August 1999
It looks like perhaps my concerns about the Soyo SY-6VBA 133 and
UDMA 66 could be incorrect. After endless benchmarking and comparison it seems like
the only benchmark result that might indicate failure of full UDMA 66 utilization is HD
Tach. That leads me to believe that HD Tach for whatever reason may not be reporting
the burst read speed of the HDs correctly with the VIA Apollo Pro 133 chipset. I am
still waiting on responses from the makers of HD Tach and VIA since it seems Soyo is not
interested in my concerns. For those of you interested in UDMA 66 and the related
mobos and HDs then you definitely need to check out the article "The
Real Scoop on ATA-66 vs. ATA-33" at Storage Review.com. Dont get sucked into the "hype"
about UDMA 66, it is not all that it's cracked up to be by the hardware manufacturers yet.
The PPGA heatsink shootout article is held up a bit till I get a sample
of the new cut down version of the FDP-32 called the FEP-32. The FEP-32 is supposed
to fit onto the BP6 unlike it's bigger FDP-32 brother.
Motherboard Monitor version 4.10 is now available here. It
includes many fixes and update including support for many of the latest popular mobos.
The TechZone
has whipped out a review
of the Asus P3B-F.
HardOCP has an
article about turning those flat ribbon drive cables into low drag aerodynamic missiles
(sort of) to help facilitate case ventilation. The procedure discussed is relatively
easy to perform and I personally have been practicing it for a long time.
Tom has a great article on OCing the Athlon processor from AMD. Lots of good info
concerning voltages changes and multiplier setups. Bring your soldering iron if your
interested.
On a very serious note here I have a few words to say about drinking and
driving. I like to have a good time as well as anybody and I'm probably guilty of
tipping the bottle a little more then most. The thing is that I'm an adult and thats
my choice but I never put anyone's life in danger because of my "good time".
I dont drink and drive and to do so could result in serious injury or even
death to you or somebody you love not to mention an innocent bystander. I spent
several hours last Saturday night cutting up a car to remove the dead body of a young man
who made some bad choices that resulted in his death and the serious injury of his
passenger. The car was full of beer cans (empty and full) and smelled strongly of
alcohol. Please folks dont make the same mistake, I couldn't stand doing the same to
any of you who I regularly converse with.
|
Please dont drink and drive. |
If the image I caught last Saturday night with my digital
camera was a little too serious for you then I'm sorry but it is my site and I feel it's
an important message. Going to scenes like that is what I do for a living and it
sucks knowing the tragedy could have been so easily avoided.
I finally got an answer back from Quantum concerning the problems I have
been having with trying to get the Fireball Plus KX 20.5 HD running up to full speed with
the Soyo SY-6VBA 133 mobo and the answer was...
"There are no known issues at this
time."
I think thats has to be a standard
"form" answer for all tech support no matter what company they represent.
I should be getting the new ATA/66 IDE cables in a day or two and they are my
last hope unless somebody else has some suggestions.
Speaking of ATA/66 (AKA UDMA, Ultra
DMA...) The TechZone has got a review
up on the Abit BE6. I hope they have better luck with it then I have had with the
Soyo SY-6VBA 133.
For you folks who are interested in
SMP dual Celeron action but are still waiting on another review of the Abit BP6 the ARS Techniqa has delivered.
Its a good in depth review of
the BP6 covering a whole lot of info including different OS environments for you Linux
or BeOS fans.
I had
an interesting experience this last Saturday by participating in my first LAN
party. I've been to a couple before for a short time just to visit but until now I
have never dragged any equipment along to play. P4PLan hosted the party and
although it was not in their usual venue and it was way hot I had a blast.
