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  • #16
    Novdid,

    Actually, there's a simpler (and less fun) reason for the alternative suggestions, although I do appreciate the irony of the situation, and it gets even better.

    My original post was based on Matrox's advice to stay away from the 860 chipset because they had problems with a Compaq EVO-8000 and other 860-based mobos. For P4 Xeons, that left the E7500 based boards, which don't have AGP. That kind of limits the Intel combo options, unless the problem isn't really with the chipset itself, but just some specific boards based on that chipset.

    The funniest part so far, was that one of Intel's desktop support people said that with the high speed of their chips these days, nobody actually needed a dual proc workstation anymore! I finally reached someone in the server department who said there's an ongoing challenge to convince people in decision-making positions that there really are individuals out there who still don't have enough processing power with just one chip. Now that's irony, although it doesn't really surprise me.

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    • #17
      Yes I see.

      I'm not that well informed about MP systems. But if I were you I would get me one of those Tyan MPX boards and a pair of Athlon MP. Stability is very good or so I've heard.

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      • #18
        This follows kind of what I was going to post. In the first few months of next year I'm going to give my comptuer a huge overhaul. I'm planning on going the dual AMD MP route, and was wondering which motherboard I should get. I already looked into the Tyan TigerMP. It looked great to me! With that kind of power I'll put under the hood I wasn't too concerned with overclocking. Though out of curiousity, what kind of PSU should I be looking at getting? Since I'll have my Parhelia in it (requires 300W) and the motherboard says it also requires the 300W (but of course I also have Two SCSI CD-ROM devices, and two SCSI harddrives and a IDE harddrive in my computer.

        Leech
        Wah! Wah!

        In a perfect world... spammers would get caught, go to jail, and share a cell with many men who have enlarged their penises, taken Viagra and are looking for a new relationship.

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        • #19
          I personally ran a Parhelia on my system without any trouble once I had a Parhelia that wasn't defective.

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          • #20
            Pictures and everything!

            I was thinking about the P4DCE+ in the first place. I've always had a fondness for Super Micro. A few years ago, we had a SM board/box combo from hell that cost us a huge project, but it's been running great ever since we added the extra power connector to the mobo that they forgot to tell us about (3 mobos, 2 PS's & 5 SCSI drives later). It's the only mid-size tower I've seen that comfortably handles 11 fans (including 3 across the drives). If you build them right, they can be useful for a scary amount of time.

            The last server tech at Intel thought the compatibility problems might stem more from certain AGP's or possibly the bios, rather than the chipset, and your test seems to confirm this. It's definitely worth another look.

            Now I'm curious (and drooling ), do you think 4 256MB chips is just a much better value or possibly faster than 2 bigger chips in the pipeline? I was thinking of spending the extra money to keep from filling up all the holes, but that still leaves some room for expansion without throwing stuff away. Actually, I forgot to notice that this board only has 4 slots- never mind!

            Also, did you choose the Platinum eX just for it's features, or because it might be a bit quieter than the internal breakout? I've been pleasantly surprised by my Platinum Live, even though I'd probably do better with an M Audio or Aardvark, but I hate to give up the features and I don't really feel like giving up multiple slots for audio if I don't need to.

            And Leech, I'd probably want at least a 400W PS in your new box. Just because the extra capacity is there, doesn't mean you'll use it, but it should make things run a bit cooler. There seems to be this desire to max out the visible hardware and neglect the basics, but good, quiet power really helps.

            So many off topic questions, so little time.

            Thank's for sharing!

            Brooke
            Last edited by Tapeworm; 4 September 2002, 21:08.

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            • #21
              Go for a Terratec DMX 6Fire 24/96. Gaming and pro sound quality in one card, with an emphasis on the latter...

              ...as for PSU, go for a good 400watt+ PSU with at least 40A on the 5V line...I'd go for the Antec 520watt to keep all things safe...you should be OK with Antec, Sparkle PSU's....
              Let us return to the moon, to stay!!!

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              • #22
                Originally posted by K6-III
                Go for a Terratec DMX 6Fire 24/96. Gaming and pro sound quality in one card, with an emphasis on the latter...

                ...as for PSU, go for a good 400watt+ PSU with at least 40A on the 5V line...I'd go for the Antec 520watt to keep all things safe...you should be OK with Antec, Sparkle PSU's....
                520watt, eh? Is that like the old advertisements for the Super Nintendo? "Now you're dealing with power, SUPER power!"

                Leech
                Wah! Wah!

                In a perfect world... spammers would get caught, go to jail, and share a cell with many men who have enlarged their penises, taken Viagra and are looking for a new relationship.

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                • #23
                  I have not had any issues running a Parhelia on the MSI K7D-L with dual MP 2100+ cpus. The most important part of building a dual system is using quality components. Regarding the power supply question I have used the Antec True Power series without issue to date. The 480w is a very good unit and depending on the type of drives you will use a 430w is fine or you might need the 550w. I would go with the Tyan or MSI board on the AMD side. Buy Crucial registered/ecc PC2100 and do not take any chances in unbuffered memory even though you can use it in the first two slots. I am using 512mb sticks at this time. I am also using the Terratec DMX 6 Fire for sound. It is a very good balance between music/dvd and occasional gaming. The drivers are now solid and work very well in an SMP system. Also a TB Santa Cruz and Audigy with the latest driver sets are working fine in my other SMP systems.
                  Last edited by bingo13; 5 September 2002, 10:37.

