I installed Windows XP x64 edition on my Athlon X2 computer today. Everything went fine except one thing. I use D-Link DWL-510G rev. 3 wireless adapter which has not official drivers from manufacturer. I tried to install Windows XP 32-bit drivers, however, they didn't work at all. Later I tried Vista 64-bit drivers. After installation Windows recognized the adapter, however, it remained with error status and could not be started. I used google search but there was no particular solution. Nevertheless I found some hints which helped me to solve the problem.
D-Link DWL-510G rev. 3 is based on Ralink RT61 chip. So, I downloaded PCI/mPCI/CB(RT256x/RT266x) drivers from their website. They installed successfully. After that I went to device manager (right click on my computer->properties->hardware->device manager), selected networking (or network) adapter and chose "update driver". Then the answers were "No, not this time", "Install from a list of specific location (Advanced)", "Don't search. I will choose the driver to install.". From the list of manufacturers I found Ralink Technology Corp. and chose "802.11 a/g Wireless LAN PCI". After a short installation you will see "802.11a/g Wireless LAN PCI" in device manager with no exclamation mark. I successfully connected to wireless network and it works well. So, you don't need to buy a new wireless adapter for Windows XP 64 bit (as some people did after no solution had been found).
2008-06-09
Intel Itanium 2 photos
I have bought Intel Itanium 1.3GHz CPU some time ago (Madison core). I have finally uploaded two photos of it to my CPU collection. Last week I bought some more CPUs from famous polish CPU collector ABC-CPU too, so wait for more photos in next several weeks. Collectable ones include Hitachi SH2 from Sega Saturn and Motorola MC68EC030RP25B. The other CPUs are not collectable by me, however, they are included in one set, so I'll show them too.
2008-03-25
VIA VT310-DP usage
I used VIA VT310-DP every day for more than a week now. As expected a performance is not very good, however, it is suitable for most every day tasks. However, there is one exception that it is difficult to ignore. It is video. Most videos don't run smoothly on this computer. Like I said earlier, HD rip works very slow or don't work at all. Other videos run with troubles too. The most common problem is that audio runs faster than a video.
I figured out that this motherboard did not work with those PSUs which didn't have a -5 volt feed. It is optional by today ATX standard and it is needed only by legacy ISA add-in cards (I found this statement in wikipedia), because of this most PSU's do not have this white wire. I think it is a main reason why this motherboard is not supported by VIA anymore and they are difficult to find. Why does it need that -5V feed or was it a design bug? I don't know, there is no information on it and I didn't find any people complaining about this problem. Probably, this motherboard is not used that widely for somebody to notice it and complain in forums. Update 2012-04-30: Currently I can tell that it was wrong assumption. Motherboard perfectly works will all ATX PSU but screen blackout sometimes occur (usually on cold boot, more rarely on restart). I couldn't find the reason of the problem, but if you boot your system with VT-310DP motherboard and nothing appears on the screen (but motherboard works), there are several ways to bring it back to life. Try to attach other PSU, remove one RAM stick, clear CMOS, just leave it alone for some time and try again. I had such blackouts about from 10 to 20 times in 5 years but it always had returned into working condition once again. Actually it still works well for me and serves as testing platform for various purposes.
2008-03-17
VIA VT310-DP
I received my VIA VT310-DP motherboard on Wednesday (March 12). However, I had some problems with booting it. I probably don't have any computers which worked flawlessly from the start. This motherboard was no exception. After I assembled my computer, it booted (fans were working), however, there was no view in the monitor. Firstly I thought that it was a RAM issue but in the end it appeared that PSU of the small case couldn't deliver enough power (Update: see a post above. A reason is not the power shortage but -5V feed). It is quite strange because the motherboard requires only 90-120W PSU. That case has 250W PSU. So, I have to use a full PSU now that it is not good for power usage. This was not the only problem with this motherboard. Then I was assembling it I noticed that I can't connect front panel audio connector because it is not compatible with pins on the motherboard. I perhaps will buy external audio card to solve this problem...
