Question

AMD cpu

Asked by: Lani2

I was told that AMD cpu's are prone to creating IRQ conflicts in whatever motherboard they are installed in.  I am looking for a new motherboard because of IRQ conflicts I am experiencing with an SIS chipset, and when I ask what board will work better, I am told the conflicts come from the cpu.

I was also told that all motherboards will give you conflicts if you fill up all of their expansion slots.  Well, dah, if the board can't handle it, are they put there just for window dressing?

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Asked On
2003-05-05 at 15:12:29ID20606488
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Answers

 

by: user3Posted on 2003-05-05 at 15:35:59ID: 8465545

IRQ conflicts are quite nearly things of the past...  Most devices now are auto-detecting resources and IRQ settings.  If you are experiencing conflicts you should check to see what the device is conflicting with.  This is available in the windows device manager.  Sometimes when you install a new device, that new one is stubborn and will only take a set IRQ number like 7 or 8.  If you have a device like that then you will have to manually move whatever is taking the IRQ number and set it so that it doesn't conflict.  Sometimes you may have to remove cards and have the computer re-detect them and place them in different IRQ slots.  Most cards though you dont have to since they will take whatever open IRQ is available to them.

Your computer should have atleast around 15 IRQ slots open(there much more on the newer ones), a few are taken up by system resources like the motherboard usually has around 5 or 6 reserved for its own use and around 2-3 reserved for things like the LPT ports and serials.  So theoretically the motherboard which has around the usual 5 PCI slots can handle that amount of IRQs.  But, conflicts can arise especially if peripheral cards take more IRQS than one.  There are cards out on the market which do take as much as 2 maybe even 3 IRQ slots, they really dont need that much.

You may want to pass up some of your system configuration so that we can read if there are any issues with your particular board or can read it yourself.

 

by: rayt333Posted on 2003-05-05 at 19:24:01ID: 8466744

"when I ask what board will work better, I am told the conflicts come from the cpu.

I was also told that all motherboards will give you conflicts if you fill up all of their expansion slots.  Well, dah, if the board can't handle it, are they put there just for window dressing?"

Well I hope you aren't taking advice from this idiot that is telling you this stuff.
I have a fairly loaded system that includes printer (USB), scanner (USB), external serial modem, ext USB modem, serial attachment for GPS, 2 USB Hubs, 2 HDs, CDRW, DVD/CD-Rom, zip drive, 2 USB mice (one cordless) and I still have 6 IRQ's that show up as free (2,5,7,10,11,12) all show as free and several of the used ones are sharing their IRQ's with another device.
Since I don't have any problems with it then I leave it alone (none of the devices are setup manually, all are setup by either the OS or BIOS)

 

by: rayt333Posted on 2003-05-05 at 19:25:14ID: 8466752

Oh and I forgot this is on an AMD system with an ASUS MB. and running WinXP pro

 

by: jhancePosted on 2003-05-06 at 03:32:52ID: 8469614

I think you should be carful about the morons you take your advice from.

 

by: givememychoicePosted on 2003-05-06 at 04:46:35ID: 8470093

lani, i can almost guarantee that you will be running ACPI which means that windows takes care of your irqs (and probably dumps most of them on 11) Changing motherboard will not alter this. What makes you think that you have irq conflicts? A lot of people believe they have conflicts because they have more than one device on the same irq. This is by design in 2k and xp though.

 

by: user3Posted on 2003-05-06 at 05:25:11ID: 8470404

I don't believe ravt333 and myself are morons.  Or are you refering to the person whom suggested to Lani2 that IRQ conflicts are totally related to the type of processor?

