Abit BP6 - few questions

[cmv]

Hey, I'm looking at getting a BP6 and had a few questions:

1) Can the onboard ultra66 be disabled? Does it use the same Highpoint 366 chip as my BE6?

2) Is this board stable? Are there any older unstable versions or older ones that had problems (like my BE6 having voltage problem, couldn't adjust, had to have it fixed)?

Any other comments? I want to run two Celeron 366@566 but if the BP6 is too much of a pain in the ass I'll skip it... I have a bunch of Abit boards but I doubt I'll be buying any more. I'd rather get stability, etc... I wish I could disable the Highpoint chip on my BE6. Promise Ultra66 cards are much better and cheap. Ah well, sorry for the rant .

 

[cmv]

^

 

[Bigdude]

I have had 3 Abit boards, SM5,LX6,and BH6 all have been very stable and reliable. I'm thinking about getting a BP6 also.

 

[cmv]

Yeah, I'm thinking about it too... It would be nice but I don't want any problems... Want to play with the SMP linux stuff.

 

[nweaver]

I love my BP6, no problems with my Ultra ata. Uses a Highpoint driver? works great. I have 366 celly at 550. Wish I could get a 4x agp, but other than that, I love it. Rock solid stable, run it 2.3 volts. Great overclocking board. Would recemend for anyone. But I am building an AMD System this week with Asus, I have no Loyalty....

 

[jhalada]

I have BP6, and at this point, most of the problems with it have been worked out. But the board went through a lot of growing pains and a few BIOS revisions.

I am just wondering why you would get it at this point in time? It is clearly obsolete, compared to what's on the market now. The processors that it supports Mendocino Celeron have been discontinued some time ago. I don't think the board works with either Coppermine or Coppermine Celeron.

If you are building something new, why not go with current technology? I am in in process of deciding on my new system to replace the BP6, and I am thinking now either Via KT133A board or AMD 760 based board with DDR + Athlon 1 GHz or 1.2 GHz, running it at 133 MHz FSB. Overclocking is also a lot easier, since the multipliers of Athlons are unlocked (or unlockable) vs. the locked multiplier of Celeron (and Pentiums)

 

[cmv]

Well I have a bunch of Celeron 366's to play with. And you *can* run the p3's on the BP6 but it requires quite a bit of modification. This guy has a dual p3 800:

http://www5b.biglobe.ne.jp/~geta_jp/eng_index.htm

Like I said though, lots of modifications plus two Neo 370 adaptors (the original ones it sounds like, not the new ones).

 

[cmv]

I have had some problems with my BE6 with the Highpoint drivers. Latest BIOS and all that but Windows 2000 blue screens. I decided not to use the hpt366 and instead go with the Promise Ultra66 boards. The Promise stuff is rock solid and supported very well in linux (the hpt stuff has support too but the Promise stuff has the best support speedwise, etc).

EDIT: I don't have the Promise Ultra66 in my computer yet, my drives are all on the ATA33 interfaces. I wish one could simply disable the hpt366 with a jumper on the board. I know you can disable it in Windows but it still is a pain. I'm getting an Asus P3B-F in soon that will probably be my main board for a while w/ the Promise Ultra66 board...

 

[jhalada]

cmv,

that modification is way beyond what I am capable of doing.

 

[cmv]

Yeah, it is rather involved! I happen to have a great soldering iron so I could do it. No BP6 at the moment though... Of course timewise it might be better to just get a newer board. Don't have to buy the Neo adapters and all that stuff. I'm just trying to find a BP6 for a great price to run the Celerons on, hehe .

 

[cmv]

Oh, and for anyone interested in doing the mod follow the links off that guys page to some forum thread that has all the details plus a hacked BIOS for the BP6 (has all the new CPU codes) plus more information (couple more links in the forum thread on to more info too!).

 

[jhalada]

cmv,

You may want to look at http://www.bp6.com for more info.

But as I said, at this time, I would not spend any money on BP6. If you have a single processor Celeron 355/550, the dual one is not going to give you that much more, and you will end up spending money with very little to show for it.

If you want to stay with Abit, they have VP6 motherboard, if you want to stay with Intel. But with AMD, you will get a much better deal, and performance. On the low end, just compare any Celeron vs. Duron reviews. Anand's reviews on this site will give you some idea. If you get 133(266) MHz FSB motherboard, you will get so much more performance.

 

[cmv]

Yeah, I hear you. I would notice the difference in linux but I do nothing in Win2k to notice it... My main desktop is Celeron 566@850 so it would be a server (the BP6 w/ dual 550s and running linux). The VP6 sounds interesting...

My interest in the BP6 was because I saw some returns at a decent place selling for $45 each. I'm not sure if they still have them. Currently waiting for them to replace a motherboard UPS lost so I don't want to call up and order another until the first is replaced...

I do agree though. If I can't get a really good deal on a BP6 I'll go with something newer.

 

[haslup]

I bought a used BP6 with two 433 celerons... after a bit of wrangling (and one processor replacement), I got Mandrake 7.2 running on it and it was pretty cool... I bought it to replace a K6-2 400 that's my current linux box, mainly because I wanted to mess around with SMP.

So I took apart the old box, put the drives & ethernet & sound card into the BP6 rig, and poof... no power. Wouldn't (and still won't) power up at all. I'm not sure if I zapped something during the transition, or what, but I think it's dead, Jim. Kind of sucks because SMP linux was fun. I took everything back out and put it to the original configuration and still no go.

I think I'll try and find another BP6, or try out the MSI 694D. Where's the place that has used BP6's for ~$50?

www.bp6.com is a good resource for this board... they have a nice forum and some helpful people.

jason

 

[cmv]

Yeah, I'm going to dig into bp6.com a bit more. I too am interested in playing with linux (and freebsd) SMP so a cheap BP6 would work just great because I have all the components (RAM, HD, CPUs, etc) and I really like the 440BX chipset. Although it looks like it might be time to bit the bullet and move on .

Send me an email and I'll send you the link to the site. They used to have a link on their frontpage to their returned items but it isn't there anymore. I saved a copy and the link still brings up stuff so I assume one can still order the stuff in the list. Not positive though. Email is in my signature.