Microsoft Windows XP installed in less than 30 minutes (into SATA hard drive). Almost all hardware (chipset, network, video and so on) wasn't recognized by Windows, I needed to install drivers. Another day appeared that USB was working only 1.1 speed. I needed to change some option in BIOS. If I make shared memory disabled than motherboard hangs on POST test (I installed PCI video card). The only way to escape that reset the BIOS. USB mouse and keyboard support is disabled in BIOS by default. CPUs temperatures are quite high from the start (48-50 Celsius). They rise to 57-64 on full load. But it can be due to their small size. CPU's cooling system consists of a small heat sink (54,5x40mm) and 40x40mm fan on it. I changed default loud fan with the fan made by Titan which is much more quieter, however, I noticed that temperatures was 1-3 degrees higher on idle. Eden-N processors support PowerSaver 3.0 (something like AMD Cool'n'Quiet and Intel SpeedStep) feature, however, I didn't find any driver for it. There is only PowerSaver utility which changes CPU frequency for the second CPU only. What is more, Windows hangs after multiplier reaches 4.5 (default is 7.5). It also hangs after multiplier starts to go up again. So this utility wasn't useful at all and I couldn't use PowerSaver feature.
What about performance? Yes, it is much slower that my Athlon 3400+ system but it is not terrible. The system is usable and quite responsive. I can watch films, do office tasks, browsing, watching photos and and so on without any problems. And the system is almost silent. However, I can't watch HDTV video rips at all. I hoped that GeForce 6200 would solve this, however, I probably need something like HD2400Pro with UVD. I don't know if I'll manage to get it (and need PCI version) and if it really helps (though, CPUs usage don't go higher 80%, so I think that hardware acceleration from video card should help). I changed quite slow Adobe Acrobat Reader with Foxit Reader and it works very well and fast. I will try to change Mozilla Firefox with K-Meleon, however, Firefox is not very slow too, just K-Meleon seems more responsive and less memory hungry right now. If you use Skype, you need to install it without extras support or otherwise SkypePM.exe will use about 50% of all your CPU resources (one CPU) all the time. My e-mail client for a long time is Sylpheed and it works fast too. There is one application where you will see that this processors are much slower. It is Folding@home distributed computing project. While my Athlon64 system working on 70% of its computing power makes one percent in about 28 minutes this system (each CPU) needs several hours and more at least using all 100% of its power. I still need more time to test some other resource hungry applications (for example, java based ones). CPU and memory tests showed very slow FPU performance and quite slow memory system bandwidth (these are known problems with C3 CPUs).
That's all for now. I will write more about it in other posts in the future.
You can find more photos here.
Microsoft Windows XP installed in less than 30 minutes (into SATA hard drive). Almost all hardware (chipset, network, video and so on) wasn't recognized by Windows, I needed to install drivers. Another day appeared that USB was working only 1.1 speed. I needed to change some option in BIOS. If I make shared memory disabled than motherboard hangs on POST test (I installed PCI video card). The only way to escape that reset the BIOS. USB mouse and keyboard support is disabled in BIOS by default. CPUs temperatures are quite high from the start (48-50 Celsius). They rise to 57-64 on full load. But it can be due to their small size. CPU's cooling system consists of a small heat sink (54,5x40mm) and 40x40mm fan on it. I changed default loud fan with the fan made by Titan which is much more quieter, however, I noticed that temperatures was 1-3 degrees higher on idle. Eden-N processors support PowerSaver 3.0 (something like AMD Cool'n'Quiet and Intel SpeedStep) feature, however, I didn't find any driver for it. There is only PowerSaver utility which changes CPU frequency for the second CPU only. What is more, Windows hangs after multiplier reaches 4.5 (default is 7.5). It also hangs after multiplier starts to go up again. So this utility wasn't useful at all and I couldn't use PowerSaver feature.
What about performance? Yes, it is much slower that my Athlon 3400+ system but it is not terrible. The system is usable and quite responsive. I can watch films, do office tasks, browsing, watching photos and and so on without any problems. And the system is almost silent. However, I can't watch HDTV video rips at all. I hoped that GeForce 6200 would solve this, however, I probably need something like HD2400Pro with UVD. I don't know if I'll manage to get it (and need PCI version) and if it really helps (though, CPUs usage don't go higher 80%, so I think that hardware acceleration from video card should help). I changed quite slow Adobe Acrobat Reader with Foxit Reader and it works very well and fast. I will try to change Mozilla Firefox with K-Meleon, however, Firefox is not very slow too, just K-Meleon seems more responsive and less memory hungry right now. If you use Skype, you need to install it without extras support or otherwise SkypePM.exe will use about 50% of all your CPU resources (one CPU) all the time. My e-mail client for a long time is Sylpheed and it works fast too. There is one application where you will see that this processors are much slower. It is Folding@home distributed computing project. While my Athlon64 system working on 70% of its computing power makes one percent in about 28 minutes this system (each CPU) needs several hours and more at least using all 100% of its power. I still need more time to test some other resource hungry applications (for example, java based ones). CPU and memory tests showed very slow FPU performance and quite slow memory system bandwidth (these are known problems with C3 CPUs).