The party was actually divide up between two different buildings and about 120-130 people
attended. I met some really great folks and some brilliant young computer
enthusiasts who I'll have to hit up for help when I get into building a Linux
box. The gaming action was intense and I seemed to finish about last in every
round of QuakeII, QuakeIII, and HL-CStrike mod that I played. I should have taken
more time to get pictures but I do have one I find very interesting...
|
|
| I see a
possible project for me, cool case huh? |
As you can see
the facility was fully wired. |
| I edited the
LCD monitor with the P4PLan logo. |
|
If you live in the central Florida
area and you like playing games online then you need to check out P4PLan. LAN parties are
held monthly and rumor has it that the next one will be bigger, better, and cooler plus I
think I've rounded up a little sponsor action which could possibly result in a few
give-aways such as a couple of TNT2 cards and maybe even a pre-tested Celeron 366 @
550MHz.
Oh thank goodness! I have not been able to update the site the last
three days apparently because of server problems and I cant get an answer back from
the hosting service either. ; (
Well for those of you who dont already know Hercules (the video card
manufacturer) is now history. It has been rumored that the end was near and it is
now official.
I have been playing around with the Soyo SY-6VBA 133 mobo and Quantum
Fireball Plus KX HD now since this last weekend and so far all I can say is I hate it.
I have had nothing but problems from the start and I cant seem to get any of
it straightened out. I keep getting lockups even at the the official processor
speeds and the most I can get from the UDMA/66 KX HD is 29MB/sec. I have changed
drivers, did several complete OS reloads, and even banged it around a bit. I do have
some new ATA/66 IDE cables arriving soon since I know these drives can be very particular
but I doubt thats the answer to this mess. The only good thing so far I can say is
that I do really like the 1/2 AGP divider for running the TNT2 at 133MHz fsb but thats no
fun since I cant keep the machine from locking up to enjoy any games, ughhh!
I do have all the data and photos collected for the "PPGA heatsink
shootout" article and the ALPHA P3125S review so hopefully over the next few days
I'll get that stuff written up. The review for the SOYO SY-6VBA 133 is gonna be real
short unless I get some of the problems straightened out but I cant even get an answer
from SOYO or Quantum concerning possible issues.
BTW: a lot of my fellow firefighters from different departments around Florida
have traveled to aid the victims and search through the rubble in Turkey which was
recently hit by a devastating earthquake. These firefighters are specially trained
for this type of mission and they are the best in the world equipped with special
listening devices, micro-fiberoptic cameras, and trained search dogs. I wish them
the best of luck and most of all brothers please stay safe.
Last but not least is a recent rumor that some PIII 450's from week 34
come equiped with NEC 3.5ns cache chips. I have not seen them personally and I dont
know if they are OEM, retail, or both but it looks like 650MHz+ just got a lot easier.
Just a side note, OEM PIII 450s are going for less then $170 making
them very attractive.
There is a pile of new hardware sitting in the computer lab that
will get my attention today including a SOYO 6VBA 133 mobo, Quantum Fireball Plus KX 20.5
gig HD, and of course the ALPHA P3125S heatsinks...
|
|
 |
SOYO
SY-6VBA 133 |
Quantum 20.5 Fireball Plus
KX |
ALPHA P3125S |
Notice the special UDMA66 IDE cable
in the center pic? It's the blue one and it has a separate ground for every
conductor wire which you can see the difference as compared to the gray standard IDE
cable. Also of interest is that the ALPHA P3 heatsink has some neat little brackets
included with it that will help support it's mass using the standard processor brackets,
thats a nice new feature that was need with these large heatsinks rather then just relying
on the friction of the slot to hold the assembly in place.
I got the OEM
Viper 770 cooling upgrade article up if you interested in a good value on a great
video card.
Overclockers.com
has a review article up about the new Vantec P3D 5030 cooler and it is definitely worth a
look.
| "Vantec has designed one fine heatsink - not
an Alpha killer by any means, but the next best thing. If you are reluctant to hang one
pound of heatsink on your P3, or just want a really fine P3 heatsink, the Vantec P3D
5030 is tops in my book..." |
If your interested in the Abit BE6 (with UDMA/66) mobo
then check out the detailed review SysOp Solutions has done up for us to enjoy here.
