I'll post some pics when I get my camera back, and I'm probably going to write a webpage about my project in the future. More on that later.
Ps. Nice forum you got going here, will help me a lot on my journey to livingroomcomputing. Thumbs up
Tips for noob
Tips for noob
Hi, just managed to get my hands on a BP6 and matching sets of 366 and 466 celerons. I'm going to use this board in my HTPC-project. Any tips for me?
I'll post some pics when I get my camera back, and I'm probably going to write a webpage about my project in the future. More on that later.
Ps. Nice forum you got going here, will help me a lot on my journey to livingroomcomputing. Thumbs up
I'll post some pics when I get my camera back, and I'm probably going to write a webpage about my project in the future. More on that later.
Ps. Nice forum you got going here, will help me a lot on my journey to livingroomcomputing. Thumbs up
Re: Tips for noob
The 366's will probably work out the best for you since the only thing you will be overclocking is the CPU's. Assuming of course your using at least PC100 memory. The biggest problems with any over clock is the weakest link. The less things you over clock the better the chances of success. The 466's won't likely make it to 100 MHZ. So this means everything in your system is either over clocked or under clocked, depending on where you can get it to run between 66-100.gulassi wrote:Hi, just managed to get my hands on a BP6 and matching sets of 366 and 466 celerons. I'm going to use this board in my HTPC-project. Any tips for me?
I'll post some pics when I get my camera back, and I'm probably going to write a webpage about my project in the future. More on that later.
Ps. Nice forum you got going here, will help me a lot on my journey to livingroomcomputing. Thumbs up
Billl
A home theater project, eh?
Some generic suggestions for any home theater setup:
Graphic card with TV-out. Don't forget that AGP slot of a BP6 is the old style and that most newer AGP cards aren't compatible. I have an older ATI Radeon VE (a.k.a. 7500 series) card that seems to work quite well.
A couple of 120 GB hard drives might be nice to add. I wouldn't get a drive larger than 120 GB since I do not believe any version of the HPT BIOS supports 48-bit LBA.
A "Hollywood Plus" MPEG decoder card. Make certain to get BOTH the VGA pass through cable and the S-video to Composite converter cables with the decoder card. These cards can readily be found on eBay, but often the cables are not included. The software/drivers can be downloaded.
An "Entertainment Anywhere Remote". (www.X10.com, model #UR81A) and matching #MR26A receiver. These can also usually be found on eBay. Make certain to get the MR26A receiver because there is a different receiver that utilizes a USB port rather than a serial port. USB devices on a BP6 can be problematic. If you are lucky, this universal remote will also be able to control your TV, VCR, receiver, and standalone DVD player. Codes are not available for all devices from all manufacturers, though. This remote uses RF to communicate with your PC and IR to communicate with your other equipment.
A receiver/amplifier that provides simultaneous remote controlled switching of both audio and video inputs. The Sony "STR-DExxx" series work well for this. Try to get a receiver that has provision for (6) analog multi-channel inputs if you wish to listen to DVD-A using your PC.
An audio card that provides multi-channel outputs and has ports for both Toslink (optical) and COAX SPDIF outputs. Older AOpen model AW-850 Delux cards are wonderful for this. The newer cards also work but have only Toslink outputs which might limit the manner in which you connect it to your receiver.
PowerDVD 6 Deluxe to provide the ability to play DVD-A. You could forego the H+ card if you are willing to sacrifice video quality using your graphic card's TV-out for playback of DVD video with PDVD6. In other words, I think The H+ playback image is better but the H+ will not play true DVD-A audio. It will only playback normal DVD audio (*.AC3, DTS, PCM) associated with DVD video disks.
I use a custom MPEG player that was written by a friend which interacts with the H+ hardware to decode and playback MPEG2 music videos . The Hollywood Plus software player isn't very good for much other than DVD because it is awkward.
I have no suggestion for a tuner/capture card. I use my VCR for this purpose as both tuner and recorder. I don't think a BP6 really has enough horsepower to record MPEG video anyway.
Oh, and of course a DVDROM drive. (Obvious need.)
Good luck!
s4
Some generic suggestions for any home theater setup:
Graphic card with TV-out. Don't forget that AGP slot of a BP6 is the old style and that most newer AGP cards aren't compatible. I have an older ATI Radeon VE (a.k.a. 7500 series) card that seems to work quite well.