The processor doesn't create IRQ conflicts(not anything which happened in the past anyway).  It doesn't really matter about what type of motherboard you get as long as it isn't broken and also it is designed for your processor(thats a given now isn't it).  I do would recommend a motherboard brand like Asus, AOpen, or maybe MSI.  Truthfully, I haven't used MSI but I haven't heard anything bad about them either.  The new motherboards support ALOT of IRQs, more than 20 I do know for sure but there is no doubt more than that.  Processors you can choose from AMD or Intel, I dont recommend cyrix and if you choose a Mac then that is a different ball game your playing.  AMD is more attuned with business applications and many vouch that is a good game processor as well.  Intel is by far suppose to be the best at multimedia and is very fast at encoding.  Benchmarks I have seen dont make AMD the absolute best but it doesn't show Intel in the winner circle either.  AMD and Intel chips are very comparable to each other in performance, the next thing would be what peripheral devices you have along side the chip is what will really pushs it to the absolute limit, this would be like how much RAM(and type) you have, video card, hard drive(100 UDMA ATA), and such.  Remember, your computer only runs as fast as your slowest device, holds true in many places of common application.

IRQ is related to the processor it deals with the Interrupt Request Quote(IRQ) or when the device is allowed CPU time usage.  Intel and AMD use IRQs, except there might be a few changes with Intel with hyper-threading but they will no doubt still need IRQs to give processor time to devices, anyway.  

IRQ Conflicts only arise IF there is no more available IRQs(which just about never happens nowadays) and if there is a device that has its heart set on one particular IRQ and refuses(stubborn devils) to give it up(hardly come across those too nowadays).  If you happen to try to manually set the IRQs via the BIOS that can also cause IRQ conflicts, but normally people keep that on automatic, so you shouldn't run into that problem.  These are the only times an IRQ conflict should occur, unless some Act of God brings about some strange voodoo magic or something.  Anyway, dealing with IRQ conflicts now when they occur(if ever) is much easier than before.

 

by: user3Posted on 2003-05-06 at 05:49:53ID: 8470627

givememychoice,

I am not aware of ACPI having anything to do with IRQ.  Far as I know, ACPI(Advanced Control Power Interface) serves the function of controling very special power needs to peripheral devices, this would be support such as Wake-ON LAN, Wake-ON modem.  ACPI is also the control to standby mode, which keeps your computer in a semi-on/off state, something most people dont use because they only need their computer on or off.  Stand-by only serves to get rid of the POST sequence which only takes between 30 seconds to a minute of your life(I really dont see a reason to complain over that).  You can actually switch off ACPI and not run into problems.  Fact, I normally leave it off since in the past it use to cause alot of problems, actually Compaq is still plagued with the stand-by mode locking problem.  You would have to pull out the power cord and wait around 10 seconds and put it back in to reset the motherboard because it was locked in stand-by mode.  Not even the power button worked, which was kind of sad.

 

by: givememychoicePosted on 2003-05-06 at 05:59:02ID: 8470702

user3, before coming out and saying somebody is actually wrong, please, check your facts.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314068 is the exact article for xp
"Manually assigning IRQs to PCI slots in the system BIOS as a troubleshooting method may work on some non-ACPI systems"
(ok, i thought it was 11 not 9, but that is not a big issue).

 

by: rrhunt28Posted on 2003-05-06 at 06:38:19ID: 8471110

AMD chips are not going to cause conflics.  That is probably some intel propaganda drummed up just like the phrase "amd chips run hotter than pentium chips" which simply is not true.

 

by: user3Posted on 2003-05-06 at 07:33:07ID: 8471702

I didn't say you were wrong, givememychoice(please read carefully, I dont tread thin ice where ever I can).  I was not aware of ACPI having anything to do with IRQ, I stated that.  I am not here to be hostile and I certainly want to be corrected if I make a mistake.

I am looking at the write-up and I have somethings I am looking up right now on the actual ACPI specification.  I have come across ACPI problems before when it was first implemented and keep it off since I knew it was the culprit which caused many computers so lock in stand-by mode.  I may want to comment on it later, perhaps on a different thread one which I will probably start myself.

