Rogue/Others?:MS-6167 /Athlon???'s

[bonzer]

Greetings,I understand you use a MS-6167 based Athlon system. Does the BIOS have a 256MB AGP Aperature setting for the new OpenGL driver? Also, I understand there is a single 133MHZ FSB option, if true does this imply that the 751 irongate will function properly when clocked at 133 mhz and future Athlons ramp to internally support the(266ev6)?

I have a G400max on the way and haven't pulled the trigger on the mobo yet.

Much Appreciated.......bonzer

[Thundrchez]

I've got an Asus K7M, not the MS-6167, so take this with a grain of salt.

I'm pretty sure that it comes with a 256MB AGP aperature setting. This is not directly related to the OpenGL driver, though.

The 751 irongate is not as overclocking friendly as people may have been accustomed to with i440BX chipsets. I do not think that you will have success with the AMD 751 chipset running at 133MHz. The chipset itself will probably work ok up to about 110MHz, but your results may vary.

[bonzer]

Thundrchez, Thanx for your reply, The reason I ask about the 256MB aperature is cuz the recently published release notes at Matrox for the Win98 TurboGL and 5.41 driver indicate you need this setting for "proper operation and performance of TurboGL". I realize the K7M has this option and I'm also considering this mobo as well. Is there any issues you dealt with that would be of help in my decision?? I have seen alot of posts regarding this board and problems with it.

As far as the FSB overclocking issues are concerned I believe that the 751 irongate is not the culprit but in fact the Athlon itself is resposible. If you read the AMD data-sheet(Chap.8, pg.47) for the Athlon, a very interesting parameter is described in the section regarding part number ordering identification. Here it indicates that the last letter in the product ID(p/n) is used to indicate the max FSB the device will accomidate. All current Athlon's I have seen have had a "B" in this character place=(200mhz). The fact that the letter "C"=(266mhz) leads me to believe that it wont be long until AMD releases 133 FSB capable devices to ramp-up overall cpu frequency. I have a gut feeling(no proof) that the ability to bring the FSB up might have much more to do with the Athlon's ability to do so than the 751 irongate's. Also, why would ASUS and (I think)MSI include this FSB option if the 751 irongate was "not worthy"??????????

bonzer

[This message has been edited by bonzer (edited 26 December 1999).]

[This message has been edited by bonzer (edited 26 December 1999).]

[Thundrchez]

I remember reading one thread where somebody had no luck with w95 on his k7m/athlon/g400 setup, but when he got w98, he did not have any problems.

I had a major cold bootup problem that was fixed with the forceagp2x registry hack. Go figure. Other than that, my K7M has worked beautifully. I did get too aggressive with my sdram timings, and I had to clear the bios in order to get it to boot again.

Other graphics cards, namely the Nvidia GeForce256, had their drivers updates to force agp1x for stable operation on athlon mobos.

The actual performance of each die on a wafer can vary pretty dramatically. When semiconductor companies make chips, they fabricate a wafer that has that has several hundred dice on them. There may be some dice that can work OK at 133MHz, where others cannot even work at 100MHz. The especially troublesome dice are at the edges of the wafer where the "ingredients" of making a chip are not evenly distributed.

Then there is the issue of getting the athlon to run at 133MHz when it is multiplier locked expecting a 100MHz FSB. It is unlikely that the L2 cache chips will be able to handle that large of a jump, where the CPU itself might could.

They probably added that the 133MHz FSB option because they could. There are 440BX mobos out there that allow you to set your FSB to 150+MHz, yet I haven't seen any systems that could actually run at that. I suppose it is just a bragging right. Similarly, some cars have a speedometer that goes up to 180 mph, but the car cannot go that fast.

I'm sure that they are working on the 133MHz FSB Athlons. VIA's chipset is supposed to support 133 whenever it comes out.

[chip]

i have and sell msi 6167-best for reliablity and stability.
bios will go to 256m in agp.
i use g400 max and amd 600mhz week 46.
runs like a raped ape!!!
GOTTA LOVE IT!!!

------------------
IT'S NEVER FAST ENOUGH!

[Greebe]

Bonzer, H.ODA is working on an new version of SoftFSB that'll support the 6167 MB. I've tested ver 1.7 (b3) with limited success on the 6167... still to buggy and only had 120 and 133 mHz settings above 100 available. MSI is releasing a newer version of the 6167 (Ummm 619x) that will have similar settings as the K7M has, within a month.

And as far as stability goes... well that's always been my #1 priority and the MS-6167 gets top billing!



------------------
Designer of the first commercial Athlon mod. Currently marketing the "Eclipse" through AZZO Computers.
Anyone up for an Eclipse'd Athlon? Email me (epc@netdirect.net) for more information

3000 mips, 1.172 gflops @ 900 mHz 1:3 latency
CPUmark99 75
FPU Winmark 4890

3Dmark 99 Max (8x6 16, 16, triple) PD5.41
8000
15181

[RoGuE]

Hello bonzer,

I switched my MS-6167 for a Asus K7M a month or so ago because of one or two niggling problems I had with it - MPEG transcoding programs would lock up, machine will not boot if a USB mouse is plugged in (unless you have a PS/2 mouse plugged in as well)....

-----------------------
Asus K7M
Athlon 500@750MHz
128MB PC133
G400MAX
SBLive Player 1024
Sigma Hollywood+
....etc.....