A couple of 120 GB hard drives might be nice to add. I wouldn't get a drive larger than 120 GB since I do not believe any version of the HPT BIOS supports 48-bit LBA.
A "Hollywood Plus" MPEG decoder card. Make certain to get BOTH the VGA pass through cable and the S-video to Composite converter cables with the decoder card. These cards can readily be found on eBay, but often the cables are not included. The software/drivers can be downloaded.
An "Entertainment Anywhere Remote". (www.X10.com, model #UR81A) and matching #MR26A receiver. These can also usually be found on eBay. Make certain to get the MR26A receiver because there is a different receiver that utilizes a USB port rather than a serial port. USB devices on a BP6 can be problematic. If you are lucky, this universal remote will also be able to control your TV, VCR, receiver, and standalone DVD player. Codes are not available for all devices from all manufacturers, though. This remote uses RF to communicate with your PC and IR to communicate with your other equipment.
A receiver/amplifier that provides simultaneous remote controlled switching of both audio and video inputs. The Sony "STR-DExxx" series work well for this. Try to get a receiver that has provision for (6) analog multi-channel inputs if you wish to listen to DVD-A using your PC.
An audio card that provides multi-channel outputs and has ports for both Toslink (optical) and COAX SPDIF outputs. Older AOpen model AW-850 Delux cards are wonderful for this. The newer cards also work but have only Toslink outputs which might limit the manner in which you connect it to your receiver.
PowerDVD 6 Deluxe to provide the ability to play DVD-A. You could forego the H+ card if you are willing to sacrifice video quality using your graphic card's TV-out for playback of DVD video with PDVD6. In other words, I think The H+ playback image is better but the H+ will not play true DVD-A audio. It will only playback normal DVD audio (*.AC3, DTS, PCM) associated with DVD video disks.
I use a custom MPEG player that was written by a friend which interacts with the H+ hardware to decode and playback MPEG2 music videos . The Hollywood Plus software player isn't very good for much other than DVD because it is awkward.
I have no suggestion for a tuner/capture card. I use my VCR for this purpose as both tuner and recorder. I don't think a BP6 really has enough horsepower to record MPEG video anyway.
Oh, and of course a DVDROM drive. (Obvious need.)
Good luck!
s4
s4brains: Thanks for your suggestions. I already have an matrox g400 dualhead. No capture card yet but your suggestions will came handy when I buy one.
No to another subject, cooling. What would be the best way to cool the overclocked cellys. I'm thinking of a kind of windtunnel with a big fan to blow air onto the processors. For this I'm going to need quite large heatsinks. Any suggestions for model fitting the mobo with little or no modding.
For storage I almost bought 4X25 GB scsidisks but then I started thinking about noice and heat they would generate. So regular IDEs will be much suitable choice. I'm also thinking about connnecting my htpc with my other computer with wired lan to access my mp3s and divx movies. So I propably don't need such huge hdd.
No to another subject, cooling. What would be the best way to cool the overclocked cellys. I'm thinking of a kind of windtunnel with a big fan to blow air onto the processors. For this I'm going to need quite large heatsinks. Any suggestions for model fitting the mobo with little or no modding.
For storage I almost bought 4X25 GB scsidisks but then I started thinking about noice and heat they would generate. So regular IDEs will be much suitable choice. I'm also thinking about connnecting my htpc with my other computer with wired lan to access my mp3s and divx movies. So I propably don't need such huge hdd.
I'm afraid that the amount which I remember from the subjects of heat transfer and thermodynamics wouldn't fill a teaspoon. It has been 30 years since I studied those subjects and I never quite mastered them while I was in school.
In general, it isn't the size of the heatsink that is important, but rather the amount of surface area exposed to the airflow. In other words, a small heatsink with a large number of cooling fins might be better than a large block with few fins. However, there are other considerations in that the fins may become so thin that the effectiveness of the heat transfer by conduction through the fins is reduced. Of course, if the fins are narrow there may also be very sharp corners where the fins join at the base of the block. Sharp corners also reduce heat transfer. Radii are good in the pockets. If the spacing between fins becomes too small the pockets will fill with dust and debris. Use your best judgement to evaluate competing designs and get a fan with the highest r.p.m. at which you can tolerate the noise to ensure turbulence for the best heat transfer.
