AMD Athlon XP 1700+ Boxed CPU w/Soyo AS-A750 BareBone System for $199

[freeabc]

I got a P4 1.6Ghz Dell Dimension 4400 for $516 (minus 100 (200?) rebate) from Dell.
That was the hot deal on Thurday.

I am curious how much you can build a similar system with AS-A750 BareBone System. Performance wise is this much better?

I could sell my new Dell to my colleague to get this one. Do you think it is worth to do it?

Thanks in advance.

 

[altonb1]

should woulda coulda...

The way I had disabled Win98 should have been sufficient for installing XP, or even a re-install of Windows. Unfortunately, neither would work. so...I went through and cleaned out the hard drive, ghosted the data I really though needed saving, and then wiped the drive. Booted to a 98 startup disk, choosing to bypass all system files. Ran fdisk and removed the partition. Created a new primary partition. Booted to XP CD. Started loading files, and then when it got to the "Starting Windows" section, I received PAGE_FAULT_IN_NON_PAGED_AREA. (which is the same as before I wiped the drive) decided to format the drive with 98. Formatted disk, tried booting to the Win XP cd, and got the same result. Booted to the Win98 disk w/ CD support. Switched to the CD and ran winnt from the command line ot kick off the install. Still got the same error as it attempts to start windows.

Tried Windows 98. 98 started to run, then suddenly dropped me back to the C:\ prompt. no errors. Try to start setup again, and i just go to a C:\ prompt without anything loading. I have tried installing 98 by booting first, then running setup from the CD AND booting from the CD directly. Neither work.

The 512Mb Crucial stick is brand new, but I guess it could be flaky. Only have 1 stick of DDR, so i can't swap it out to test with a known good. I really don't know what to do with this system. If i just wanted to run DOS on this thing, I think I'd be set!

I found a thread on doomforum or something like that (never been there before, but a search in Google hit upon it -- shoulda bookmarked it!) where some guy was complaining about the "file setupdd.sys could not be loaded" error that he kept getting. It seemed to me that he had a new board, but he also mentioned that it was working fine. He then said that Win 95 & 98 also were crapping out on him. He finally swapped ram chips with his roommate and found that everything ran fine. his Ram was flaky. i have a memory testing program that I guess I'll run on it and see what it finds. This is crucial ram, though, so I'm surprised. I referred my sister to Crucial because I have always heard they are the best, but damn...this is the first time I have EVER gotten a bad stick of RAM from anywhere - shows, retails, etc. Not too impressed with Crucial at this point, if the RAM is definitely the problem.

 

[bigmouth]

FreeABC,

if compared to that particular DELL deal, I think the price is about same. 400$ can fix you the AS750 machine as well if you go with 20GB HDD 128MB DDR Geforce 2.
the con of AS750: No OS, crapy case.
However, P4 1.6G is piece of junk. It only compares to PIII 1G, believe it or not. There are whole bunch of reviews/benchbarks prove that Athlon XP 1700+ can easily catch up with P4 2G. And invest on 128MB DDR is very much unwise.



<< I got a P4 1.6Ghz Dell Dimension 4400 for $516 (minus 100 (200?) rebate) from Dell.
That was the hot deal on Thurday.

I am curious how much you can build a similar system with AS-A750 BareBone System. Performance wise is this much better?

I could sell my new Dell to my colleague to get this one. Do you think it is worth to do it?

Thanks in advance. >>

 

[altonb1]

Ran tests on the memory for about 9 hours with a program called Memtest that throughly checks your RAM for problems. the chip comes up clean. Even if I disable the external cache, i get the same errors. Am I the only one that is still having an issue getting an OS loaded on this thing?

 

[wasssup]

check this out:
http://www.hardocp.com/reviews/vidcards/ati/8500/index4.html

I dunno if it'll solve your problems, but I had tons of problems with my ati cards...i was looking for a review for the radeon 8500 and stumbled upon this information, saying that disabling fast writes solved the BSOD/freezing problems.

Good luck.

 

[Sirgey]

Alton, I had the same problems loading my OS, with the "sys" error, I bought a stick of 256 Micro for this board, and couldn't get the OS up and stable, as soon as I went to best buy, and bought a 256 K-byte, the OS loaded without a hitch. You might want to try to buy a stick from a store and try it out.

 

[Motorshow]

If you have a wd 40g ata100 drive. The Western Digital site says windows 2000 won't load
on a ata100 drive. Reset it to ata33 and it loads fine.
I have xp on my with the ata100 wd 40g
geforce 3 ti 200
256 crucial ram
sound blaster 5.1
haupauge wintv
volcano7
temp 38

works great, the case is fine for what it cost.
No blue screens since I loaded it up 9 days ago

 

[guaraguao]

ok guys, I'm up and running. I had to reinstall win2k (blue screen: "cannot find boot disk" or somesuch. btw, repair does NOT work, you have to reinstall ).
I initially had problems with my geforce2 mx agp, (namely, nothing appeared on screen), but I looked in the manual and the first thing in the F AQ said to "push in real hard" the card. So, after doing that, works fine. I LANed last night with a guy... (quake/HL) No problems whatsoever as far as stability goes.