That's all for now. I will write more about it in other posts in the future.
You can find more photos here.
2008-03-12
Photos for all my CPUs
I finally have uploaded photos with all CPUs in my collection. You'll find at least two for each one. You can find them here. There are 18 CPUs at all. You can read about what I am collecting in my previous post.
Intel Itanium 733 MHz2008-03-04
New hardware and focus shift
I didn't wrote for a long time, however I had a lot of changes during this period in my hardware.
Firstly my secondary computers were updated to dual-core Athlon X2 systems. The first one uses Asus M2A-VM HDMI motherboard and AMD Athlon X2 4000+ 65nm CPU, other one MSI K9AGM3-F motherboard this older revision AMD Athlon X2 4200+ 90nm CPU. So, secondary computers (which are used by my sister and mother) now are faster than mine :). And a gap will be even more bigger soon. I decided to make a focus shift and I bought VIA VT-310DP Mini-ITX motherboard. It should arrive in one or two weeks. There are two tiny VIA Eden-N 1 GHz (based on Nehemiah C5P core) processors on it those max TDP is 7W. This motherboard fits more for small server purposes, however, I want to try to use it on desktop. Primary reason for this is energy saving and a wish to see if it has enough power for every day purposes (I'm sure that it will).
.JPG.jpg "MSI K9AGM3-F")
I had several other options for my new computer too. The range of them started from powerful and power consuming quad-core workstations and terminal servers (Fujitsu Primergy TX150 S6) to quite small dual-core energy saving computers (like industrial KINO-690S1 mini-itx motherboard with any AMD Turion X2 processor). Price range was between 800-2200$. However, at the last second I remembered about VIA motherboard and decided to go with it. I hardly found it, however, a transaction is already completed and I am waiting for arrival. Yes, it is a big step backwards in performance even if we compare it with my current system, however, it wasn't that the reason to buy it. I'm going to add PCI video card to boost video content performance.
If we go back to my AlphaPC topic, I tried to install Linux on it, however, my multiply attempts were unsuccessful. I left it for some period without doing nothing.
There are some interesting news too. Firstly, VIA (or Centaur Technology) announced their 64-bit 65 nm Isaiah architecture and Intel branded their very small and ultra-low power 45 nm Silverthorne CPUs to Intel Atom (dumb name IMHO). These two processor families aimed for the similar purposes: small factor computers and appliances. I think they are strong contenders to replace my new motherboard (if it will meet my expectations) after one or two years. We will see. Interesting times are coming.
Firstly my secondary computers were updated to dual-core Athlon X2 systems. The first one uses Asus M2A-VM HDMI motherboard and AMD Athlon X2 4000+ 65nm CPU, other one MSI K9AGM3-F motherboard this older revision AMD Athlon X2 4200+ 90nm CPU. So, secondary computers (which are used by my sister and mother) now are faster than mine :). And a gap will be even more bigger soon. I decided to make a focus shift and I bought VIA VT-310DP Mini-ITX motherboard. It should arrive in one or two weeks. There are two tiny VIA Eden-N 1 GHz (based on Nehemiah C5P core) processors on it those max TDP is 7W. This motherboard fits more for small server purposes, however, I want to try to use it on desktop. Primary reason for this is energy saving and a wish to see if it has enough power for every day purposes (I'm sure that it will).
I had several other options for my new computer too. The range of them started from powerful and power consuming quad-core workstations and terminal servers (Fujitsu Primergy TX150 S6) to quite small dual-core energy saving computers (like industrial KINO-690S1 mini-itx motherboard with any AMD Turion X2 processor). Price range was between 800-2200$. However, at the last second I remembered about VIA motherboard and decided to go with it. I hardly found it, however, a transaction is already completed and I am waiting for arrival. Yes, it is a big step backwards in performance even if we compare it with my current system, however, it wasn't that the reason to buy it. I'm going to add PCI video card to boost video content performance.
 |
| IEI KINO-690S1 |
If we go back to my AlphaPC topic, I tried to install Linux on it, however, my multiply attempts were unsuccessful. I left it for some period without doing nothing.
