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Linux-Gnostic
05-08-2001, 06:04 AM
Here is a quick survey for those who use and AMD Athlon CPU.

Q1- Which Athlon CPU do you use? (Include speed...)
Q2- Which Board is the above CPU mounted on? (please include full name and thechnical specifications, if you can)
Q3- Which Linux Distro do you use?
Q4- Please comment on performance, ease of installation, upgradability (i.e. possibility to add new hardware), compatibility with future MB trends...

I introduced myself here: http://www.linuxnewbie.org/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=018331

I wish to build a box for Linux to serve as a home/internet server, i.e. connect my old box to it and use it as a server for my homepage on the internet (not expecting many hits...).

I have been advised to use a AMD Athlon CPU.
I found out that the AMD K7-1G(133) CPU sells here (Taiwan, Republic of China) for NT$5000 (i.e. 181Euro or US$164). Is it the same as Athlon T-bird 1.0GHz/266 ??? (selling for US$135 here:http://www.sharkyextreme.com./hardware/weekly_cpu/)


I have started to look for a main board to stick the CPU on. I have spent dozens of hours reading what I could (including HOWTO) on the topic. Now I am really getting confused. Some documents say that any mb is good (except the cheapest) but others argue that the mb is the core of the computer and should be choosen carefully, paying attention that there is no shadow RAM, choosing one with a good BIO chip, with enough ports for future developement and running at a speed as least equal to that of the CPU....

To complicate things further, the boards I saw on the front stores here (I went to town, to a street where there are only computer hardware dealers...) are not the same as the ones I read about on the web. The AMD web site didn't help much: http://www1.amd.com/athlon/mbl and doesn't mention Linux compatibility (the HOWTOs lack details on the topic or they are out of date).

A vendor made a strong case for me to puchase a Soltek SL-75KAV(133) board which supposedely has good benchmark results. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find much information on the web about Soltek mb. The Link: http://www.soltek.com.tw/English/products/77kv.htm is broken and the companie's web site: www.soltek.com.tw (http://www.soltek.com.tw) requires a plug that I don't have and that I can't install because my current, very old box's HD is full (it went down to 0MG last week and crashed and I had to erase many documents and reinstall Win98... That's the reason why I was thinking it's about time for me to get the linux box I've been dreaming about for such a long time...). All I get is a black screen... (I have been thinking for a long while that it is really stupid for commercial companies to create "cool" sites but shutting off potential or existing customers in the process!!!) I'd be grateful if anyone could get in for me and pull out relevant technical data and forward them to me as txt or html...
So far the only thing I know is that a guy named Hungarian, a member of this community, has succesfully installed Linux on a machine that included a soltek mb.

I have a similar problem with the AMD web site where the most interesting documentation is in Pdf format, which I cannot use (can't install Acrobat Reader on my crowded HD). I am particularly interested in the following ones: http://www.amd.com/products/cpg/athlon/pdf/cooling_guide.pdf, http://www.amd.com/products/cpg/athlon/pdf/quick_ref_faq.pdf , http://www.amd.com/products/cpg/athlon/pdf/athlon-duron_checklist3.pdf , as well as all of the documents available here: http://www1.amd.com/athlon/config , if someone could forward it to me as txt, I'd be grateful.

Meanwhile, if you use or know about Soltek mb, any info would be helpful.

Your replies to the above survey will help a lot too.

Thanks to all for all you help.

jgrimard
05-08-2001, 08:09 AM
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Linux-Gnostic:
[qb]Here is a quick survey for those who use and AMD Athlon CPU.

Q1- Which Athlon CPU do you use? (Include speed...)
1000 mhz socketa processor 100 bus
Q2- Which Board is the above CPU mounted on?
Epox eb-8kta3
(please include full name and thechnical specifications, if you can)
Q3- Which Linux Distro do you use?
SUSE 7.1
Q4- Please comment on performance, ease of installation, upgradability (i.e. possibility to add new hardware), compatibility with future MB trends...

Its fast and nice. Only problem required a bios update. Took all my hardware without conflicts. I have occupied every slot on the back of my computer.

