Mudderoy
11-24-2009, 10:47 AM
Recently I started having problems with my older socket 939 motherboard. The primary drive had issues. It was acting funny. I was able to get WinXP Pro reloaded on it. I didn't do a fresh install, just a repair. Basically this reloads WinXP Pro from the CD but leaves the registry and information on the hard drive intact. Programs, data, anything but Windows.
A couple of days later it failed again, hard. I tried booting the CD to windows command prompt and running CHKDSK, but it was taking literally hours to check any of the three SATA 2 drives.
After trying a few more things I finally decided that the motherboard must be the issue. I looked and a few of the large electrolitic capacitators tops were puffed up and out. This usually means they have changed their values, which can mean more AC ripple or timing issues, depending on what they are being used for. I have seen this effect memory in the past. If you clocked down the memory speed it would work, for example.
So even though I really didn't want to spend the money my system was dead and I just can't be without my desktop computer. I looked and even though it was more than I wanted to spend I got (what I found out later) was the top of the line Gigabyte motherboard (GIGABYTE GA-MA790X-UD4P). It supports AM2, AM2+ and AM3 processors. I had a spare AMD X2 4200+ processor so really all I needed was a motherboard and memory.
I purchased the motherboard and 2 sticks of DDR2 Kingston (my first time to buy Kingston) 2GB, for a total of 4GB. I ordered from NewEgg. I think it was $220 for both. I got it installed and about an hour of work I was able to get windows back up. According to SmartDrive I had the limit of correctable errors on my 2003 300GB SATA 2 primary drive, so I cloned my primary drive to my newer 500GB SATA 2. I was hoping to use that drive on the xjtalk server, but oh well.
So now my computer is fat dumb and happy, but not so it's master. I was poking around on Newegg last week and I saw that they had a AM2 processor, AMD X2 6000+, for $54! OMG! I couldn't let that go buy. That would be such a boost to my system's performance. While thinking of controling myself, I decided to look at the processor I really wanted a Phenom. Quad core, but $180. I don't like spending more than $100 on a system componet. If it isn't $100 (or less) it will be soon. So I noticed the 3 core Phenoms and the 2 cord Phenoms. I thought it would be nice to have a current technology processor, even if it was a dual core.
(A core is a CPU - Central Processing Unit. The BRAIN of the computer. Actually I call the core the computer, because without the CORE nothing will happen! So when I saw 2, 3, or 4 cores I'm speaking of the number of CPUs inside the single case.)
At $102 for the Phenom II X2 550 black edition it met my $100 requirement and my wish for more current technology. I ordered it and waited.
The delivery date was Monday (yesterday) so in anticipation of receiving the new processor (processors actually - multiple cores) I was reading some of the reviews of the processor on Newegg.
They have Pros, Cons, and Other. One person wrote until the "Pros" that he was able to unlock the two additional cores. WHAT?!?!?! A quick Google search and I found out that the 2 core (X2) processor I had ordered actually was manufactured as a quad core (X4) and had 2 cores disabled. It was explained that the 2 cores didn't pass quality assurance, so they were disabled, and the processor labeled and priced as a dual core. From all that I read the vast majority of these processors was easy unlocked and used as quad core processors, that are $50 to $80 more expensive.
What I needed was a motherboard that supported the software (BIOS) used to unlock the two additional cores. Yep, you guessed it that high end Gigabyte motherboard was one of them. From what I read it was the preferred motherboard by many for this mod.
I downloaded the latest BIOS from Gigabyte, updated the motherboard with this software. I put the new Phenom II processor in and made two simple changes in the BIOS and booted WinXP Pro.
Using CPUZ I was happy to see...
http://xjtalk.com/images/special/phenomii1.jpg
Bottom right, Cores [ 4 ]. Wow I was excited. It looked good. I ran a quick Prime95 test. It was stable for the few minutes that I ran it. I decided that a game of "Left 4 Dead" would be a more interesting stress test. :smiley-laughing021: So for the next hour I tested the system.
Now this isn't the icing on the cake. It seems that this processor labeled to run as a 3.1 GHz processor can easily be overclocked to 3.7, 3.8 GHz, and with the proper cooling up to 4.0 GHz. 4 cores running at 4.0 GHz! For $100! Wow!
I normally monitor the CPU usage by running taskmanger and minimizing it. You'll see it in the taskbar tray as a little box with green and black. The Green tells you, graphically, how much CPU you are using. 0 to 100%.
I was running Sun Virtualbox (running a Linux virtual system) watching HDTV via my internal TV tuner card and I would barely see a line of green in the CPU usage graphic.
As soon as I find a good program that can monitor the CPU core temperature I will try overclocking the processors to 3.7, 3.8 GHz.
Now I have read that about 70% of the phenom ii x2 550 black edition tested were able to have the additional cores unlocked. So if you want a quad core processor I'd buy a quad core processor. I looked at it this way. I thought I was getting a dual core processor and if that was all it could do, fine.
Here is the processor, the information on the face may help you if you try this path with your own build.
http://xjtalk.com/images/special/phenomii.jpg
Additional Observations: This processor picture (just above) was taken on a Nikon D300 camera. We have it set to take pictures in the highest res Nikon format images. Once the picture is taken (12 MB) I convert it to JPEG and then edit it in one of my photo editors. The one I use doesn't edit Nikon format files. I use ViewNX to convert the picture(s) to JPEG. When I went to convert 3 pictures, it was nearly instatainous! This would have normally taken about 30 seconds before. So there was at least a 10 fold increase in pure calculation from a AMD 4200+ to the AMD Phenom II X2 3.1 GHz processor.