But, I have turned it off in the BIOS and just stick with the PnP functions which work just as well for myself.  So you can live without it if you want.

 

by: givememychoicePosted on 2003-05-06 at 09:17:13ID: 8472815

rrhunt, on a side issue, while i agree the amd is not going to cause conflicts, they do run hotter than pentiums. (and i only use AMD chips so its not like i am anti AMD)

 

by: rrhunt28Posted on 2003-05-06 at 09:27:13ID: 8472898

I just saw a post that had a guy talking about his p4 running 50, which is around what my amd runs. That is the same.  They do not run hotter.  They just do not have the same thermal protection of throttling that p4's have.  That is why i always buy asus motherboards that have it built in.

 

by: rrhunt28Posted on 2003-05-06 at 09:43:41ID: 8473028

http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white_papers_and_tech_docs/26237.pdf

Max die temp 85 of athlon

ftp://download.intel.com/design/Pentium4/datashts/24988703.pdf

max temp of pentium 76.

So They are pretty close in temps, however the athlon actully can get hotter with out damage...

 

by: user3Posted on 2003-05-06 at 14:02:17ID: 8474837

Atleast the AMDs Athlons XP dont have the track record like the K-6s.  I remember the first K-6 ever I got was a DOA, those were bad times for AMD and even worse for Cyrix.  

Lani2 should just use what she/he was be using or just switch over to Intel if she/he is not comfortable with AMD, or stick with AMD.  Both are good solutions.  AMD will not give you those IRQ conflicts and if they do then it is more likely a software problem, motherboard, or something with one of your peripheral devices you will just have to check your device manager and see what the conflict is.  But either one does the job, some better than others in certain areas.  For common applications or most average everyday use it really doesn't matter which one you choose, it only matters when you start specializing your machine for specific work(or gaming) than you will want to pay attention to what processor you get and more importantly what peripeherals you need, its not just the processor that makes the machine.

 

by: Lani2Posted on 2003-05-06 at 16:03:37ID: 8475394

"Well I hope you aren't taking advice from this idiot that is telling you this stuff."

No, that is why I posted these questions.  The person who told me this stuff works in a local computer store. I was looking for a sound card for a computer I assembled many years ago.  His comments really threw me because this was the first store I ever delt with that has, or at least claims to have, A+ certified techs.

The computer I needed a sound card for, (if you check in my profile thing I posted two different questions regarding two systems with AMD processors), has an FIC mb with a K6-400 cpu.  On this system I ran out of PCI slots so I decided to pitch the ESS pci sound card to utilize a promise 66 controller card.

In it (FIC Mother Board with VIA) I already have a pci lan card, and a WinTV video card.  With only 3 pci slots I had a choice between a controller card and a TV/video card.  This mother board can only handle ATA-33 without the controller card.  The difference in speed between 33 and 66 is noticable on the 40 gig ATA-100 drive I just installed.  I found a couple of ISA Crystal sound cards in the basement so i put them in and neither one will work. (OS windows XP pro).  These cards were of questionable orgin so I assumed it was an O.S. compatibility problem or the cards were fried.

Explaining this to the Tech he said "you have an IRQ conflict" and I said "what?".

Now, thinking this might be possible, considering I have a problem with a shutdown with this computer and a ram problem.

The first is that when you click shut down it doesn't.  It hangs at the "windows is shutting down" text box.  This is no big deal to me, you wait and hear the drive stop spinning and push the power button.  And this has been happening since I flashed the bios with the latest bios.  It doesn't happen in Win Me.  When I use Win Xp it does.  In win 98 se the patch worked years ago but will not now.  My family use this computer now and they prefer XP.

The ram problem is in the PCI-133 rather than the 100.  I only have two 256 mg ram chips in PCI-133.  When you boot up one or both chips will be recognized.  Most times the people who use this system never notice.

So all things considered on this system, I don't have the experience to know if there is indeed a conflict on this computer.  All I want is a sound card that will work.

