fans Mount
52/24/52/16 LG CDR/RW/DVD
8/4/3/12/24/16/32 LG Super Multi
ATI 9000 aiw Radeon AGP
SB Audigy 1 MP3 Sound
CMD 649 IDE Controller
NEC USB 2 Card
Jim
K6'er Elite
Posts: 1745
Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2004 7:10 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by Jim »

Well, things get weirder and weirder. With the first board I tried, I was initially getting Everest Memory Read results in the 332 range without any great effort to tweak it. But at some point in proceedings those results fell down to the sub 200 level and even a fair bit of tweaking only brought it back up to 218. Thinking the board was NFG I installed the other P5A-B Rev 104 that I have, yet the results remained identical, - 218. Darned if I know what is causing it. Have done a complete registry cleanup with Registry First Aid, run scandisk, defragged all drives, deleted cookies to get rid of adware, tried to run my AV, but that only goes so far then it freezes. Probably going to have to format C: and start over. SIGH!!!
Superpuppy 3
K6-3+ 450 ACZ (6x100)
DFI K6BV3+/66 Rev B2 (2 Meg) w/ 2x28mm Chipset Fans
2x256 Meg PC 133 Hynix SDRAM
1x 20G Maxtor (7200)
2x 80G Maxtor (7200) Ducted w/ 2x486 Fans Mount
52/24/52/16 LG CDR/RW/DVD
8/4/3/12/24/16/32 LG Super Multi
ATI 9000 aiw Radeon AGP
SB Audigy 1 MP3 Sound
CMD 649 IDE Controller
NEC USB 2 Card
Jim
K6'er Elite
Posts: 1745
Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2004 7:10 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by Jim »

Been there done that. Back up a little over 300 now. Was also having problems posting. Sometimes would, sometimes wouldn't. Might have solved that now. (IDE Power Plug not fully seated). Not sure. Hasn't happened recently. More to follow.

EDIT : Well this thing has been a minor nightmare. Have NOT been able to get the WebCam driver to install at all; Have had problems with the video drivers, - had to do another complete reinstall because for some reason ALL of the ATI aiw drivers stopped working except for the adapter card driver, which itself chooses conflicting resources with the standard VGA driver. Have had problems in past with ATI cards doing that on a P5A-B, and was able to solve them with the help of MS support; but that is no longer available for 98 people. I am going to keep plugging away at it for a while, because this machine needs the least work of any I have to get running. It is fully built with all mods except chip coolers done.

SP3 needs a complete rebuild, removing the temp monitoring stuff, the display showing which temp was being monitored, the various custom made hardware supporting all that, and switching the mobo back to the 1Meg cache DFI which for some reason is considerably more stable.

SPZ 1 & 2 need extensive and difficult case mods on account of the extraordinarily stupid processor location on the FIC KA 6100 and Gigabyte GA6VA7+ type boards. Problem is to create an HDD mounting location with ducted cooling when the processor is sitting right in the middle of, (and obstructing both of), the two normal alternate locations.

Similarly my new ATX machine has the same type of problem. I bought the case because I liked the looks; but the HDD cooling provisions are effectively nonexistant and certainly utterly inadequate. Problem here is 1) Create a custom made mount for two HDDs. 2)Create a ducted fan setup so the HDDs in said mount will run cool. 3) Given that there is only one possible place to install said mount, (front bottom); and given that one doesn't want warm air being blown into the case by the HDD cooler; and nor does one want warm air being blown out of the case right next to the intake for the front chassis fan, this means I will have to create a ducted fan setup that : a)draws air from inside the case near the middle of the bottom, b) blows it forward through a duct accross the (clipin) HDDs, then c) goes through two 90 degree turns to route the warmed air to and out of the back of the case. Lots of work there. Gonna be nice though. Super Redundant. Primary master in SATA hot swap tray. Identical second drive available if necessary to replace Primary Master. Two internal SATA storage drives, (with backups included there). Another hotswap tray for IDE drives for importing data from other machines. One Sata DVD R/W Multi drive, and one IDE DVD R/W Multi drive. 4 Gig of 800Mhz Ram (of some sort), Intel, (they finally wised up), 2.4 Gig quad core. Ought to do me for as long as I live.
Superpuppy 3
K6-3+ 450 ACZ (6x100)
DFI K6BV3+/66 Rev B2 (2 Meg) w/ 2x28mm Chipset Fans
2x256 Meg PC 133 Hynix SDRAM
1x 20G Maxtor (7200)
2x 80G Maxtor (7200) Ducted w/ 2x486 Fans Mount
52/24/52/16 LG CDR/RW/DVD
8/4/3/12/24/16/32 LG Super Multi
ATI 9000 aiw Radeon AGP
SB Audigy 1 MP3 Sound
CMD 649 IDE Controller
NEC USB 2 Card
Jim
K6'er Elite
Posts: 1745
Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2004 7:10 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by Jim »

Superpuppy-2 is still causing me problems. There seem to be two distinct issues. One is that when booted cold, i.e. when the machine hasn't run for a few hours, it takes three and occasionally 4 boots for it to get through post and the other startup routines and boot into windows. Once booted, it will reboot, by way of either restart or shutdown with no problem as often as you like. Not sure what is causing this, and have not experimented with it much yet, because I classify it mainly as a nuisance.

The other problem is the one I have been working on. This problem is that at some point in the install software and registry cleanup sequence the memory read speed drops from 306 to 204. Memory write also takes a big hit, though I don't recall exactly how much. Restoring from backup of either registry or Windopes does not resolve this problem, unless I wipe the "C" drive , reinstall Windopes, THEN restore from backup to reinstall my software. THAT does solve the problem, which means, it is not being caused by something being missing, but rather by the presence of something that it takes a wipe to get rid of. The machine has a LOT of software installed, and Moronpoop, Corel, and the "Unofficial Service Pack" along with various others generate some 602 registry errors which have to be corrected. This makes it difficult to isolate what is causing this problem. One would have to run everest after each and every software install, then having done that, run Registry First Aid many times, correcting just a few errors at a time, then rebooting and running Everest, to see if the problem has resurfaced. I suspect It is a Moronpoop issue as there are about twenty odd "inf" files that Windopes has put in places other than where the registry records them as being. I think one of them is not supposed to be used, and once properly located is causing the problem. Fun, Fun, Fun.
Superpuppy 3
K6-3+ 450 ACZ (6x100)
DFI K6BV3+/66 Rev B2 (2 Meg) w/ 2x28mm Chipset Fans
2x256 Meg PC 133 Hynix SDRAM
1x 20G Maxtor (7200)
2x 80G Maxtor (7200) Ducted w/ 2x486 Fans Mount
52/24/52/16 LG CDR/RW/DVD
8/4/3/12/24/16/32 LG Super Multi
ATI 9000 aiw Radeon AGP
SB Audigy 1 MP3 Sound
CMD 649 IDE Controller
NEC USB 2 Card
Post Reply