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                  • #24
                    Re: Parhelia & Dual CPU Mobos

                    Originally posted by Tapeworm

                    I'd like to build a dual Xeon workstation with the Parhelia. I'm aware of difficulties with the Intel 860 chipset... [snip]
                    What difficulties are those?

                    I plan to use a Parhelia in my dual Xeon (i860 chipset) machine as soon as there are Linux/XFree86 drivers for it. Your post suggests this would be problematic.

                    Can you be more specific about i860/Parhelia incompatibilities?

                    Thanks.

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                    • #25
                      Originally posted by bingo13
                      I have not had any issues running a Parhelia on the MSI K7D-L with dual MP 2100+ cpus. The most important part of building a dual system is using quality components. Regarding the power supply question I have used the Antec True Power series without issue to date. The 480w is a very good unit and depending on the type of drives you will use a 430w is fine or you might need the 550w. I would go with the Tyan or MSI board on the AMD side. Buy Crucial registered/ecc PC2100 and do not take any chances in unbuffered memory even though you can use it in the first two slots. I am using 512mb sticks at this time. I am also using the Terratec DMX 6 Fire for sound. It is a very good balance between music/dvd and occasional gaming. The drivers are now solid and work very well in an SMP system. Also a TB Santa Cruz and Audigy with the latest driver sets are working fine in my other SMP systems.
                      I knew about the registered memory requirements after looking into the Tyan boards. Pricey stuff, but you get what you pay for. As far as sound, I'll use my Sblive 5.1, since I am planning on using linux and I know the Audigy doesn't have the greatest support in linux yet.

                      Leech
                      Wah! Wah!

                      In a perfect world... spammers would get caught, go to jail, and share a cell with many men who have enlarged their penises, taken Viagra and are looking for a new relationship.

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Originally posted by bingo13
                        Buy Crucial registered/ecc PC2100 and do not take any chances in unbuffered memory even though you can use it in the first two slots.
                        Don't buy Crucial for use with a Tyan MP board. Crucial used to be on Tyan's recommended list, but got removed early this year (after I already bought mine ). Most people who use Crucial on Tyan MP boards have no problems (myself included - at least on the one in my sig), but there seems to be an unusually high incidence of boot problems and misdetected memory with this combination. Another issue is supposedly timing problems when more than one Crucial module is installed. Corsair make memory specifically with the Thunder K7 in mind - if you're buying a Tyan MP board, that memory comes highly recommended.

                        Note that this isn't a specific problem with either the memory or the boards, it seems to be specific to the combination of Crucial memory and Tyan's 760MP(X) boards - other Tyan boards and other 760MPX boards seem to be fine with Crucial.

                        PS: Beware - Crucial aren't on Tyan's memory list any more, but they still list the Tyan boards in their memory selector.
                        Last edited by Ribbit; 6 September 2002, 02:26.
                        Blah blah blah nick blah blah confusion, blah blah blah blah frog.

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                        • #27
                          Can you be more specific about i860/Parhelia incompatibilities?
                          The combo will not POST.



                          Matrox is recommending people to not purchase the Parhelia if you have an i860. If you already made the purchase they recommend returning the Parhelia.
                          <a href="http://www.unspacy.com/ryu/systems.htm">Ryu's PCs</a>

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                          • #28
                            Originally posted by Tapeworm
                            [B]Pictures and everything!

                            I was thinking about the P4DCE+ in the first place.
                            A man who knows how to spend his hard-earned $.

                            Now I'm curious (and drooling ), do you think 4 256MB chips is just a much better value or possibly faster than 2 bigger chips in the pipeline? I was thinking of spending the extra money to keep from filling up all the holes, but that still leaves some room for expansion without throwing stuff away. Actually, I forgot to notice that this board only has 4 slots- never mind!
                            I got a deal for my 1gig of PC800 ECC for $150, so I took the 4 256mb RIMMs w/o question.

                            Also, did you choose the Platinum eX just for it's features, or because it might be a bit quieter than the internal breakout? I've been pleasantly surprised by my Platinum Live, even though I'd probably do better with an M Audio or Aardvark, but I hate to give up the features and I don't really feel like giving up multiple slots for audio if I don't need to.
                            I chose the eX for two reasons: no more 5 1/4 slots in my case and I didn't want to add anymore cables to my box. At this point in time I would recommend going with a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz if you could live w/o the optical-out.

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                            • #29
                              Originally posted by Ryu Connor


                              The combo will not POST.



                              Matrox is recommending people to not purchase the Parhelia if you have an i860. If you already made the purchase they recommend returning the Parhelia.
                              Mine did post, and without any problems. Perhaps this is a vendor-specific i860 problem. (ie. Compaq)

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                              • #30
                                After talking with Matrox, my understanding was that they heard about boot issues with the Compaq mentioned in the post, and at least one other kind of 860 based mobo, but they hadn't tested any specific 860 boards themselves yet, so they were just giving the general warning to avoid that combination for now. Based on the help of this great group, I plan on proceeding with the Super Micro board and the Parhelia to see what happens.

                                I saw someone building up a BIG SM Quad Xeon for a workstation over on the COW, which is very cool , but that really gets to be more machine than I want for this purpose. I'm just planning on using this for simple, long form audio/DV editing and recording, and to control some duplication equipment.

                                I appreciate all the help!

                                Brooke

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