Since I am the chief cook and bottle washer in my home and everybody's hungry, I will describe the reason I need another motherboard in my other pc later.  I am told the Motherboard has a bug in the chipset which is a sis735.  The problem is in losing the CMOS when using DDR ram and the suggested solution is slightly overclocking.  I overclocked it a few weeks ago but only today I got a strange wrong date and time error.

 

by: rayt333Posted on 2003-05-06 at 17:50:11ID: 8475988

The people at the store is misleading you, no wait, they are either outright lying to you or they are dumb enough to believe their own BS.

If you check around some of the sites that sell new but last years MBs you can pick up some good bargins. I just bought an ASUS MB that sold when first on the market for $149 and I only paid $39 for it, brand new unopened box, it only supports up to 2.4ghz CPU but that is still a bargin.

 

by: user3Posted on 2003-05-06 at 19:43:24ID: 8476467

You have a FIC board with a VIA chipset that uses a K6-400?  So which one has the IRQ conflict?  The SiS or the VIA board?  Your saying you have an IRQ conflict with the SiS but now your say you have a CMOS problem with the SiS and a IRQ conflict with a FIC VIA board you have?

So what is with the SiS having a IRQ conflict?  The SiS board sounds more like a BIOS battery problem than a DDR ram issue, possibly the BIOS battery is not passing enough voltage, you may want to look at it with a voltmeter to see if it is giving off the correct voltage.  If it isn't then you may want to replace it, but check the voltage every so often to see if it drops siginificantly, if it is then there is some sort of leak on the board.  Overclocking is not a solution to anything and to have it as a "suggested" solution is not really healthy for anyone.

BTW, what FIC board is it?  Would it happen to be the VIA VA-503 or 503+?  I know the 503+ has only three PCI slots but it also has a AGP 2X slot on it.  Oh yes, the ISA slot that is closest to the PCI slot is actually shared to it.  So you can't use the ISA slot closest to the PCI slot, you can use the others and should have no problems.  Also, that paricular board is not ACPI complient(I know...  I happen to own one...  Last time I ever bought from FIC...)

 

by: user3Posted on 2003-05-06 at 19:43:55ID: 8476469

First and last time I bought from FIC I mean...

 

by: gribnickPosted on 2003-05-06 at 21:40:39ID: 8477006

Lani, the problem you mention with the sis735 chipset is a known issue with the earlier revs of that chipset. I haven't heard of it happening with the later ones. I have a later one that is absolutely rock solid stable. But for earlier ones, for some reason the  bios keeps losing its settings and forgetting stuff and other wacky problems with some of those boards (ECS K7S5A mostly?) and not all of them but some of them so it seems like a quality control problem in a certain rev. The ECS K7S5A-PRO board ($57 at www.newegg.com) is also very good (sis735), there is also a  cheap sis745 based board from a few manufacturers there also. Personally, after many trials and tribulations I have sworn to never own another board with a via chipset in it ever again. I have never had a good one no matter how many "second chances" I've given them. The good ones always seem to go to someone else besides me. When I buy another MB (and it will only be for AMD), I'll likely look at nforceN next..

 

by: Lani2Posted on 2003-05-07 at 01:17:50ID: 8477918

The FIC motherboard is the VA-503+.  I will be picking up another ISA sound card soon and will remember not to use the ISA next to the PCI.  I have used this board for quite a long time and I don't think I want another VIA chipset.

The PCchips SIS motherboard has been whacky for the last few months.  Lately I do more with this computer and I feel rather than deal the problems that keep popping up I should just replace it.  I don't want to replace it and still have the same problems so this time I would like to get it right.

A quick example of what I mean by whacky is:

One pci slot cannot be used because when you put a card in it the mouse will not work.

Sometimes when you boot up it doesn't find the drive with the o.s.  For the longest time I thought my hard drive was bad.  I tried troubleshooting using different drives and now I am pretty sure it is the MB and not the drives.

