Slackmaster2K
Gone
Just an info thread here...
I remember back a couple years when most of us on the BBS were completely set on the Intel 440BX chipset. One of the most popular boards was the good ol' Abit BE6. I built my system around one, and I know that a lot of folks out there did too...or used similar boards anyhow.
Well, I'm *still* using that BE6...no, not the BE6-II, the original BE6. Last night I performed the last possible upgrade I'll ever pull off with this motherboard. I replaced the Celeron 400Mhz that I was overclocking to 500Mhz (the BE6 was a decent overclocker, and the BE6-II *ruled*) to a Celeron II 850Mhz.
I know that the Duron and Athlon are the hotties right now, but "back in the day" the Celeron was the shit. Personally I think that even the best Athlon boards today are a still a tad quirky; blame it on VIA. We've got an Asus KT133A which was and still might be the flagship AMD board...it's fast and pretty stable, but it has it's share of little annoyances compared to my trusty old BE6! Plus I still haven't forgiven AMD for the K6 series
Not trying to start a fight here mind you, if I built a new DAW today I'd base it on the TBird.
But I digress...the old Celerons were basically just Pentium II processors with less cache and they ran on a 66Mhz bus which is 33Mhz slower than the 100Mhz bus used by the PII over 350Mhz. Of course the Celeron's claim to fame was its ability to overclock, and the fact that it was almost as cheap as the K6-2, which is a processor I'd just like to forget about. Anyways, the latest Celeron, the Celeron II 800Mhz and above, is a coppermine Pentium III processor with half the cache (but full speed) and a bus speed of 100Mhz. Now, I won't even mention Celeron II's between 600 and 800Mhz. They are also based on the PIII core, but still run on a 66Mhz bus unless you overclock. Regardless, there's no reason to think below 800Mhz at this point unless you're an overclocker.
As an aside, I'll mention that I used to be a big fan of overclocking, but now I'm just sort of 'over it'. Most of the processors I've overclocked have only been able to jump up maybe 10-25 percentage points, and running goofy PCI and AGP bus speeds is not recommended, but often required when overclocking an Intel chip. Finding "guaranteed to overclock to XXMhz" processors is not easy, and usually requires looking on ebay. Screw it...I just wanted something to beef up my measly 500Mhz @ 83Mhz system without any risk or hassle.
I chose the Celeron II 850MHz processor, because the highest processor that the BE6 can handle is an 850Mhz (100Mhz FSB) Pentium III. If you read the literature on the BE6, you'll notice that it claims to only support Celerons up to 700Mhz, but remember that the Celeron II is for all intents and purposes just a PIII, and the Celeron II 800 and above processors run on a 100Mhz FSB. Therefore, the motherboard isn't going to know the difference between a PIII 850 and a Celeron II 850, right? Right.
The only real snag I ran into was finding a good coppermine FCPGA to Slot 1 adapter. Remember that slot 1 cartridge crap? Well, that's what the BE6 uses. By and far the most recommended FCPGA to Slot 1 adapter (not PPGA to Slot 1, there is a difference) is the Asus S370-DL and S370-133. Both support FCPGA coppermine processors with bus speeds up to 133Mhz. It seems that these adapters are in low supply however. I attempted to order a few from various companies on the net, but most of them were out of stock. I ended up hitting ebay where some dude was selling a whole shitload of S370-DL cards in seperate auctions.
The installation was fairly simple. The first thing I had to do was upgrade my BE6 to the latest BIOS revision that supported the PIII 850Mhz processor. Aside from trying to find a stupid Win9x startup disk, the BIOS flash was fast and easy, as most Award flashes are. Once the BIOS was flashed, I restarted and verified that the system still ran properly (I'm on Windows 2000 for those interested). The system worked great, so I restarted again, but this time entered the BIOS setup and used Abit's "Soft CPU" setup to set the CPU to 850(100) and I set the core voltage to 1.7V. Then I saved my settings and shutdown. Installing the new processor was fairly easy aside from a ridiculously short CPU fan connector (thanks Intel). I set the S370-DL to 1.7V just in case the auto-detection mechanism didn't work right. I fired the machine back up without a single hitch. Ran some games and shit, no lockups or problems.
I tell you what, the difference between 500(83) and 850(100) is pretty substantial, though not overwhelming. For instance, I was working on a project in n-Track that had completely tapped my CPU. I couldn't even playback! After the upgrade, however, the CPU meter only hit about 58% and the tracks played back just fine (the project was over 24 tracks, 24/48, Delta44 ASIO, a bunch of effects). Gaming performance improved as well. I can run UT at 1280x1024 without a hitch (TNT2 32MB video). Before I wouldn't run over 1024x768. Remember that the PIII core has a bunch of new multimedia instructions, so going from a PII/Celeron to a PIII/Celeron II is about more than just clock speed. Windows 2000 is slightly more responsive, but I can't tell much of a difference when performing regular day to day tasks.
