Before Installing the A7V333 and A7M266...

[nlh]

I will be building two computers soon - my brother's A7M266 XP1800 system, and my own A7V333 XP1800 system.

I have a few questions before I get started.

First, should I set the jumpers appropriately before running the system, or should I leave both motherboards in 'Jumper-Free' mode?
Either way, I'll have to edit the BIOS/jumper settings to set them to the 1800's specifications, which I don't know. I'll look them up soon - I imagine I can find them at AMD's site.

I've heard that there are some problems with the A7V333's 1007 BIOS - is this true, and should I, first thing, flash my BIOS to the 1008?

I read today that, while using IDE cables, I should connect one cable to the hard drive, one to the CD-ROM, and one to the Floppy drive, although the Hard Drive and CD-ROM can, potentially, share one cable. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

And, my final question deals with mounting the motherboard(s), and standoffs. My case from www.sofistic.com came with a 400w power supply, and is a mid-tower ATX case. I purchased a new power supply, an Enermax, for this system. The case came with standoffs different than any which I have seen on the internet - should I just buy some new ones and use them? Also, should I use the brass standoffs near the I/O side of the board and the plastic standoffs near where the DIMMs are located?

Sorry for all the questions, but this is my first time building a computer, and I hope to do it all right.

Thanks in advance.

 

[mechBgon]

With the A7V333, try JumperFree to start out with, and when you fire the board up it will show the BIOS screen and ask you to pick the right CPU speed. One will be 1150MHz and the other will be 1533MHz, and these represent the speeds your 1800+ will run at 100MHz and 133MHz bus speeds, respectively. Select 1533MHz, save changes and exit, and the BIOS will take that as the CPU speed unless the CMOS is cleared, battery removed or BIOS flashed. It will also revert to that screen if it's unable to POST for some reason, including if you shut off the power while it's POSTing. Nothing to worry about there.

I don't know precisely what Asus means when they say that the new 1008 BIOS "Support new version of MSSD chip". I'm guessing MSSD stands for Microsoft Secure Digital and that this refers to the SmartCard reader header, but that's entirely speculation. My own A7V333 is running pretty well on 1007, but it's not being pushed in an overclocked situation or anything very stressful... just an office PC.

With the A7M266, I'd also use JumperFree.

As for IDE, the conventional wisdom is that you don't pair up optical drives with hard drives because the hard drive will perform better without having to share the cable with a slower drive like an optical drive. Also, if you have just the hard drive on a cable, put it at the end connector, not the middle one... this prevents signal bounce on the vacant section of cable.

I use threaded standoffs for all the mounting holes unless there's some good reason not to.

 

[nlh]

Thanks for the help again, mechBgon.

Do you use the brass threaded standoffs? I think I might use half brass, half plastic. I just ordered some standards ones and some IDE cables in a bundle for a few dollars. I also got, today, an ATA133 IDE made by Maxtor, and I'll be running a Maxtor Fireball AS 40gb, so it should work well. I'll definitely use the end of the cable for the connection, etc.

My computer will be used mostly for desktop stuff and lots of gaming - I ordered the Volcano fan for case cooling, and the Alpha PAL8045 as a heatsink (with an 80mm Delta 68cfm fan, of course).

Hopefully this will work well - thanks again for the help.

And, I guess I'll stay with the 1007, but I'm wondering if it's safer to flash the BIOS up as soon as I can, just to be current. Asus instructs how to save the old BIOS, too, so I'll back it up.

 

[Buz2b]

I agree with mechBgon on the standoffs; use the brass threaded ones. Leave out the plastic. Also, use the jumper free mode on the A7M266. HOWEVER, you may have a problem that you don't realize yet with it. If you do not have at least the v.1005 or above for the BIOS, you will not be able to use the XP cpu; at least not yet. If you have an earlier version, you would need to install a T-bird or Duron to boot and flash the BIOS to v.1005 or above. Then you could install the XP.
There is an excellent thread at the AMD MB Forum on the setup and installation of that MB. (Hopefully the link will allow you access). There are some settings (slew rates) that need to be set for an XP CPU also. Those are covered in that thread.
Corrected link to acess first page of the thread.

 

[nlh]

Do you think an A7m266 purchased last week should have the recent BIOS on it?

Thanks for the link, much information there. Turns out I may not need to flash my A7V, and hopefully I won't have to bother with my A7M either.

Thanks again - seems like my biggest problem is the motherboard mounting.

 

[Buz2b]

Do you think an A7m266 purchased last week should have the recent BIOS on it?

Sad to say that there is at least a 50/50 chance you WILL need to flash the BIOS. Date of purchase does not relate to most recent BIOS. Some boards sit on shelves for months and months. This may be especially true in the case of the A7M266. They actually went out of production for a period of time as ASUS was going to discontinue it. They did start production again but I'm not sure if that is still the case. This was some time back.
At any rate, it is a good solid board but this is something to watch for.

 

[nlh]

Thanks for all the help, guys.

I'm kind of fortunate, although I will need to flash the BIOS with a non-XP processor. Someone has offered to give me their old case full of components - they said they have a power supply (which I have extra of too), a processor, heatsink, RAM, and a network card, all on the motherboard. He's going to give it to me for free because he doesn't need it, the hard drive crashed, and he just wants the CD-ROM.

Anyway, if it's a Socket A motherboard, I'll put the Athlon 700, which I just ordered for $30 to flash the BIOS with, in the new case. It may work out well. Either way, it's only $30, and it could be a lot worse.