Using different RAM (DDR) brought in new problems instead of resolving some of these issues.  When I get a chance I will list hardware specifics if anyone knows what the problem might be.  Right now its 4:16 a.m. and I would like to get some more sleep before my day begins. Thanks so very much for the help.

Lani

 

by: jhancePosted on 2003-05-07 at 03:33:28ID: 8478654

>>The person who told me this stuff works in a local computer store

Aha!  Proof positive of this person's qualifications, or lack thereof!  I've never noticed any signs of intelligent life at local (or national) computer stores.  These folks are hired for their willingness to work for low pay, NOT for their technical skills!

 

by: user3Posted on 2003-05-07 at 03:54:27ID: 8478771

"One pci slot cannot be used because when you put a card in it the mouse will not work."

Man that is pretty wacky. Sounds as if the PCI card you put in took the IRQ for your mouse or something.  Hard to say until you actually look at the error message, might not even be related to IRQs.

Well, I do insist that you try jacking that ISA sound card into the two remaining ISA slots you have.  If you have been only using the slot closest to the nearest PCI slot then that is obvious where you hang up was, because those two parcular slots actually share the BUS from each other.  So you can only use one at a time between those two slots.  If it is not working still then try sending the error messages you get when you look at the device manager for the device.  It is actually helpful to you I guess that you have XP because you dont have to load those blasted 4in1 that VIA requires 95/98/ME to load.

Also, i'm with gribnick(I must be just as unlucky as he is or worse...).  After owning and working with quite a few of the VIA chipsets, they have given much trouble especially over the 4in1s when I started working with them.  Those lucky people who got those working boards.  Intel chipsets hardly have that many problems and they go through much testing before you ever get your hands on them.  Unfortunately, I never had a chance to work with Nvidia MB chipsets but I am quite sure they are stable and perhaps the best solution out for AMD.

 

by: user3Posted on 2003-05-07 at 04:15:55ID: 8478876

"Aha!  Proof positive of this person's qualifications, or lack thereof!  I've never noticed any signs of intelligent life at local (or national) computer stores.  These folks are hired for their willingness to work for low pay, NOT for their technical skills!"

I doubt a fully fledged technician will want to work at minimum wage or just a notch above that as just a floorman...  Of course, those computer stores actually need technician grade floormen to sell to people.  Wonder when they will ever get them...

 

by: rayt333Posted on 2003-05-07 at 11:28:25ID: 8481942

Lani2
I hate to be the one to break this to you, but the PC Chips MB (all of them) are the lowest order of MBs ever made. These are cheap MBs and you get what you pay for. And the FIC is only a step above the PC Chips. I perfer Asus or Abit myself, note these may not be the best (or most expensive) but they are a world above the ones you are using right now.

 

by: Lani2Posted on 2003-05-07 at 13:22:22ID: 8482726

It's not news to me.  I bought the board because I'm a poor girl.  I read some reviews and some people liked it.  I later read about the data and cmos problems it had with DDR ram before the year warranty expired but didn't have the money to buy DDR ram at the time to test it.  I called the people where I bought it and they said "don't get all wigged out over something that isn't happening yet".  I wanted them to replace the board with a newer board but without the DDR ram I didn't know if there would be a problem.  Now that I installed the DDR ram I have a problem.

Regarding the FIC board.  I installed a new ISA card (Genius) and XP recognized it and installed it gracefully.  I put the Promise Ultra Controller back in and everyone is happy with the improved speed.  I never had anything in the ISA slot next to the pci.  The metal thing is still there that would have to be removed to use the slot for a sound card.  

 

by: user3Posted on 2003-05-07 at 13:54:04ID: 8482956

Good, you shouldn't have anything in that ISA slot next to the PCI, else it will not work.  Well, glad that FIC board problem is over.  I myself cannot get the FIC to work with PC-133, dont know why.  It only likes PC-100 and it is not able to take anything else perhaps maybe PC-66.  It really is finicky, can't under clock the PC-133.