I bought the retail boxed Celeron II 850 (3 yr warranty) for about $50 shipped. The Asus S370-DL FCPGA to Slot1 converter was $30 shipped from some ebay guy, but you *can* get them for under $15 if you're willing to wait on a backorder list.
This was the last upgrade I'll be able to perform with this current system. After this I'll have to upgrade the motherboard, and when I do a mobo upgrade I typically like to just upgrade as much other shit as possible...get it all over with and start fresh.
Anyways, i'm just blabbing on and on. I know there are a bunch of you out there on 440BX motherboards who might be able to relate to some of this or find it useful. I'm going to miss this system, but i should get another year or two out of it.
My system is as rock solid as can be, and consists of:
Celeron 850
Abit BE6
256MB CAS2 Cruical
15GB 7200RPM Maxtor
30GB 7200RPM Maxtor
Sony 32x4x8 Internal CDRW
Generic 24X CDROM
TNT2 32MB AGP Video (monitor 1)
S3 Trio64 PCI Video (monitor 2)
M-Audio Delta44 Soundcard
Ensoniq AudioPCI Soundcard/MIDI
3Com PCI Ethernet
USB MS Natural Keyboard
MS Optical Mouse
USB 250MB Zip drive that I never use
Windows 2000
Aside from a power supply failure, this system has never let me down once in the ~2 years I've been running it. The only times that I've had hard lockups or Win2k blue screens is when I've been screwing with new drivers (mostly m-audio, man oh man). Once I get the system stable, it just goes and goes and goes and goes.
Anybody else actually have a computer that they "love"? If I squeeze another year out of this sucker it'll be a record for me. I *think* I might be able to get two more years out of it. Sure I upgrade memory and video cards from time to time, but I never thought I'd be able to squeeze 3-4 years out of a motherboard. We'll see. I'm half tempted to get another BE6 off ebay for $50 to replace my crappy Epox/K6-2 system.
(P.S. to anyone not sure of what I was getting at in this thread...I am not recommending that you go out and buy the BE6, or any 440BX motherboard)
Slackmaster 2000
I remember back a couple years when most of us on the BBS were completely set on the Intel 440BX chipset. One of the most popular boards was the good ol' Abit BE6. I built my system around one, and I know that a lot of folks out there did too...or used similar boards anyhow.
Well, I'm *still* using that BE6...no, not the BE6-II, the original BE6. Last night I performed the last possible upgrade I'll ever pull off with this motherboard. I replaced the Celeron 400Mhz that I was overclocking to 500Mhz (the BE6 was a decent overclocker, and the BE6-II *ruled*) to a Celeron II 850Mhz.
I know that the Duron and Athlon are the hotties right now, but "back in the day" the Celeron was the shit. Personally I think that even the best Athlon boards today are a still a tad quirky; blame it on VIA. We've got an Asus KT133A which was and still might be the flagship AMD board...it's fast and pretty stable, but it has it's share of little annoyances compared to my trusty old BE6! Plus I still haven't forgiven AMD for the K6 series
Not trying to start a fight here mind you, if I built a new DAW today I'd base it on the TBird.But I digress...the old Celerons were basically just Pentium II processors with less cache and they ran on a 66Mhz bus which is 33Mhz slower than the 100Mhz bus used by the PII over 350Mhz. Of course the Celeron's claim to fame was its ability to overclock, and the fact that it was almost as cheap as the K6-2, which is a processor I'd just like to forget about. Anyways, the latest Celeron, the Celeron II 800Mhz and above, is a coppermine Pentium III processor with half the cache (but full speed) and a bus speed of 100Mhz. Now, I won't even mention Celeron II's between 600 and 800Mhz. They are also based on the PIII core, but still run on a 66Mhz bus unless you overclock. Regardless, there's no reason to think below 800Mhz at this point unless you're an overclocker.
As an aside, I'll mention that I used to be a big fan of overclocking, but now I'm just sort of 'over it'. Most of the processors I've overclocked have only been able to jump up maybe 10-25 percentage points, and running goofy PCI and AGP bus speeds is not recommended, but often required when overclocking an Intel chip. Finding "guaranteed to overclock to XXMhz" processors is not easy, and usually requires looking on ebay. Screw it...I just wanted something to beef up my measly 500Mhz @ 83Mhz system without any risk or hassle.