A couple of days later it failed again, hard. I tried booting the CD to windows command prompt and running CHKDSK, but it was taking literally hours to check any of the three SATA 2 drives.
After trying a few more things I finally decided that the motherboard must be the issue. I looked and a few of the large electrolitic capacitators tops were puffed up and out. This usually means they have changed their values, which can mean more AC ripple or timing issues, depending on what they are being used for. I have seen this effect memory in the past. If you clocked down the memory speed it would work, for example.
So even though I really didn't want to spend the money my system was dead and I just can't be without my desktop computer. I looked and even though it was more than I wanted to spend I got (what I found out later) was the top of the line Gigabyte motherboard (GIGABYTE GA-MA790X-UD4P). It supports AM2, AM2+ and AM3 processors. I had a spare AMD X2 4200+ processor so really all I needed was a motherboard and memory.
I purchased the motherboard and 2 sticks of DDR2 Kingston (my first time to buy Kingston) 2GB, for a total of 4GB. I ordered from NewEgg. I think it was $220 for both. I got it installed and about an hour of work I was able to get windows back up. According to SmartDrive I had the limit of correctable errors on my 2003 300GB SATA 2 primary drive, so I cloned my primary drive to my newer 500GB SATA 2. I was hoping to use that drive on the xjtalk server, but oh well.
So now my computer is fat dumb and happy, but not so it's master. I was poking around on Newegg last week and I saw that they had a AM2 processor, AMD X2 6000+, for $54! OMG! I couldn't let that go buy. That would be such a boost to my system's performance. While thinking of controling myself, I decided to look at the processor I really wanted a Phenom. Quad core, but $180. I don't like spending more than $100 on a system componet. If it isn't $100 (or less) it will be soon. So I noticed the 3 core Phenoms and the 2 cord Phenoms. I thought it would be nice to have a current technology processor, even if it was a dual core.
(A core is a CPU - Central Processing Unit. The BRAIN of the computer. Actually I call the core the computer, because without the CORE nothing will happen! So when I saw 2, 3, or 4 cores I'm speaking of the number of CPUs inside the single case.)
At $102 for the Phenom II X2 550 black edition it met my $100 requirement and my wish for more current technology. I ordered it and waited.
The delivery date was Monday (yesterday) so in anticipation of receiving the new processor (processors actually - multiple cores) I was reading some of the reviews of the processor on Newegg.
They have Pros, Cons, and Other. One person wrote until the "Pros" that he was able to unlock the two additional cores. WHAT?!?!?! A quick Google search and I found out that the 2 core (X2) processor I had ordered actually was manufactured as a quad core (X4) and had 2 cores disabled. It was explained that the 2 cores didn't pass quality assurance, so they were disabled, and the processor labeled and priced as a dual core. From all that I read the vast majority of these processors was easy unlocked and used as quad core processors, that are $50 to $80 more expensive.
What I needed was a motherboard that supported the software (BIOS) used to unlock the two additional cores. Yep, you guessed it that high end Gigabyte motherboard was one of them. From what I read it was the preferred motherboard by many for this mod.
I downloaded the latest BIOS from Gigabyte, updated the motherboard with this software. I put the new Phenom II processor in and made two simple changes in the BIOS and booted WinXP Pro.
Using CPUZ I was happy to see...
http://xjtalk.com/images/special/phenomii1.jpg
Bottom right, Cores [ 4 ]. Wow I was excited. It looked good. I ran a quick Prime95 test. It was stable for the few minutes that I ran it. I decided that a game of "Left 4 Dead" would be a more interesting stress test. :smiley-laughing021: So for the next hour I tested the system.
Now this isn't the icing on the cake. It seems that this processor labeled to run as a 3.1 GHz processor can easily be overclocked to 3.7, 3.8 GHz, and with the proper cooling up to 4.0 GHz. 4 cores running at 4.0 GHz! For $100! Wow!
I normally monitor the CPU usage by running taskmanger and minimizing it. You'll see it in the taskbar tray as a little box with green and black. The Green tells you, graphically, how much CPU you are using. 0 to 100%.
I was running Sun Virtualbox (running a Linux virtual system) watching HDTV via my internal TV tuner card and I would barely see a line of green in the CPU usage graphic.
As soon as I find a good program that can monitor the CPU core temperature I will try overclocking the processors to 3.7, 3.8 GHz.
Now I have read that about 70% of the phenom ii x2 550 black edition tested were able to have the additional cores unlocked. So if you want a quad core processor I'd buy a quad core processor. I looked at it this way. I thought I was getting a dual core processor and if that was all it could do, fine.
Here is the processor, the information on the face may help you if you try this path with your own build.
http://xjtalk.com/images/special/phenomii.jpg
Additional Observations: This processor picture (just above) was taken on a Nikon D300 camera. We have it set to take pictures in the highest res Nikon format images. Once the picture is taken (12 MB) I convert it to JPEG and then edit it in one of my photo editors. The one I use doesn't edit Nikon format files. I use ViewNX to convert the picture(s) to JPEG. When I went to convert 3 pictures, it was nearly instatainous! This would have normally taken about 30 seconds before. So there was at least a 10 fold increase in pure calculation from a AMD 4200+ to the AMD Phenom II X2 3.1 GHz processor.