My System

 

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Sept. 2002. (see bottom for update)

My main computer consists of the following components:

  • generic 19" mid-tower case with 250w power supply & 2 extra case fans

  • ABit BP6 dual socket 370 motherboard

  • Dual Intel Celeron366 processors overclocked to 505MHz stable

  • Golden Orb processor heatsink/fans

  • 486 style cooling fan on BX chipset heatsink

  • 384mb pc100/133 ram memory

  • Logitech internet keyboard

  • MS Optical Mouse

  • Asus Geforce256 DDR 32mb video card + extra fan

  • ADS Technologies 1394 firewire card with 2 external/1 internal ports

  • NetGear 10/100 NIC

  • Creative Soundblaster Live! Digital

  • GNT 5000 amplified speakers with subwoofer

  • Generic microphone

  • Promise Ultra100 ide controller

  • Quantum 20GB 7200rpm harddrive

  • Western Digital 30GB 5400rpm harddrive

  • IBM 60GB 7200rpm harddrive

  • AOpen 24x10x40 cdrw writer

  • Toshiba 10x DVDrom player

  • Iomega 100mb internal ZIP drive

  • ADI 19" semi-flat monitor with built-in 4 port usb hub

  • QMS Magicolor2 colour laser printer with 96mb ram, 2.1GB harddrive, 10mbit ethernet interface

  • QMS Magicolor2 desklaser, 32mb ram, 10/100 ethernet interface

Add-Ons

  • Logitech Force GP, USB steering wheel

  • Logitech Express Webcam, USB

  • Epson 636U (usb) 600dpi optical heavy duty scanner

  • Visor NEO (pda) hot-sync USB cradle.

Network System

  • Linksys BEFSR-41 cable/dsl firewall router with 4 port 10/100 switch

  • Linksys 10mbit 5 port hub

  • DLink 10/100 autosensing 5 port hub

  • Terayon Cable Modem

Update Dec. 2, 2002.

I'm building a new box at the moment to replace my aging BP6 machine above.

So far I've started with the following components:

  • Antec 1030B SOHO server case. Replaced Antec300w with Enermax EG465P-VE PSU but still not stable. May replace with Antec 550W. Waiting for email reply from Enermax. Search for "MSI K7D freezing" on www.2cpu.com forums.

  • MSI K7D dual Athlon mainboard

  • 2x Athlon XP 2000+ processors with MP mod

  • Cooljag 152 cpu coolers (tried Thermaltake Volcano 9 - they suck! Super loud, inefficient design)

  • standard floppy

  • 3x 80mm case cooling fans

  • Geforce 2MX video card (temporary)

  • Logitech Z-540 4.1 amplified speakers with subwoofer

  • 512mb DDR PC2100 ECC Reg'd ram memory

  • Soundblaster Audigy 5.1 dolby soundcard with IEEE1394 firewire

  • 10/100mb DLink PCI NIC

  • ATI cheapo PCI video card for second monitor (temporary) (DID NOT WORK!)

  • 48x12x48 LiteOn CDRW cdrom

  • WD 80GB JB series 7200rpm ata100 Harddrive

Parts to be carried over from my BP6 box:

  • DVD cdrom

  • IBM 60GB harddrive

  • ADI 19" monitor, plus another for dual head

  • Promise ATA100 controller (not yet installed)

Parts that will be bought in the next few months:

  • MSI Geforce4 Ti4200 dual head video card (next year)

  • Logitech cordless keyboard/mouse

Notes:

The system is not 100% stable with high cpu load, especially two instances of SETI (setidriver.exe) running. I'm still trying to resolve that issue. Many other users on the www.2cpu.com forums are experiencing the same. This is either a motherboard issue or a power supply problem.

There is a power supply problem with revision 1 of the MSI K7D motherboards. Have a look at page 5 of this thread over at www.2cpu.com :

http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?s=b4a80b14cfdbd402d053c9c7ea1bc078&threadid=27258&pagenumber=5

Perhaps the Iwill MPX2 or Asus A7M266-D-L are a better choice if you want to run dual AMD cpu's. I leave the choice up to you.

 

Copyright 2001-2003  Peter Ferlow