The noise from disk drives is usually more significant than the noise from cooling fans. It would be nice if hard disk manufacturers reported noise measurements but this information is not commonly provided for consumer comparison.
Regards,
s4
In general, it isn't the size of the heatsink that is important, but rather the amount of surface area exposed to the airflow. In other words, a small heatsink with a large number of cooling fins might be better than a large block with few fins. However, there are other considerations in that the fins may become so thin that the effectiveness of the heat transfer by conduction through the fins is reduced. Of course, if the fins are narrow there may also be very sharp corners where the fins join at the base of the block. Sharp corners also reduce heat transfer. Radii are good in the pockets. If the spacing between fins becomes too small the pockets will fill with dust and debris. Use your best judgement to evaluate competing designs and get a fan with the highest r.p.m. at which you can tolerate the noise to ensure turbulence for the best heat transfer.
The noise from disk drives is usually more significant than the noise from cooling fans. It would be nice if hard disk manufacturers reported noise measurements but this information is not commonly provided for consumer comparison.
Regards,
s4
First make sure you take care of the 440BX. I put on a "chipset" cooling HSF to cool mine. It will really be working hard to handle 2 cpus at 100MHz. The BX was designed for one cpu at 66 or 100. If you want you can get a fan from a 486 and it will fit nicely on the green hs. Make sure you put some grease under that "greenie" before attaching the fan.gulassi wrote:No to another subject, cooling. What would be the best way to cool the overclocked cellys. I'm thinking of a kind of windtunnel with a big fan to blow air onto the processors. For this I'm going to need quite large heatsinks. Any suggestions for model fitting the mobo with little or no modding.
Many of us use stock fans on dual 366@550. We can usually reduce the voltage. I have been as low as 1.85 volts with total stability running at 100FSB on one of my boards. My current one is at 1.9v Win2000 Pro, 64MEG AGP video generic nic and sound. It plays Warcraft III and Dungeon Seige.
There are *almost* no bad BP6s. There are mostly bad caps.
No BP6s remaining
Athlon 2800
Sempron 2000
ViaCPU laptop with Vista.(Works great after bumping ram to 2Gig)
P-III 850@100
No BP6s remaining
Athlon 2800
Sempron 2000
ViaCPU laptop with Vista.(Works great after bumping ram to 2Gig)
P-III 850@100
Yeah, maybe the stock coolers will be efficient enough, time will tell. I'm going to ask my friend who works at a local machining shop if he could make me a copper HS witch would cool both CPUs.
I've been thinking how much power is my machine going to consume. I have an 235W matx powersupply. Do you think it would be enough to power the mobo, two cellys, dvd-burner, matrox g400, nic, soundcard and two ide drives. + future upgrades: tv-card and maybe better graphics card
I've been thinking how much power is my machine going to consume. I have an 235W matx powersupply. Do you think it would be enough to power the mobo, two cellys, dvd-burner, matrox g400, nic, soundcard and two ide drives. + future upgrades: tv-card and maybe better graphics card
Just bought BP6 to run my HT-Pc project.
235 is a bit small IMHO, sould use nothing less than 300 W and a BRAND NAME PS!
I presently am using 2 PS in tandom (see this website under "articles"), a 300 W unit just for the board and a 450 W unit for all else.
Why? and what good did it do?
I am runnig dual 366's @ 106fsb perfectly stable on the internet and 108fsb while working off-line. I could not do this before the dual PS's (will go into windows @ 605, 110fsb but not stable, I believe this to be a heat issue, more on this later). Why wouldn't it work before dual? Something was drawing down my 5volt line below 4.5V, with dual, one dedicated to the MOBO only, my 5V line only drops to 4.81 under full load on both cpu's.
I have a very heavily configured PC:
Dual boot 98SE/WIN2K Pro
Dual 366's @ 572
GlobalWIN FEP-32 heat sinks w/28 cfm 4200 rpm fans (soon to be replaced).