I pose a question to the thread: What is the actual speed in mhz of an athlon 1700+? On bootup (everything set to auto-detect--I haven't set any multipliers)I get "1100" mhz, I was under the impression this was 1.3 or 1.4 ghz.
Another question... What is the multiplier setting of this chip? I can't seem to track this down online, and even though the athlon came boxed nicely, it doesn't have a manual that covers this.

[edit]: I changed the cpu frequency to 133... the motherboard correctly recognizes the chip as XP 1700+.

 

[DanteThunder]

HELP! I have had no problems with my system whatsoever except the current temp it runs it. Either IDLE of after several hours of intense workload, this thing runs at 52 degrees C. I do not have a case fan, and thats why I am writing. Right now I am just using the standard HS/F from AMD. And a cyclone blower in the PCI slot just below my video card.

I need to know what the best setup as far as case fans go is for this thing. I am not sure what size of fan fits in the back of the case near the serial ports. Is that 60mm??? I was thinking I could go with one of those in the back, and an 80mm fan in the front. I was going to order online, so please let me know if you own this case and know anything about this crazy metric system...

Dante

AMD Athlon XP 1800+ (1.53GHZ)
SY-K7ADA ATX Motherboard (266 FSB) VIA Ali MAGIK 1 chipset
SOYO Mid-Tower w/ 300W PS (P4/AMD cert)
256MB Crucial DDR PC2100
VISIONTEK Xtasy 5632 GEFORCE2 GTS-V 4X 32MB 256 bit DDR
40GB MAXTOR 7200RPM
TDK 24/10/40 veloCD ReWriter

 

[BigPlastic]

Do a search for "panaflo" and you'll find links to several discussions about fan deals (not just Panaflo). Pick up an 80mm and it'll be simple to pop right into the enclosure on the front assuming you get the correct connector. I cut up a 4 pin and it fit fine on the 3-pin on the board. The fan in the back is indeed 60mm (look higher in this thread), but you'll need hardware to attach it since there's not an enclosure back there. I can't imagine why your temp is so high. I'm around 41-42 under normal use.

 

[bigmouth]

<< Do a search for "panaflo" and you'll find links to several discussions about fan deals (not just Panaflo). Pick up an 80mm and it'll be simple to pop right into the enclosure on the front assuming you get the correct connector. I cut up a 4 pin and it fit fine on the 3-pin on the board. The fan in the back is indeed 60mm (look higher in this thread), but you'll need hardware to attach it since there's not an enclosure back there. I can't imagine why your temp is so high. I'm around 41-42 under normal use. >>



I couldn't imagine the crapy case itself can give you 41-42 under normal use. I was getting 52 too. I ended up with moving the MB and CPU towards an antec case. Now I am receiving a 43 Idle. I put this thin in a semi-closet so it's a good result for me.
The Soyo case sucks even though it looks nice to me. I wouldn't bother to add a case fan to it since it's already too noisy with the PSU alone. Just sold it for 20$.

 

[BigPlastic]

He said his runs at 52 IDLE, there's a difference there. Mine got up to 45 last night, that's about as high as I've seen it. I'd still pop a 60mm fan in the back. It helped me. PS is incredibly loud.

 

[Jened]

Holy fans Batman! I didn't realize the matter was so involved. If anyone bought a fan, can they make any recommendations? I searched for panaflo as was recommended, but have no idea what I need for a fan or connector since I don't know the specs on this system and outpost's product page wasn't too detailed.

 

[guaraguao]

Mine is at 42/43C right now, after playing about 30 minutes of CS, with the geforce overclocked. I took the fan out of a dead power supply and stuck it in the bottom front of the case. I don't know if this makes a difference, but I haven't had heating problems... Right now there is a Netgear NIC and a Geforce in there, 2 HDDs and 2 CD drives.

I tried sticking my AiW PCI card in, and I get a really freaky colorful screen right as the login screen in w2k is supposed to show up; I'm guessing some conflict, but I'm not sure why, because this same exact setup worked on my old mobo...

 

[altonb1]

Well, my nephew and I broke down and contacted Microsoft on a 3-way call. He's 13 and wants to be a tech, so i figured it made sense to have him call and put the ticket in his name and I would assist with the technical side of things.