It has been a bit of a long day today. I have been finishing
up collecting data for the "PPGA Heatsink Shootout" article and all I can say
right now is that if your in the market for a heatsink for your socket 7 / PPGA processor
then look no further then the GlobalWIN FDP-32. I should have the article ready
soon.
While testing the PPGA heatsinks I had a chance to really run my new
Celeron 366 (week 25) and look what I got...
|
|
Week
25 PPGA 366 at 605MHz |
Ya thats right, 605MHz at 2.2 volts and 100% stable
even in 3D with the GlobalWIN FDP-32 heatsink and it runs 550MHz at 2.0 volts just fine.
With the excellent price on the PPGA 366 right now and the high OC success at
550MHz+ I'd have to say that it is definitely by far the best bang for the buck right now.
The best part is that with the 5.5x multiplier even the AGP bus is running at spec
so your video card (especially those TNT2 cards) have no worries. If your interested
in a PPGA 366 for yourself then definitely go check out the combo offers at PCNut. The 366 is really hot right
now so if the stock is out I assure you there will be more in soon.
I have also gotten a hold of a couple OEM Viper 770
(non-Ultra) video cards for under $150 (check PriceWatch for vendors). They come with a good sized heatsink
but no fan so of course I had to add one. Surprisingly the 60 second modification
worked really well and with the fan I got em to 175MHz / 240MHz making them a great deal
for a great video card. I'll have some temperature data and a few pics up later
tonight in a brief how-to article.
I spent a little time this morning trying to correct a few broken
links and I appreciate those of you who have responded to me with overwhelmingly positive
comments on the new site.
I would like to take the time to introduce Unlimited Hardware's newest
sponsor Swiftech. If you have
heard about the line of
"MC" coolers then Swiftech
is who has made them possible. I plan on a product review of one of the
"MC" coolers hopefully by the end of the month so please stay tuned.
Perhaps there is hope for my PIIIs to run stable at 650MHz (or more) after
all.
I know I keep shoving Athlon (AMD K7) info down your throats but I cant
help it, this new processor from AMD is so exciting. Here are a few more pictures
for you to ingest...
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|
Click on images to
enlarge |
Want to see the only obvious difference between the Athlon
500MHz and 600MHz versions? Seems like maybe the preliminary info regarding the odd
edge contacts (AKA "Gold Fingers") do indeed have something to do with MHz
settings...
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Athlon 600 front |
Athlon 500 front |
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Athlon 600 back |
Athlon 500 back |
Click on
images to enlarge |
Notice the difference in the R6 (front view) and R121
(back view) resistors between the two processors?
How about a pic of the NEC 3.3 ns cache chips...
|
Athlon NEC 3.3ns L2
cache chip |
For you AMD fans or those of you JPI (just plain interested) I got
some pics from one of my Japanese buddies (thanks Kendon) showing a little more detail of
the Athlon (K7) processor...
What the heck is with the contacts at the
top-right of the PCB? If you got any ideas let me know, rumor has it that they have
something to do with bus speed and/or multiplier changes with a special device (thanks
Steve). It looks like AMD went through the trouble of engineering some contact with
the cache chips to the cooling plate (hint hint Intel).
The new site is now public and I
hope you all enjoy it.
If your into the
PIII action and you have been waiting for ALPHA to come around with the new P3125 heatsink
then wait no more cause PLYCON
Computers has em in stock ready to ship. Mine are on the way direct
from ALPHA (dont you think they owe em to me?) and I've got the tracking number which I
think I've checked on 5 times today. Folks listen to this, the ALPHA line of
heatsinks are not miracle cures. These heatsinks will not get your
Celeron 466 running stable on an fsb of 100MHz but I will say that if you want the best
available conventional cooling for your processor then there is nothing more effective
then the ALPHA line of heatsinks. ALPHA has set the standard that all the rest
are compared to, they are the best!
I just got finished
talking to a guy thats been kicking my ass in Counter Strike
lately and he pointed me to a pic of his cooling setup so check this out...