I chose the Celeron II 850MHz processor, because the highest processor that the BE6 can handle is an 850Mhz (100Mhz FSB) Pentium III. If you read the literature on the BE6, you'll notice that it claims to only support Celerons up to 700Mhz, but remember that the Celeron II is for all intents and purposes just a PIII, and the Celeron II 800 and above processors run on a 100Mhz FSB. Therefore, the motherboard isn't going to know the difference between a PIII 850 and a Celeron II 850, right? Right.
The only real snag I ran into was finding a good coppermine FCPGA to Slot 1 adapter. Remember that slot 1 cartridge crap? Well, that's what the BE6 uses. By and far the most recommended FCPGA to Slot 1 adapter (not PPGA to Slot 1, there is a difference) is the Asus S370-DL and S370-133. Both support FCPGA coppermine processors with bus speeds up to 133Mhz. It seems that these adapters are in low supply however. I attempted to order a few from various companies on the net, but most of them were out of stock. I ended up hitting ebay where some dude was selling a whole shitload of S370-DL cards in seperate auctions.
The installation was fairly simple. The first thing I had to do was upgrade my BE6 to the latest BIOS revision that supported the PIII 850Mhz processor. Aside from trying to find a stupid Win9x startup disk, the BIOS flash was fast and easy, as most Award flashes are. Once the BIOS was flashed, I restarted and verified that the system still ran properly (I'm on Windows 2000 for those interested). The system worked great, so I restarted again, but this time entered the BIOS setup and used Abit's "Soft CPU" setup to set the CPU to 850(100) and I set the core voltage to 1.7V. Then I saved my settings and shutdown. Installing the new processor was fairly easy aside from a ridiculously short CPU fan connector (thanks Intel). I set the S370-DL to 1.7V just in case the auto-detection mechanism didn't work right. I fired the machine back up without a single hitch. Ran some games and shit, no lockups or problems.
I tell you what, the difference between 500(83) and 850(100) is pretty substantial, though not overwhelming. For instance, I was working on a project in n-Track that had completely tapped my CPU. I couldn't even playback! After the upgrade, however, the CPU meter only hit about 58% and the tracks played back just fine (the project was over 24 tracks, 24/48, Delta44 ASIO, a bunch of effects). Gaming performance improved as well. I can run UT at 1280x1024 without a hitch (TNT2 32MB video). Before I wouldn't run over 1024x768. Remember that the PIII core has a bunch of new multimedia instructions, so going from a PII/Celeron to a PIII/Celeron II is about more than just clock speed. Windows 2000 is slightly more responsive, but I can't tell much of a difference when performing regular day to day tasks.
I bought the retail boxed Celeron II 850 (3 yr warranty) for about $50 shipped. The Asus S370-DL FCPGA to Slot1 converter was $30 shipped from some ebay guy, but you *can* get them for under $15 if you're willing to wait on a backorder list.
This was the last upgrade I'll be able to perform with this current system. After this I'll have to upgrade the motherboard, and when I do a mobo upgrade I typically like to just upgrade as much other shit as possible...get it all over with and start fresh.
Anyways, i'm just blabbing on and on. I know there are a bunch of you out there on 440BX motherboards who might be able to relate to some of this or find it useful. I'm going to miss this system, but i should get another year or two out of it.
My system is as rock solid as can be, and consists of:
Celeron 850
Abit BE6
256MB CAS2 Cruical
15GB 7200RPM Maxtor
30GB 7200RPM Maxtor
Sony 32x4x8 Internal CDRW
Generic 24X CDROM
TNT2 32MB AGP Video (monitor 1)
S3 Trio64 PCI Video (monitor 2)
M-Audio Delta44 Soundcard
Ensoniq AudioPCI Soundcard/MIDI
3Com PCI Ethernet
USB MS Natural Keyboard
MS Optical Mouse
USB 250MB Zip drive that I never use
Windows 2000
Aside from a power supply failure, this system has never let me down once in the ~2 years I've been running it. The only times that I've had hard lockups or Win2k blue screens is when I've been screwing with new drivers (mostly m-audio, man oh man). Once I get the system stable, it just goes and goes and goes and goes.
Anybody else actually have a computer that they "love"? If I squeeze another year out of this sucker it'll be a record for me. I *think* I might be able to get two more years out of it. Sure I upgrade memory and video cards from time to time, but I never thought I'd be able to squeeze 3-4 years out of a motherboard. We'll see. I'm half tempted to get another BE6 off ebay for $50 to replace my crappy Epox/K6-2 system.
(P.S. to anyone not sure of what I was getting at in this thread...I am not recommending that you go out and buy the BE6, or any 440BX motherboard)
Slackmaster 2000