768 meg PC133 SDRAM
PNY GeForce FX5500, 128meg ram dual hd vid card
WinTV GO! capture card
Chaintek 7.1 surround sound audio card
Generic Firewire card
Adaptec scsii card for X6EL scanner
Generic 10/100 nic
WD 40 gig hard drive + a Maxtor 60 gig for video storage
Mini-Peltier on BX chip set
Lite-on 52-24-52 "burner
Sony DVD-R/RAM 'burner
Pioneer S104 DVD-ROM player
ZEN 52X TrueX multi-beam CD-ROM player
All of the above is crammed into a SuperMocro 750A server tower
dual 21" Viewsonic graphics crt's
DTT2500 surround sound system (250W)
Panasonic NTSC video monitor
External Apex DVD player(yeah, I know but did the EPROM "hack" and it plays and allows me to copy anything I throw at it!
)
Twin Sony studio VHS players
HP5L Laser Printer
Canon i900D color printer
External USB 56K modem (dial-up is all that is available in my area
)
External USB muti-media card reader
"X" wireless audio system to provide music to my gazebo so we can enjoy music while in the hot tub .
Enough heat generated to allow me to close off the heat duct in my "office" in the dead of winter (I live in Wisconsin, avg. winter temps about 20deg F.) and still have to open a window along with one hell of an electric bill!
I use all of this in my business, I edit video and generate finished DVD's for weddings and film/video conversion to DVD. Can capture @ 720x480 full screen and not drop a single frame in over a hour of capture!
Regards,
jaybird
My moto is "never enough toy's"
I presently am using 2 PS in tandom (see this website under "articles"), a 300 W unit just for the board and a 450 W unit for all else.
Why? and what good did it do?
I am runnig dual 366's @ 106fsb perfectly stable on the internet and 108fsb while working off-line. I could not do this before the dual PS's (will go into windows @ 605, 110fsb but not stable, I believe this to be a heat issue, more on this later). Why wouldn't it work before dual? Something was drawing down my 5volt line below 4.5V, with dual, one dedicated to the MOBO only, my 5V line only drops to 4.81 under full load on both cpu's.
I have a very heavily configured PC:
Dual boot 98SE/WIN2K Pro
Dual 366's @ 572
GlobalWIN FEP-32 heat sinks w/28 cfm 4200 rpm fans (soon to be replaced).
768 meg PC133 SDRAM
PNY GeForce FX5500, 128meg ram dual hd vid card
WinTV GO! capture card
Chaintek 7.1 surround sound audio card
Generic Firewire card
Adaptec scsii card for X6EL scanner
Generic 10/100 nic
WD 40 gig hard drive + a Maxtor 60 gig for video storage
Mini-Peltier on BX chip set
Lite-on 52-24-52 "burner
Sony DVD-R/RAM 'burner
Pioneer S104 DVD-ROM player
ZEN 52X TrueX multi-beam CD-ROM player
All of the above is crammed into a SuperMocro 750A server tower
dual 21" Viewsonic graphics crt's
DTT2500 surround sound system (250W)
Panasonic NTSC video monitor
External Apex DVD player(yeah, I know but did the EPROM "hack" and it plays and allows me to copy anything I throw at it!
)Twin Sony studio VHS players
HP5L Laser Printer
Canon i900D color printer
External USB 56K modem (dial-up is all that is available in my area
)External USB muti-media card reader
"X" wireless audio system to provide music to my gazebo so we can enjoy music while in the hot tub
.Enough heat generated to allow me to close off the heat duct in my "office" in the dead of winter (I live in Wisconsin, avg. winter temps about 20deg F.) and still have to open a window along with one hell of an electric bill!
I use all of this in my business, I edit video and generate finished DVD's for weddings and film/video conversion to DVD. Can capture @ 720x480 full screen and not drop a single frame in over a hour of capture!
Regards,
jaybird
My moto is "never enough toy's"
Hi. Some updates. I have managed to boot the board into Windows with 366 celerons with FSB 100 and 466 celerons with FSB 78. Temp with both configuration are under 40 C running at 2 volts while idle.
Voltage lines look quite stable, even though this board hasn't been recapped.
Ran some tests with Everest and this board kicks ass. It was marginally faster than Dual PIII board at same speed. This according to Everest.