Anyway, he is a really nice guy and I hope to
meet him and his other clan buddies at a LAN party this weekend. Check this site out
if your into that sort of thing... http://www.lanparty.com/p4plan/
SysOp Solutions has a
review up on the new TennMax Detonator TNT2 cooler so check that out if a little
TNT2 action stirs your pot.
There has been a lot of talk lately about
the Athlon processor from AMD and you can get a few more details at CPU Review...
"You can now read my Athlon 600 Review
which has benchmark data from Quake 2, 3DMarks 99Max, RCS5-64, POV-Ray, Incoming, Turok,
Forsaken, Final Reality, Wintach... need I say more?OK, I will: ITS THE FASTEST X86 I'VE
USED!"
|
Looks like Kyle
over at HardOCP has turned out yet
another review with his "street smart" style and Im sure he will succeed in
offending you at least once through the review
of the BE6 for you Abit fans.
| "Well, as usual, the HardOCP
elects to stick our finger right
in the middle of the sore spot. There has been some bad press floating around
the Net and the newsgroups about the ABIT BE6 mainboard. We are certainly not going to sit here
and act like nothing happened when something surely did. ABIT's initial release of
this board had a group that left with flaws. ABIT reported 200
"defective" (that is my word) boards among the peeps. I think that
while ABIT is taking care of business, the estimate was a little conservative. The
group of mainboards in question had some problems with the retaining voltage settings and
some simply being able to set the voltage to the desired setting at all. ABIT has
come back and made good with anyone that had a problem and I think most of this is water
under the bridge. At least ABIT and their distributors did not try to run and hide
from the problem. Now that the problem is handled, let's take a look at the board
and it's stability...." |
I mentioned
something about a laser temperature device I have a while back. Well its a laser
pointer type device that gives the surface temperature of an object from up to several
feet away and is accurate within 2% of the reading. It's kinda handy for probing
temps of components hidden deep beneath cables and between cards.
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|
|
Laser
temp probe and targets. |
Thanks to PLYCON Computers I got a hold of
the "in-demand" GlobalWIN FDP-32 and I hope to be testing it shortly. It
looks pretty substantial with a 60mm x 25mm fan and good quality machine work.
I made it to the computer show
today and man did I get to meet some people. Seems like a lot of fellow overclockers
were on the watch for me in my gray Tampa Fire Rescue t-shirt. For all those who
took the time to introduce yourselves to me I thank you. Its kinda nice to be able
to put some faces with all that email I get. Not a lot of deals at the show which
seems typical though I did pick up a Viper 770 Ultra TNT2 card for $169. Now thats a
deal! Celeron 366 PPGAs were goin for around $85 which seemed a bit steep for me
though I found a whole batch of week 27s that I led some folks to. Some of them have
already emailed me tonight and they are cruising along at 550MHz+.
I may have been a bit early with my
prediction of PIII 450s for < $200 but I bet by tomorrow somebody will have em listed
on PriceWatch for that much or even less. I got a lot of
questions at the show about my PIII 450 doing 650MHz on the 6BA+III and a BETA BIOS.
No it is not stable at 650MHz, it was just enough to get the screen
shots and it looks like 623MHz is the fastest I can run it without crashing it if I try
really hard. It is definitely the L2 which is the weak point cause the
dang thing will run all day at 650MHz with the L2 disabled though 675MHz would only POST
then hang. Unfortunately I have had to go back to the Viper 550 since
the TNT2 doesn't have a chance at these high fsb settings without underclocking it a lot.
Looks like I might be in the market for the new SOYO 6VBA133 with the VIA chipset,
UDMA/66 and AGP divider of 1/2.
An interesting
observation concerning the SY-6BA+III BETA BIOS, It seems that setting it to
anything slower then the default will disable the L2 completely. Fortunately the
default is "8" instead of the "3" as in the current release version of
the BIOS.
