Category: amd

Phenom: Phew! it works

ASUS BIOS update

So, the project was originally quite simple. Upgrade the AMD Athlon processor to a Phenom processor.

The Gigabyte motherboard supported the AM2 socket system, therefore replacement of the processor by simple drop in and out. Oh, but computers are never that easy.

After failing to boot with constant long beeps: I decided to purchase an ASUS motherboard. After upgrading the BIOS (see above), the machine seemed to boot OK. Certainly boot and stay stable enough for timing tests of Athlon vs. Phenom in a previous post.

Adding the extra 2Gb of RAM just pushed the poor system over the edge. Random reboots and general instability. My first thought was to blame the Phenom. How wrong I was.

Thanks to this comment from Tim, I hunted down the documentation of the ASUS motherboard and found that the Corsair memory I was using was not certified! 5-5-5-12 vs 4-4-4-12 timing memory is not a small thing. Also, there are voltage differences between the memory sticks.

Corsair 4-4-4-12 vs 5-5-5-12

So CM2X1024-6400 did not work, but the CM2X1024-6400C4 is working perfectly well – 4Gb installed on a Vista x64 24×7 and under CPU load.

Lesson learnt: read the supported memory documentation!

Oh, and the Phenom is a good 20% or so better transcoding video. Phew.

AMD Phenom Phantom on Gigabyte Guts with no Glory

IMG_1666

According to documentation, you should just be able to socket replace your AMD Athlon (Socket AM2) with an AMD Phenom. Boot, and watch the bits fly. Well, theoretically.

In my Gigabyte’s case: this was not to be so. The smaller Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H (blah!) is in our Media Center PC. This combination has been working well in production for months.

Continuous beeps (longish) from the Power-on-self-test (POST) indicates either power, memory, motherboard or somesuch failure. The Gigabyte documentation is 7 lines long and 7 pages short on helping.

OK, reading the procedures on forums and stuff.

It’s not the power supply. I can swap out the Phenom and Athlon with the same “everything” and it boots.

The Gigabyte online specifications state that the 9600 Black Edition (BE) is supported with a recent BIOS update. My BIOS has been at this update for the last 2 months in anticipation of the Phenom processor.

In short, wait people. Or at least research a little more than I did. Colleagues report that ASUS motherboards are work OK.

Oh the joys of hardware.

Weekend Project: Windows Media Center

Yes, I know that the correct english spelling of Center is Centre.

Windows Media Centre

Thanks to the generosity of Jeffa, I scored an old Mini-ATX case with power supply. Yeah, being the junior on the team – I get all the hand-me-downs.

Some hundreds of dollars later from AUSPCMarket, and I have my first ever:

  1. AMD based PC (AMD Athlan64 x2 6000+)
  2. Gigabyte Motherboard PC (GA-MA69GM-S2H)
  3. Self-constructed PC (only a screwdriver required)
  4. Media Center PC (Vista Ultimate)
  5. Microsoft Wireless Keyboard 8000

Not being a hardware type, the moving of cables, CPUs, fans, more cables and stuff made the physical construction a little longer than an expert. There are still some internal wiring bits to complete: hard disk light at the front and CD audio. Also missed that the our Acer LCD TV has VGA and PC Audio. The cables I purchased were not correct.

The toughest part was installing the power to the SATA DVD/CD drive, and ensuring the CD eject button had enough clearance to work.

The first PATA (this was a surprise!) hard disk was stuffed, so off to plan B with a 500Gb PATA and we’re away. The motherboard would not boot up with this hard disk attached; so the old disk is a throw away.

Using the onboard graphics and USB based TV tuner is probably sub-optimal. Need to fix these.

To add/change

  1. Dual channel PCI DVB-T card
  2. DivX support (complete at 9:40pm)
  3. TV Guide so I can record TV successfully.

Oh, and the cats love the extra space. The case and CPU are quiet and relatively cool. The cave aspect of the case make it a perfect hunting spot:

IMG_1283