nforce2 smp

[Tony Hill]

@twister01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com>, news.tally.bbbl67
@spamgourmet.com says...

ISTR that that was all about the electrical design, rather than
physical. Alpha had different requirements, so I never expected
much cross-pollination.

There was some talk and even some prototype demos that had both AMD K7
and DEC/Compaq Alpha chips being interchangeable on motherboards with
only a BIOS flash, but I don't think any such products ever made it to
market. They were supposed to use a common "Slot B" form factor
(basically "Slot B" was to Intel's old Xeon "Slot 2" what "Slot A" was
to Intel's PII/PIII "Slot 1"). I don't think either AMD or DEC ever
sold any Slot B processors though.

The closet the two came to cross-pollinating were some
single-processor Alpha motherboards that used AMD chipsets. Physical
sockets weren't compatible with any AMD chips, but the chipsets could
be used. These things were sold into very different markets though,
so the whole idea was kind of doomed right from the get-go.

 

[KR Williams]

Yup. Kinda like getting it on with your girlfriend
and then her father's voice comes on through the
answering machine. "Honey, you might as well answer
the damned phone ... "

Kinda like when you look out the window and see her parents
walking up the drive? ...but that was 34 years ago. ;-)

Well, like I said it was my first mobo and I had yet to learn better.

Trust me. We've all been there. I remember blowing up a scope
plugin in my first week at work (I was a technician in school).
The damned calibration tool *SHOULD have* worked (right
mainframe, wrong plugin). What I do is imagine where my tool is
going to go if something breaks and then make sure the force-
vector isn't in a line to hit any thing critical. Surely
something's going to surprise and the force pointing off into
space is better than one going into the guts. Sorta like
carving/cutting wood. Think where the sharp end is going to go
if you slip, and make sure there aren't any important (Bobit?)
parts in that path.

As well, it is less of an issue with current motherboards because
things seem to pop in and out of their sockets much better than they
did way back when. Either that or building a systems regularly for
more than a decade eventually gave me a knack for managing dimm socket
clips.

We'll see how far things have some. The shroud for the K8 looks
a tad better thought-out than the previous stuff. There is
several $hundred in there too, so I'll go on the cautious side.

As TJW said "THINK". ...always good to remember, though not
guaranteed to work. We are human and don't always.

 

[Rob Stow]

We'll see how far things have some. The shroud for the K8 looks
a tad better thought-out than the previous stuff. There is
several $hundred in there too, so I'll go on the cautious side.

The Opty/FX/Athlon64's are different enough that I appreciated
having the opportunity to watch someone else install a couple
(his first two, as a matter of fact) before I did it myself.

It is not really any harder or easier than dealing with an
Athlon XP or a P4 - just different enough that you want to
treat it as learning a new little skill.

 

[KR Williams]

The Opty/FX/Athlon64's are different enough that I appreciated
having the opportunity to watch someone else install a couple
(his first two, as a matter of fact) before I did it myself.

It is not really any harder or easier than dealing with an
Athlon XP or a P4 - just different enough that you want to
treat it as learning a new little skill.

Iv'e been out of x86 land so long that I've not done any of the
above. (are you trying to scare me? ;-) Perhaps I should have
bought the CFO even more flowers so she would have gone for a
G5? ;-)) ...not likely to have worked either.

I think I can figure it all out, though it's all still in the
*retail* (no other reasonable choice that I can see) packaging.

 

[KR Williams]

There was some talk and even some prototype demos that had both AMD K7
and DEC/Compaq Alpha chips being interchangeable on motherboards with
only a BIOS flash, but I don't think any such products ever made it to
market. They were supposed to use a common "Slot B" form factor
(basically "Slot B" was to Intel's old Xeon "Slot 2" what "Slot A" was
to Intel's PII/PIII "Slot 1"). I don't think either AMD or DEC ever
sold any Slot B processors though.

I think that was all "Fool-ware". It certainly was motly
information.

The closet the two came to cross-pollinating were some
single-processor Alpha motherboards that used AMD chipsets. Physical
sockets weren't compatible with any AMD chips, but the chipsets could
be used. These things were sold into very different markets though,
so the whole idea was kind of doomed right from the get-go.

Agreed. AMD simply licensed a decent bus (and perhaps some
models for it) because they didn't have even a crappy bus. They
built it from there.

 

[George Macdonald]

Iv'e been out of x86 land so long that I've not done any of the
above. (are you trying to scare me? ;-) Perhaps I should have
bought the CFO even more flowers so she would have gone for a
G5? ;-)) ...not likely to have worked either.

I just did a retail Athlon64 the other day and found it much easier than
the Athlons I'd done previously. With the XPs, in fact any heatsink which
clips to the ZIF socket, there's always been the question of whether I
needed to tilt the whole heatsink at an angle to get the first latch
engaged... and whether I can then straighten and seat it on the CPU without
munging the TIM on the bottom of the heatsink.

With the Athlon64, I just plopped the heatsink straight on to the CPU, in
the middle of the retention frame of course, and the spring clip was loose
enough that I could latch the free side easily (make sure it's fully
engaged on the latch) and the other (lever) side didn't need much finger
pressure at all to latch it. Then the lever pushes over and clamps the
heatsink down - you can feel there's a lot of pressure being applied from
the lever but since it's a lever.....

I think I can figure it all out, though it's all still in the
*retail* (no other reasonable choice that I can see) packaging.

Check your case carefully. The Antec (SX-635) I just bought had a broken
lower front panel, which I found out about after full assembly: when I
grabbed the front bottom to pick the system up, the cracked panel mounting
pegs just broke away. There was no visible damage to the shipping carton
to bother Fedex with, so I called Antec up (no wait) and they're sending me
a new front panel - the original is taped on till it arrives.

Hurry up and get that painting done so we can all hear about this beast!

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[Nate Edel]

The Opty/FX/Athlon64's are different enough that I appreciated
having the opportunity to watch someone else install a couple
(his first two, as a matter of fact) before I did it myself.

It is not really any harder or easier than dealing with an
Athlon XP or a P4 - just different enough that you want to
treat it as learning a new little skill.

I actually will beg to differ there; heat-spreaders make for a much more
durable processor and a much easier and less nerve-wracking heat-sink
installation than the old exposed-core AMD chips did.