OK, there are a few things
in life that just leave you shaking and either it's good or you just came close to losing
your life. Well having experienced both I can tell you that right now my hands are
shaking because of something good, very good. I admit I have been really down on
the SOYO SY-6BA+III because of the missing L2 latency adjustment feature and the fact that
my PIII 450s run an L2 latency of "3" on the board. 607MHz was the max I
could get stable when I have been running 621MHz on the Abit BX6-2. Well apparently
mine (and other's) requests are in the process of being attended to. I got a BETA
BIOS for the 6BA+III a couple days ago and I finally got a chance to give it a go tonight
so check this out...
Now you know why I'm shaking! No
its not 100% stable at 650MHz but I am able to take the screen shots and get em ready for
upload with no problems at that speed. It seems like 3D games are not possible
though but I have not had a chance to try the games at lower fsb settings. I'm
running it at 2.2 volts with a Viper 550 video card and Mushkin (Samsung) G8 ram along
with a modified ALPHA P125 heatsink. Lets hope SOYO is gonna release this BIOS
without a lot of changes. Right now I gotta say that I consider the SOYO
SY-6BA+III the first choice now in OC mobos at least when/if the official BIOS hits us.
Alrighty kids, its late
(or early) but this is hot off the wire. Looks like ALPHA's PIII heatsink called the
P3125S will finally ship. I still dont know the cost but I'm sure it's gonna be a
little more expensive then the standard P125 since the P3 version seems to have a copper
heat transfer plate of some type. It looks like the bottom row of fins have been
shortened about 9mm to perhaps allow the P3125S to fit more mobos without blocking the
first DIMM slot such as
on the SOYO 6BA+III with a P125. I have been told that it will not
contact the L2 cache (though there are vent holes) which has proven to be difficult to
implement since a lot of variance seems to exist between processors in the height of the
cache ships during manufacturing. I'm sure it doesn't help that Intel also uses
different manufacturers for the cache chips. Get the specs on the new P3125S here.
For those of you interested in getting
one of the new P3125S heatsinks PLYCON
Computers will have them in stock shortly but if your interested in the other
ALPHA PII/Celeron heatsinks then they are all stocked up now. PLYCON also has the
new GlobalWIN FDP-32 in stock and ready to ship, this bad-boy looks like it could be the
new PPGA cooling champ so give PLYCON a call cause I know they are gonna go fast.
I just got word that if
all goes well I'll have the new GlobalWIN heatsink in hand soon and even the new ALPHA
PIII product but just to keep the UPS man busy I might even have something new from COFANUSA.
Perhaps ALPHA decided that since it's market has gotten pretty important here in the US
that they would be sure we had something that would be worth the wait. I dont know
whats been going on with the heatsink drama lately since it seems like some of the
manufacturers are having a harder time getting em to the market then Microsoft has with
the newest releases of their software.
For anybody who lives in
the central Florida area there is a computer show this weekend at the Florida State Fair
grounds. I am gonna try and be there Sunday so if you see my goofy ass walking
around with a gray t-shirt that says "Tampa Fire Rescue" on the back come up and
introduce yourself. I'm keeping the tech talk short at the show so dont be afraid to
say "hi".
It's no secret but for
those that dont know SOYO has a BETA BIOS floating around for the 6BA+III. Dont
email me for it please since officially it does not exist and I officially dont have it.
I have a little work to do today then later I'm gonna give it a run around the
block and see what we got then I'm goin out with da boys tonight and slug down a couple of
beers. I've been working way too hard lately and now its time for me to have a
little fun.
SOYO finally released a
new BIOS for the 6BA+III but unfortunately it looks like there is still no L2 latency
adjustment feature. Thats the one missing feature of the 6BA+III thats keeping it
from being a great OC mobo IMHO and the only obvious new addition is PIII 600
support. It is version 2AA2 and you can get it here.
I have been working a
little on the new site when time allows and hopefully I'll have the new URL up in a few
days for you. Not a lot of changes just a little easier to navigate, a little faster
loading and hopefully more compatibility between different browsers. I'm no HTML
expert so it is mostly text with no fancy Java applets and other such "flash".