I am sure Lani2 bought the FIC as a side fix, I did since I had an extra K6 around I figured, "Hey!  What the heck right...!"  And then the Horror began...  Couldn't get all the PCI card slots to work(found it was the 4in1 drivers that were missing).  I had a Riva TNT2 and tried to run half-life for counterstrike(Found out there are issues with cards that have above 16Megs of on-board RAM), oh yes crashes after 15 seconds or doesn't even load.  Then I bought PC-133 memory on the premise that it would under-clock and work with the FIC(nope, only likes PC-100).

The SiS board I don't know if the thing is salvagable, if you haven't tried it you might want to try a BIOS update.  Doubt it might work but who knows until you actually try.  Follow the instructions very very very carefully if you attempt to try this.

 

by: Lani2Posted on 2003-05-08 at 16:57:42ID: 8492506

On the SIS board, I flashed the bios with the latest update.  It made no difference.  

The problems started shortly after I installed a video capture card.  I was more focused on the resolution of the captured video than how my computer was running.  The resolution of the captured video or quality was terrible so I installed a different one (video capture card) and then the proverbial poop starting hitting the fan.  I was pleased with the video quality but upset with the fact my computer crashed a lot.

Installing these cards made me aware of the mouse problem with one of the PCI slots.

And, on occasion, my second hard drive would fail to show up.  If I remember right, it showed up in the bios but not the o.s.  When I ran hardware tests from western digital it would fail.  Then a few reboots or days later it was back and testing fine.  I took the opportunity to back up some files and replace the drive. Then I flashed the bios with an update. Played musical pci slots to find one that would let me use my usb ports and mouse and did, I think, a total of 3 drive formats w/clean installations of the O.S.

But things still were not right.

So, I replaced the PC133 ram with DDR and now I occasionally lose the cmos, date and time, and get boot failures.  If a new motherboard could stay around $100.00 and would make these problems go away I want one.



 

by: user3Posted on 2003-05-09 at 16:06:06ID: 8497611

Well you can check www.newegg.com I guess to see if there are any good specials you can take advantage of.  I don't think your going to get very far with that SiS board, since it seems you have problems before with both Hard drive and BIOS.  It could also be that capture card your dealing with that is giving the problem if that is when the problems started to get you.  I am sure you probably did it but have you taken out that video cap card and tried without it?

 

by: gribnickPosted on 2003-05-09 at 18:28:47ID: 8498033

From what I have read, if you have an sis based motherboard with the disappearing BIOS settings, intermittent refusal to cold boot, etc, it is a MB problem and only replacing the MB will solve it. There are several solutions under $100 from newegg that can fit the bill. The Sis 735 boards from ECS and the ASUS built SIS 745 board all have good reviews. I have personally used several of the ECS K7S5A (pro and non-pro) very successfully. I also personally like to stay away from VIA but the KT333 chipset is finally getting enough mileage on it that they may be getting it right now and it is fairly cheap too. The original nforce is also cheap but I have no experience with it. Buy it from newegg though 'cause if you have problems with it, they have a no hassle exchange/return policy .. best on the net..

 

by: givememychoicePosted on 2003-05-13 at 09:01:26ID: 8517915

i like the msi kt3 ultra2 boards, pretty cheap these days and rock solid.

 

by: rrhunt28Posted on 2003-05-13 at 09:31:26ID: 8518114

If you want top quality go with the asus, but they are alittle more expensive.

