Alton Dual Processor board - why can't I use Celeron?

[journeywoman]

It seemed like a good idea at the time. I'm trying to put together a system cheap (just to prove it can be done) and thought dual processors would be fun to play with so I bought this board.

I should have researched prices before I jumped on the board. My instincts told me P3's would be cheap because everyone would be going to P4. Now it appears Intel is keeping the CPU prices high.

The manual says I have to use P3 processors if I want to run dual. Why? Is there something inherent to the Celeron that stops me from running it dual?

I can't find a decent speed P3 for under $100, but I can get a 950 Celeron for $65.

Originally, I was going to use XP on this system, but I am leaning toward 98 now because of the glitches I am running into on my two XP systems.

Also, can I use two different speed processors, the slower one for the system and the faster one for the programs? Don't be afraid to tell me if I am missing the point.

Thanks in advance for any input.

 

[WarpSpeed]

Some quick info, but I really recommend that you do your homework and read up on Symmetric processing. The early Celerons up to 566MHZ were SMP (symmetric multiprocessing) capable. The next group were not. Some people say that the most recent ones work, but no one seems to have felt it necessary to try them or to report their results. You won't significantly increase your speed using two processors unless your applications can take advantage of them, which is the case with only a relatively few number of programs such as PhotoShop. However, I've found that everything seems to run smoother with two processors, especially if you run multiple applications similtaneously. You can't use Win98; must have WinNT, Win2K, WinXP, Linux, Solaris, BeOS (RIP), or other operating system that supports SMP. You might be able to find older Celerons or P3's cheap. Can sell you my two Celeron 400's that ran in SMP mode at 564MHZ. But it is faster and cheaper to run one Celeron 667 at 1000MHZ, which is what I am using now.

 

[Blayze]

The new Celerons dont work in dual configurations.
the older ones (PPGA ones) work fine on boards like the BP6, VP6, etc...

 

[Spikesoldier]

Intel offically states that you can use 2 processors in SMP mode, providing they are the same family of processor (P2, P3, P3 Xeon...). And thats it. Intel says it works without even matching steppings, cache size, and even speed!

Try searching for some P3 Socket 370 Processors on the 100MHz bus with "E" on the end, meaning you get 256KB of Advanced Transfer Cache. (Such as 700E (700/100/256)). Then bump up to 133 and you should have a nice yield and system.

 

[jayster]

I too am considering putting togrther a cheap SMP system using the Alton or ECS Dual Processor board.
I have one P3 550E with cA2 stepping and another on the way.
I read an article that the older coppermine FC-PGA cA2 stepping cpu's do not support SMP and that the newer cB0 stepping chips do.
Is this true or is it myth?

 

[LiQiCE]

I've never owned a Dual Processor system, but I have worked with them before at my old job. Here is what I know about them:

1) You *MUST* run the same speed processor, you can't have a 500Mhz and a 1Ghz processor in a dual board, it wont work that way.
2) From what I've read on SMP documentation provided by Intel they say they highly recommend that you use the same stepping processor in a Dual Processor setup and do not officially support 2 processors of different steppings. I'm not sure where SpikeSoldier got his info, but I clearly remember reading that same steppings is a requirement for SMP systems. (Maybe that was only on servers, but thats what I recall).
3) Like WarpSpeed said, you must use an SMP aware OS with a Dual processor setup. For Windows, only NT based kernels are SMP aware (this means Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows XP). However, because NT/2000/XP are SMP aware, you do not need a fully SMP aware program to take advantage of SMP. You will gain performance if you are running multiple programs on a Dual processor setup because if one processor is busy doing something, NT/2000/XP will offload other processes onto the 2nd processor. If you're only using 1 program at a time, then yes, only SMP aware programs can take advantage of the 2nd processor.

There are some compatibility issues with SMP, but I am not aware if they have since been worked out or not. One of the most common problems with SMP is that the Sound Blaster Live! drivers in Windows 2000 were not compatible with SMP. This may not be the case any longer, but be aware that there could potentially be some compatibility issues with SMP.

Good luck!

 

[geek167]

Hey people... Before you put money into a dual system be smart and do some research!! Seriously, the forum is plagued with people whose questions are almost laughable. I had a friend once who was just the same way. Stuck a K6-2 into a p3 motherboard. fried both the processor and motherboard. Smart..... Maybe you should at least build your own single system and save dual for a little later.

 

[WageSlave]

you would most likely get way better performance, from just buying the ECS K7S5A and putting the retail athlon xp1700+ on it (132$ at newegg) 58$ for the board

 

[JimMc]

BTW, it must be XP Pro, the Home version does not support SMP.

 

[bizmark]

I bought this board with the same idea. (Actually PC Chips... same thing I think. Also read a review of ECS D6VAA which appears to be the same thing as well, with the exception of the RAID controller on D6VAA.)

Anyway, I haven't yet bought two PIII's yet, but I will do so when I get lots more money (poor college student syndrome :-(). Anyway, from what I've seen, it doesn't really look possible to do dual Celerons. Evidently you could do physical modifications to old Celerons (i.e. 300MHz and thereabouts) that allowed SMP. But I don't think it's possible any more.

Which is fine by me, as I bought a single Celeron with the purpose of keeping this system *really* cheap for now. (I'm at $250 so far...)
So I got an OEM Celeron 850MHz (which seemed to be the optimal price/speed point for Celerons on PriceWatch ($46)) and without a hitch I o/c'd it to 133FSB so I'm now at 1.13GHz. This using only a $6.00 CoolerMaster HSF. I was kind of surprised by how easy it was. This was my first time overclocking. The BIOS version that I have didn't allow stepping like you would want for overclocking, but there are two jumpers on the corner of the motherboard that allow you to force 133FSB. Also, this BIOS doesn't allow voltage tweaking, but it seems to run fine at the voltages that are given to it by the motherboard (sometimes 1.74, sometimes 1.80). And the temps are always <40C. I think it's pretty stable too, as it ran the Prime95 Torture Test for 13 hours straight without an error.

So what I suggest you do is the same thing that I did: buy a cheap Celeron now, overclock it, and enjoy it. Then when P3 prices are reasonable, buy a pair and install Linux.

BTW I'm running XP Pro and haven't had a problem yet... and you won't get any benefit from dual processors with Win98 unless you use a program such as Photoshop.