[ 08 May 2001: Message edited by: jgrimard ]

Molecule Man
05-08-2001, 12:13 PM
My brother-in-law has an Abit KT7 with Athlon 900.


The 133, 266 and Athlon C are all the same chip. The front side bus is 133 but is ddr so is effectively 266.
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1448
A review of various socket a chipsets.

ph34r
05-08-2001, 12:36 PM
www.motherboards.org (http://www.motherboards.org) has lots of good info on motherboards as well.

mongrel
05-08-2001, 01:03 PM
I use an Athlon 800 on a Shuttle AI61 MB which I believe is manufactured in Taiwan.

I use SuSE and installation was smooth. Previously I was using a dual Celeron MB which contained two CPUs running at 550. My Athlon board performs better than the dual board did although I've not experienced a crash in Linux w/ either board. Kernel compiles take about 15minutes on the AMD board.

JALU
05-08-2001, 01:23 PM
I use an Athlon 850 on an Iwill Ka266 mainboard. I ordered it as a kit so I didn't put it together, but it looks pretty simple. I am very happy with the performance.

pbharris
05-08-2001, 02:02 PM
1. 800 MHz tbird with a 133 MHz FSB
2. Asus A7V
3. Debian and RedHat
4. Redhat 6.2 had and issue with the Athalon CPU not having an ID (like the PIII), but passing an option LILO fixed this. Other than that both Debian and have worked very well.

TCaptain70
05-08-2001, 04:45 PM
I'm using an Athlon T-Bird 1Mhz with the Asus A7V mobo...had some difficulties getting it just right and I'm still working out the kinks with MDK 7.1.

vvx
05-08-2001, 05:19 PM
Originally posted by TCaptain70:
<STRONG>I'm using an Athlon T-Bird 1Mhz with the Asus A7V mobo...had some difficulties getting it just right and I'm still working out the kinks with MDK 7.1.</STRONG>

1mhz! :eek: I think you have the slowest chip I've ever heard of in modern days! (hehe..)

Anyway, I have a 900mhz tbird on an a7v myself. No problems with anything, my only complaint is that these suckers get HOT!

ASCI Blue
05-08-2001, 05:30 PM
AMD T-bird 700 @ 700 (5.5x133)
Epox 8KTA3 (KT-133A chipset)
Used Mandrake 7.2/8.0 going to Progeny
Upgradable enough for me, 4 DIMMS, 6 PCI, 1 ISA, 1 AGP with lock. Can support to 1.33 gig T-bird.

r0nster
05-08-2001, 06:11 PM
My response is quite detailed. Here goes :)
Athlon 1Ghz
Abit KT7 motherboard: 6PCI slots 1 ISA slot (shared with PCI slot #6), 1 AGP, UDMA 66/33
KT133 chipset, 686a southbridge...
moving on...
distro currently in use: Slackware 7.1 running 2.4.x kernels, XFree86 4.0.3
Herc 3D Prophet II GTS Pro 64 mb video card using Nvidia drivers (2d & 3d)
256 MB Crucial PC133 SDRAM
Linksys LNE100TX ver. 2 ethernet card
SB Live! value OEM card
Windoze hard disk: Western Digital 20.5 GB 7200 rpm UDMA 66
Linux hard disk: Western Digital 13.6 GB 5400 rpm UDMA 66
Performance: A+
Stability: B+ (explanation below...)
Ease of installation of Slack: I had an Abit KA7 which died and it handled the installation with no problems; this board should handle an installation OK.
I have 3 devices on IRQ 11, No problems :)
Sound (emu10k1), USB, and Linksys LNE100TX ver. 2 card (tulip).
As far as reliability and stability goes, its alright except on occasion, I get those dma error messages like
hdb: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdb: dma_intr: error=0x84 { DriveStatusError BadCRC }
I got those like crazy with kernel 2.4.2 but the errors seem to occur less frequently with later versions, especially with kernel 2.4.4
Anybody else get those funky errors?
I've had a couple of hard lockups with KDE 2.1.1. I make do just by using a WM
:cool: Enlightenment :cool:
Aside from the occasional dma bug, my system performs extremely well and compiles a kernel in about 2 minutes on average.