Anyway, the Microsoft tech told us that the setupdd.sys error is "99.44% memory" related and we should try removing one of the sticks of ram to see if we could identify the problem. We advised that we only have a single stick of 512MB, and he advised that XP sometimes, although rare, has a problem installing on machines with 512MB. My nephew contacted Crucial and told them we needed to return the 512MB stick since it might be defective AND we would like to exchange it for two 256MB sticks. My nephew advised he would need to call back when his mom was available because he knew there would be an additional fee involved (price difference between the single 512MB and two 256 sticks) and was informed that he would be charged the difference in price from the day he ordered, but when he called back the next day to get the RMA number and get a price total, the rep wanted to give him credit for actual price paid and charge the difference between the current price. (RAM has jumped in price again. My sister paid about $152 when we ordered it a couple of weeks ago, but now it was around $190.) My nephew objected, and was told that there was nothing they could do. He called from my house, told me, and I loudly said, "No way!" Tell them they can have the stick back and we will go a computer show this weekend and buy Micron RAM for much less and Crucial can just get the stick back and lose the sale completely. My nephew asked for a supervisor, and the rep put him on hold, then came back and said they would make an exception and charged him about $10 for the swap. Since the price difference should have only been a couple of bucks, i wasn't happy with that, but told him that it would be acceptable. The RAM was shipped out to Crucial on Tuesday for 2 day delivery, and they paid Crucial to overnight the RAM to them, so it should be here on Friday. I'll keep everyone posted on the result just in case this thread may help others eXPeriencing a similar problem.

-al-

 

[Jened]

thanks for the update altonb1 and good luck!

 

[ThaPerculator]

On a follow-up note form my previos post, the chip that i pushed in was actually the BIOS chip. I dont know how that fixed it, because I was geting way past POST when booting, I was actually installing a OS, and it would only crash after installing EVERYTHING and waiting to start windows. All I know is that I'm running on win 2K now, and it's smooth as silk (besides the heat but some good fans took care of that). I kept thinkign it was a memory problem up until then, but I think crucial's track record stands for itself... dunno if this helps at all, but I would suggest everyone to try it before resorting to buying new mobo's and such...

 

[Confucius]

<< AMD Athlon XP 1700+ Boxed CPU w/Soyo AS-A750 BareBone System at Outpost

http://shop3.outpost.com/product/3254121/ >>



Boo .. HISSS ..HISS .. 2 time I have returned the entire system .. first time the systemboard was blown .. the secon time the case was crushed and the system board was dead .. what a crock .. they are good about the return and refunding my shipping costs but .. still hiss ..boo ..hiss .. Soyo knows that this board has a high tendency of blowing if ANY pressure is placed on the system board or a change in voltage .. Text

 

[altonb1]

The two 256MB chips arrived yesterday. Slapped one of them into the system, and attempted to load XP. Everything installed w/o a hitch. Didn't even have any issues with the Radeon VE video card. Popped the 2nd 256MB chip in after install completed, and system sees 512MB fine and system is having zero problems. So...if anyone has a problem installing XP with 512MB and you have more than 1 chip, try removing a chip and see if lowering the amount of RAM fixes the problem.. If it doesn't, it could be bad ram. I didn't try to install with the full 512MB because I just wanted to get the thing up and running. As such, I didn't go out of my way to test the 512 install theory on this system. During install, the performance difference between 256MB and 512Mb should be minimal, so it was easier to install with something that would work right off the bat.

Hope this helps someone else.... I'm just happy it's finally up and running.

Now...if anyone knows how to edit user accounts in XP Home further than 'administrator' and 'limited', I would be grateful. I haven't had much exposure to XP, yet, and in NT, you could fully customize the specific rights available to each user. I want to grant more access to my nephew than limited, but don't want him to have full admin rights. Under limited access, many software packages won't even install! Is this a limitation in XP Home, or do i edit this policy elsewhere than user setup? If anyone can PM me the info (or post it to this thread, if you wish), I'd appreciate it.

Thanks!

 

[guaraguao]

Glad you're finally up and running, altonb. :->

I was just sitting here earlier, watching this thing go through SETI... sweeeeet. Thanks again to CiscoGuy.

 

[punkrock]

mines a piece of garbage and wont even post. was sent back but no refund on shipping! They refused twice! Spent 30 bucks now in shipping (15 to get it and 15 back)

kept the cpu since it was shipped separate.

Anybody get a refund on the shipping?

 

[HadokenShinryuken]

Received mine yesterday. Slapped in Creative 52x Cd-rom drive, 1 stick of 256 Crucial 2100 (In dimm 1), GeForce2 32 MB card, 20 Gig Seagate HD and a generic Floppy. At first the posting was slow. So slow I would have to walk away from the machine otherwise I feel I would not have been able to control the urge to kick the case across the floor. I had the HD set for master but apparently the bios didn't much care for that. Changed it to cable select and the post screamed through. Installed a better chip fan. The one that comes with it is pretty rinky-dink. The cool master (Had one laying around that someone had given me) I put on it seems to keep it cool enough but I still would like a couple of case fans for the front and back. Its nice that the case has side holes but I still think you need a front and back fan to push the hot air through.

Slapped Windows XP pro on the machine from a clean install. Built without a hitch. Everything detected and no lock ups or unexpected reboots. Oh yeah, I failed to mention, I had to change the dip switch settings as described in this thread in order to get the proper CPU "display".

So far, I am pleased with the results. Very pleased actually. Time will tell if it holds up to my 24/7 running of the machine. Its fairly cool in my computer room so heating is not a huge issue at the moment. I am sure when summer swings around things may change and hopefully the fans will negate the temperature.

It's time to try and get this thing to crash.