 

by: kj2833Posted on 2003-05-14 at 08:29:44ID: 8525036

I posted this as a answer to another question but decided to also copy it here it may help some. This may help auto assign some resources;)

A thing to think about for your next install, wont help you here. I have seen weird things on a few friends pc's with xp installs that were related to power on or off. Sometimes this is related to XP not detecting the ACPI interface properly. A new asus board will support the "Advanced power configuration interface." XP doesnt always detect this. To check go to Control panel> system > Hardware > Device manager Under the computer name there is a selection that just says "Computer" click the + next to it and see if it says "Advanced power configuration interface." If not selected properly, you may get all kinds of strange problems on install or use. Whenever you install XP, When you see the first screen that says "Press F2 for aftermarket scsi driver" or something like that jam on the F5 key until you see a new option, you can then tell windows that your board supports "Advanced power configuration interface."
Useful info for everyone

 

by: Lani2Posted on 2003-05-14 at 13:05:53ID: 8527183

Here is a report on the irq's in the M830LR sis motherboard.  It took a lot of rearranging.  There is no reset config data option in the bios.

System Information report written at: 05/14/2003 02:03:34 PM
[IRQs]

IRQ Number     Device
9     Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System
11     SiS 300/305
11     SiS 7001 PCI to USB Open Host Controller
11     SiS 7001 PCI to USB Open Host Controller
11     SiS 900 PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter
11     Creative SB Live! Value
11     AVerDVD EZMaker WDM Video Capture
8     System CMOS/real time clock
13     Numeric data processor
12     Microsoft PS/2 Mouse
1     Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2  Keyboard
6     Standard floppy disk controller
4     Communications Port (COM1)
3     Communications Port (COM2)
14     Primary IDE Channel
15     Secondary IDE Channel
10     AVerDVD EZMaker WDM Audio Capture

I did take the capture card out and things ran OK with the PC133 ram but I don't know enough to quit trying so I put the capture card back in.  And to make things more interesting someone gave me a Creative SB Live card so I put that in too.  The sound quality was worth it and I was hoping that the audio portion of my captured video would improve.  When it worked it was nice but so undependable so I changed the ram and again, a new problem.

The work around suggested was to overclock to make things run a bit hotter or put some antistatic foam over the chip or solder a couple resistors near the cpu socket.  This info was from a "Mr.Athlon" website if I remember correctly.  But I never get the "misconfigured" ram problem where less or more ram than you have is reported by the bios in the mem check thing during post.  It was always reported exactly.  I just have the missing cmos info thing going on and overclocking seems to keep it from happinging except for the date and time thing which happened once.

I am reading up on the ASUS A7N8X and the Leadtek K7NCR18D-Pro.

 

by: rrhunt28Posted on 2003-05-14 at 13:14:27ID: 8527249

Windows xp can run multiple devices on a single irq so if your using it you dont really have to worry about it.

WHy do you want to over clock?  I personaly never overclock anything, the reason being I just buy the speed I want and run it.  And lets face it if your running a 1.5 or a 1.6 that is a 1.5 over clocked your not gonig to notice.  Misconfigurd ram tends to happen when you add new ram and your bios does not automatically update itself.  If you go into bios and update it it goes away.  And I definatly do not suggest getting a new motherboard then sodering anything on to it.  

 

by: Lani2Posted on 2003-05-14 at 17:41:21ID: 8528687

 

by: Lani2Posted on 2003-05-15 at 08:20:23ID: 8533930

 

by: rrhunt28Posted on 2003-05-15 at 08:25:51ID: 8533984

If you want to go soldering things onto your motherboard it is your motherboard.  But unless you have the right tools it can turn into a mess real fast.  Good luck.

 

by: Lani2Posted on 2003-05-15 at 08:30:33ID: 8534029

"WHy do you want to over clock?"

After reading the above links and other info that I found related to my motherboard's problems it seemed worth a try and it has kept me up and running without typing my cmos info everytime I boot.