There are some interesting news too. Firstly, VIA (or Centaur Technology) announced their 64-bit 65 nm Isaiah architecture and Intel branded their very small and ultra-low power 45 nm Silverthorne CPUs to Intel Atom (dumb name IMHO). These two processor families aimed for the similar purposes: small factor computers and appliances. I think they are strong contenders to replace my new motherboard (if it will meet my expectations) after one or two years. We will see. Interesting times are coming.
2007-11-20
AMD Phenom finally presented
After long delays and lots of changes AMD Phenom X4 finally arrived. AMD is in difficult situation this year because they failed to deliver high-end products with leading performance in almost any area. Their Athlon 64 (X2) processor series is not a very competitive with Intel offerings after Core 2 architecture appeared. ATI Radeon graphic chips lag behind NVidia ones (especially in very high-end area). What is more, ATI buyout still costs lots of money for them. Because of this, AMD reported losses every quarter this year. The company needs some new products to change their position. In September AMD released quad-core Opteron 23xx and 83xx processors for servers and workstations. Yesterday they finally released quad-core AMD Phenom (9500 and 9600) which are intended for desktop.
Once again second largest x86 processors manufacturer failed to deliver top product in performance. Even the weakest Intel quad-core Q6600 shows the same or better performance in the most tests than the best AMD model today and in a near future (9600 2,3 GHz and 9700 2,4 GHz). 9700 model was delayed until 2008 Q1 unexpectedly (officially because of lately found error in the processor which AMD wants to iron out before the release). On the other hand, company knew that this processors would not be competitive with Intel and set lower prices for them. Because of this, people who seeks for multicore processors new Phenoms can be attractive. What is more, they are even more attractive for people who has Socket AM2 systems and wants to upgrade. Processors showed their big potencial in multi-threaded applications and they are mostly faster clock-by-clock than Athlon64 processors in single-threaded ones. Besides, they have other additions in virtualisation, SSE, power savings, etc.
I was waiting for them more than a year. They are really late and even AMD admits that. The saddest thing is even after such delay they couldn't deliver something more powerful and first models are the weakest ones. Phenom 9700 delay just proves that AMD still has problems with Quad-Core processors and they are released just with the hope to get some more money in Christmas and New Year buying fever.
Phenom was announced together with RADEON 3000 graphic series and 7-series chipset families. Combined in a one system they forms the Spider platform. I was planning to buy a new desktop computer with year and preferred AMD platform (just because of personal reasons). However, this release was even more disappointing that I expected earlier. I will be waiting for 2008 Q1 to see if AMD can deliver high-end processors (at least 2,6 GHz). If no, probably I will delay my new computer even more. Intel plans to release Nehalem for the desktop in 2008 Q4. It would be a plenty of time for AMD to recover until that. Otherwise, I'll choose Intel system.
Once again second largest x86 processors manufacturer failed to deliver top product in performance. Even the weakest Intel quad-core Q6600 shows the same or better performance in the most tests than the best AMD model today and in a near future (9600 2,3 GHz and 9700 2,4 GHz). 9700 model was delayed until 2008 Q1 unexpectedly (officially because of lately found error in the processor which AMD wants to iron out before the release). On the other hand, company knew that this processors would not be competitive with Intel and set lower prices for them. Because of this, people who seeks for multicore processors new Phenoms can be attractive. What is more, they are even more attractive for people who has Socket AM2 systems and wants to upgrade. Processors showed their big potencial in multi-threaded applications and they are mostly faster clock-by-clock than Athlon64 processors in single-threaded ones. Besides, they have other additions in virtualisation, SSE, power savings, etc.
I was waiting for them more than a year. They are really late and even AMD admits that. The saddest thing is even after such delay they couldn't deliver something more powerful and first models are the weakest ones. Phenom 9700 delay just proves that AMD still has problems with Quad-Core processors and they are released just with the hope to get some more money in Christmas and New Year buying fever.
Phenom was announced together with RADEON 3000 graphic series and 7-series chipset families. Combined in a one system they forms the Spider platform. I was planning to buy a new desktop computer with year and preferred AMD platform (just because of personal reasons). However, this release was even more disappointing that I expected earlier. I will be waiting for 2008 Q1 to see if AMD can deliver high-end processors (at least 2,6 GHz). If no, probably I will delay my new computer even more. Intel plans to release Nehalem for the desktop in 2008 Q4. It would be a plenty of time for AMD to recover until that. Otherwise, I'll choose Intel system.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)