I posted a picture of the test setup. You can find it in my personal photoalbum at this site.
Edit: The picture is not upto date. I added a small fan to the northbridge and moved the nic into 4th pci slot. Also added a Soundblaster Awe64 soundcard to test how it handles the pci overclock on 466 celerons. No problems worked flawlessly.
Voltage lines look quite stable, even though this board hasn't been recapped.
Ran some tests with Everest and this board kicks ass. It was marginally faster than Dual PIII board at same speed. This according to Everest.
I posted a picture of the test setup. You can find it in my personal photoalbum at this site.
Edit: The picture is not upto date. I added a small fan to the northbridge and moved the nic into 4th pci slot. Also added a Soundblaster Awe64 soundcard to test how it handles the pci overclock on 466 celerons. No problems worked flawlessly.
Just bought BP6 to run my HT-Pc project.
gulassi,
Glad to hear about your sucess. Sounds like you have a winner. I love when Celerons beat-down Pentiums. It just makes me feel good.
Anyway, The 366@550 on 100fsb will probably give you better real results then the 466@546 on 78fsb. Thats because the interaction between the ram and cpu is about 25% faster. Also at 78 you are pushing the cards and ports on the board about 20% past the speed they are engineered for. Some of those componants do fine but others will get flakey...but you wont know if the flakeyness is because of a cpu or a card failure or whatever.
Lastly, after the system has been working for a while look at the temps. Some cap failures will allow everything to work but the "system" temp will be 10 degrees higher then the cpus. If that happens you might get away with changing the 8 caps that are bunched togeather like 4-packs. Thats what I did on my first board and the system temp dropped close to the cpus. Those caps were obviously leaking on my board but the ones around the cpus seemed ok.
Great work and good luck.
Glad to hear about your sucess. Sounds like you have a winner. I love when Celerons beat-down Pentiums. It just makes me feel good.
Anyway, The 366@550 on 100fsb will probably give you better real results then the 466@546 on 78fsb. Thats because the interaction between the ram and cpu is about 25% faster. Also at 78 you are pushing the cards and ports on the board about 20% past the speed they are engineered for. Some of those componants do fine but others will get flakey...but you wont know if the flakeyness is because of a cpu or a card failure or whatever.
Lastly, after the system has been working for a while look at the temps. Some cap failures will allow everything to work but the "system" temp will be 10 degrees higher then the cpus. If that happens you might get away with changing the 8 caps that are bunched togeather like 4-packs. Thats what I did on my first board and the system temp dropped close to the cpus. Those caps were obviously leaking on my board but the ones around the cpus seemed ok.
Great work and good luck.
There are *almost* no bad BP6s. There are mostly bad caps.
No BP6s remaining
Athlon 2800
Sempron 2000
ViaCPU laptop with Vista.(Works great after bumping ram to 2Gig)
P-III 850@100
No BP6s remaining
Athlon 2800
Sempron 2000
ViaCPU laptop with Vista.(Works great after bumping ram to 2Gig)
P-III 850@100
Hi Dave!
Interesting, since I installed the Spire Whisper V's, new mini-pelt on the bx and 80 mm Delta's my system temps have been well above the cpu temps:
My board is the most stable of any BP-6 I have run to-date even though this board with mobo 5.0, Spires, new "mini-pelt" and 80 mm Delta's runs "hotter" than any BP-6 to date!!!
System 120 Deg. F/ cpu 1 @ 100 Deg F. and cpu 2 @ 98 Deg. F., stable @ 594 Mhz @ full CPU load! (mbm 5.0), BX @ 102 deg. f @ full load, dedicated thermocouple.
Guess it still remains a "crap-shoot" with this board and differnt CPU'S
Regards,
jaybird
My board is the most stable of any BP-6 I have run to-date even though this board with mobo 5.0, Spires, new "mini-pelt" and 80 mm Delta's runs "hotter" than any BP-6 to date!!!
System 120 Deg. F/ cpu 1 @ 100 Deg F. and cpu 2 @ 98 Deg. F., stable @ 594 Mhz @ full CPU load! (mbm 5.0), BX @ 102 deg. f @ full load, dedicated thermocouple.
Guess it still remains a "crap-shoot" with this board and differnt CPU'S
Regards,
jaybird