Lani

 

by: Lani2Posted on 2003-05-15 at 09:43:51ID: 8534707

http://www.geocities.com/mrathlon2000/chipset.html

This is the link that gives the most information on how to and why.  I didn't have a solder pencil so overclocking seemed worth a try.  And in this case, it was just increasing the fsb by very little and done in the bios  rather than jumpers.  And, I figured, I could reverse what I did, where slipping with a solder pencil would seems more permanent.  I have overclocked cpu's before just to see when it can be done and I am aware of the risks.  Monitoring the cpu temp showed an increase of only a few degrees and I haven't lost my cmos yet.  

This motherboard only needs to last until I get another one and that, again, is my question, what mb?  I don't have enough money or time to keep buying and replacing till I get it right.  Thanks again for all of your help.  And, please, I don't really know beans about this stuff so if I am wrong on anything, please let me know.

Lani

 

by: rayt333Posted on 2003-05-15 at 15:13:57ID: 8536882

Go with the Asus MB.

 

by: gribnickPosted on 2003-05-15 at 18:43:43ID: 8537630

Bottom line is that for pretty much any given motherboard company out there, you can find just as many people willing to swear by them as swear at them. Saying BUY ASUS or BUY GIGABYTE is like saying VOTE REPUBLICAN .. it is neither always right nor always wrong .. unless you are independent of course.. :-)  It comes down to individual boards and chipsets. Some of the ASUS boards are good. Some are total crap. Same with every board maker. Some are crap because of the chipsets they were made with through no fault of the MB manufacturer. Some are crap in spite of a good chipset. You have to do some leg work to see if the board you are looking at is right for you. In general, like cars, don't pick a first model year. Pick something with some revs on it so they have a chance to get it right. Read the forums on the various motherboard forums around (amdmb.com for amd is one, I think viahardware.com has one also). Even then, some percentage of the people are going to have problems. See if it is a trend or isolated to a few people who might have bad power supplies or something. In short, a dozen people can recommend dozens of different boards that are right for them but only you can choose the board that is right for you. If you don't know anything about it, that's the first problem that needs fixing. Spend some time reading the forums. You know what they say about the educated consumer. There is a world of good info out there.

 

by: rayt333Posted on 2003-05-15 at 19:45:09ID: 8537862

gribnick
thanks for your pointless attack, but if you would at least take some time and read the comment above maybe my comment would make sense to you.
Lani2 stated:
"I am reading up on the ASUS A7N8X and the Leadtek K7NCR18D-Pro."

Of those two choices the Asus MB was the best choice.

 

by: gribnickPosted on 2003-05-15 at 20:03:22ID: 8537922

Geez, someone is taking their sensitive pills today. I meant no attack rayt333. I had read the previous posts and assumed you were recommending a specific board however many posts here and elsewhere have advocated brands and that was my point. I only mentioned ASUS because it was popular, not because you had mentioned in it the preceeding post. Apologies if I offended. But the other important point was that recommendations are sources of information only to be used in conjunction with other personal research to arrive at the correct decision that is right for a  given persons application. They are seldom the answer..

 

by: rayt333Posted on 2003-05-16 at 11:37:16ID: 8542462

gribnick
No apology is nessary, the explanation was enough. I admit some people do state one brand is always better, but in this case I was only giving my opinion to the two MB he already was looking at. Personally I do use Asus and Abit MB's the most and have never been disappointed but I look at the specs first to be sure it will do what I am looking for.

 

by: rrhunt28Posted on 2003-05-16 at 11:46:22ID: 8542533

Asus is the best man. LOL
I said asus long long ago up in the post because I have built two machines using asus boards and both work great.  I think the biggest problem when people complain about any computer part is the fact that not all parts work together. Sure they are all "compatible" but they do not always work the way they are supposed to.  It is no ones fault probably, it is just something from one brand does not like something from another.  In my first asus board computer I put in a geforce video card, and it crashed over and over again.  I finally figured out that the set up I had did not like running a geforce card, but the ati card worked great.  Do I tell people that asus sucks because of it, or that geforce sucks becase of it, or any of the other parts in the machine?  NO.  So, everyone have a good day, and remember building a computer is always a adventure.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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