I frequent a site known as and it seems that Abit boards have a high RMA return rate vs. other boards.
AMDzone (http://www.amdzone.com)
The people who talk in the forums there swear by Iwill.
Check out Iwill's products, especially the KK266 and KA266 models. More than likely, my next board will be an Iwill and not Abit.

vvx
05-08-2001, 06:18 PM
Originally posted by r0nster:
<STRONG>My response is quite detailed. Here goes :)
Athlon 1Ghz
Abit KT7 motherboard: 6PCI slots 1 ISA slot (shared with PCI slot #6), 1 AGP, UDMA 66/33
KT133 chipset, 686a southbridge...
moving on...
distro currently in use: Slackware 7.1 running 2.4.x kernels, XFree86 4.0.3
Herc 3D Prophet II GTS Pro 64 mb video card using Nvidia drivers (2d & 3d)
256 MB Crucial PC133 SDRAM
Linksys LNE100TX ver. 2 ethernet card
SB Live! value OEM card
Windoze hard disk: Western Digital 20.5 GB 7200 rpm UDMA 66
Linux hard disk: Western Digital 13.6 GB 5400 rpm UDMA 66
Performance: A+
Stability: B+ (explanation below...)
Ease of installation of Slack: I had an Abit KA7 which died and it handled the installation with no problems; this board should handle an installation OK.
I have 3 devices on IRQ 11, No problems :)
Sound (emu10k1), USB, and Linksys LNE100TX ver. 2 card (tulip).
As far as reliability and stability goes, its alright except on occasion, I get those dma error messages like
hdb: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdb: dma_intr: error=0x84 { DriveStatusError BadCRC }
I got those like crazy with kernel 2.4.2 but the errors seem to occur less frequently with later versions, especially with kernel 2.4.4
Anybody else get those funky errors?
I've had a couple of hard lockups with KDE 2.1.1. I make do just by using a WM
:cool: Enlightenment :cool:
Aside from the occasional dma bug, my system performs extremely well and compiles a kernel in about 2 minutes on average.

I frequent a site known as and it seems that Abit boards have a high RMA return rate vs. other boards.
AMDzone (http://www.amdzone.com)
The people who talk in the forums there swear by Iwill.
Check out Iwill's products, especially the KK266 and KA266 models. More than likely, my next board will be an Iwill and not Abit.</STRONG>

I've gotten those dma errors too -- on an abit bp6. I think it has to do with the high point controller drivers in linux not being so hot. IMHO, the highpoint controllers suck ****! :p My a7v has a promise .. whats that you say? No raid? Oh screw raid, besides i can always hack it to do raid, in fact all that's needed is a bios flash with a hacked bios.. :) But I won't go into the asus vs. abit argument today..

navy-linux
05-08-2001, 09:57 PM
Q1- Which Athlon CPU do you use? (Include speed...) AMD-K7 850Mhz

Q2- Which Board is the above CPU mounted on? (please include full name and thechnical specifications, if you can):
Asus K7M,
PCI - 5
ISA - 1
AGP - 1
AMR - 1
3 DIMM Slots
USB - 4
ATA-66

Q3- Which Linux Distro do you use?: Mandrake 8.0

Q4- Please comment on performance, ease of installation, upgradability (i.e. possibility to add new hardware), compatibility with future MB trends...
Had no problems installing components on board. Everything was detected and worked first time. Other hard ware is as follows.
Hard Drive: Western Digital 13.6 gig
Sound: Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16
Modem: USR 56k (started out as an X2 modem)
Video: Diamond Stealth S540 3D
Ram: 256mb pc133
Cooling: Golden Orb

Everything is running stable. I am happy with the setup. Lots of room to expand for later use, IE, NIC card.

:p

Avatar
05-09-2001, 03:01 PM
1.) Athlon T-Bird 1GHz @ 100MHz FSB
2.) FIC AZ11E
3.) Several. Of late, VectorLinx 1.8, RedHat 7.1, and Icepack 1.1
4.) No problem installing, or ignoring the onboard sound when disabled. Can do 1.3GHz+ if needed. Lots of PCI slots. Cheap price ($100 or mobo/cpu combo $235) ATA100 onboard.