How cheap can you get a 2.7GHz C2D upgrade build? Answer: $165

So I just got the following setup in this afternoon and have been setting it
up for the last hour:

BIOSTAR P4M890 VIA Socket 775 DDR2 1066MHz P4M890-M7 SE
Motherboard Retail ***Free Shipping*** @ $48.98

INTEL Pentium Dual-Core 1.8GHz FSB800MHz 1M LGA775
BX80557E2160 CPU Retail ***Free Shipping*** @ $85.00

MEM 1G|A-DATA DII800 VDQVE1A16 R - Retail (Qty=1, Price=$28.99)

I pulled out the old Abit NV7-133R with a Athlon XP TBred 1700+ and the old
184-pin memory, then connected up the new PSU and the front panel
connectors. I got the new E2160 + stock fan snapped in in a jiffy. All in
all, the old parts were pulled out and the new ones put in after only 45
minutes.

I powered it up and other than a few minor BIOS quirks, it booted right up
into 1.8GHz default. Nice. I've never had a unit power up right the first
time. Onboard video made it that much easier; no daughtercards at all.

Default voltage on this board and chip combo is showing at 1.180V at idle,
1.296V on load. No problems there.

I then begin my upwards trudge up to 3.0GHz. I inch up the FSB to 220, no
problems. I try to run TAT just to double-check but it doesn't work with
these E21XX's. Coretemp works just fine. Next, I click it up to 266, then
give up on waiting for it to boot into XP. 280, 290, 310 pass in quick
succession. I go for broke and start it up at 333. It POSTS! But no go
for getting into XP. I ratchet it down to 300 and now it's humming along
happily at 2.7GHz under full load. No CPU voltage boost at all, no DDR
voltage boost at all. I want to keep this as cool and quiet as possible.
I'm just OCing to get the "free" headroom the chip has built-in.

So what do you all think? This mATX board is really really impressing me
with all the features it has at <$50. I spent days getting my own system
stable at 2.95GHz, spending $300-400 on it only months ago, and this thing
just plops in at 2.7GHz in 60 minutes for $165 including 1GB memory???
Jeez, what a deal for fast 2D compy.

Will let you all know how the ORTHOS results run overnight.

--
Phil

On 10/16/2007 12:05:45 AM, "Phil" wrote:
> So I just got the following setup in this afternoon and have been setting
> it up for the last hour:
>
> BIOSTAR P4M890 VIA Socket 775 DDR2 1066MHz P4M890-M7 SE
> Motherboard Retail ***Free Shipping*** @ $48.98
>
> INTEL Pentium Dual-Core 1.8GHz FSB800MHz 1M LGA775
> BX80557E2160 CPU Retail ***Free Shipping*** @ $85.00
>
> MEM 1G|A-DATA DII800 VDQVE1A16 R - Retail (Qty=1, Price=$28.99)
>
> I pulled out the old Abit NV7-133R with a Athlon XP TBred 1700+ and the
> old 184-pin memory, then connected up the new PSU and the front panel
> connectors. I got the new E2160 + stock fan snapped in in a jiffy. All in
> all, the old parts were pulled out and the new ones put in after only 45
> minutes.
>
> I powered it up and other than a few minor BIOS quirks, it booted right up
> into 1.8GHz default. Nice. I've never had a unit power up right the first
> time. Onboard video made it that much easier; no daughtercards at all.
>
> Default voltage on this board and chip combo is showing at 1.180V at idle,
> 1.296V on load. No problems there.
>
> I then begin my upwards trudge up to 3.0GHz. I inch up the FSB to 220, no
> problems. I try to run TAT just to double-check but it doesn't work with
> these E21XX's. Coretemp works just fine. Next, I click it up to 266, then
> give up on waiting for it to boot into XP. 280, 290, 310 pass in quick
> succession. I go for broke and start it up at 333. It POSTS! But no go for
> getting into XP. I ratchet it down to 300 and now it's humming along
> happily at 2.7GHz under full load. No CPU voltage boost at all, no DDR
> voltage boost at all. I want to keep this as cool and quiet as possible.
> I'm just OCing to get the "free" headroom the chip has built-in.
>
> So what do you all think? This mATX board is really really impressing me
> with all the features it has at <$50. I spent days getting my own system
> stable at 2.95GHz, spending $300-400 on it only months ago, and this thing
> just plops in at 2.7GHz in 60 minutes for $165 including 1GB memory???
> Jeez, what a deal for fast 2D compy.
>
> Will let you all know how the ORTHOS results run overnight.
>

1.8 to 2.7 - not bad at all! Nice!

--
-Kris
ABIT KN8 Ultra(NForce4Ultra), Ath64 3500+, 2x512MB Geil, Leadtek PX6600GT TDH 128mb, Leadtek WinFast TV2000 XP Expert TV card.
XP Pro SP 2++++

Updates?

thx

bob



"Phil" <> wrote in message
news:4714389c$0$7473$...
> So I just got the following setup in this afternoon and have been setting
> it up for the last hour:
>
> BIOSTAR P4M890 VIA Socket 775 DDR2 1066MHz P4M890-M7 SE
> Motherboard Retail ***Free Shipping*** @ $48.98
>
> INTEL Pentium Dual-Core 1.8GHz FSB800MHz 1M LGA775
> BX80557E2160 CPU Retail ***Free Shipping*** @ $85.00
>
> MEM 1G|A-DATA DII800 VDQVE1A16 R - Retail (Qty=1, Price=$28.99)
>
> I pulled out the old Abit NV7-133R with a Athlon XP TBred 1700+ and the
> old 184-pin memory, then connected up the new PSU and the front panel
> connectors. I got the new E2160 + stock fan snapped in in a jiffy. All
> in all, the old parts were pulled out and the new ones put in after only
> 45 minutes.
>
> I powered it up and other than a few minor BIOS quirks, it booted right up
> into 1.8GHz default. Nice. I've never had a unit power up right the
> first time. Onboard video made it that much easier; no daughtercards at
> all.
>
> Default voltage on this board and chip combo is showing at 1.180V at idle,
> 1.296V on load. No problems there.
>
> I then begin my upwards trudge up to 3.0GHz. I inch up the FSB to 220, no
> problems. I try to run TAT just to double-check but it doesn't work with
> these E21XX's. Coretemp works just fine. Next, I click it up to 266,
> then give up on waiting for it to boot into XP. 280, 290, 310 pass in
> quick succession. I go for broke and start it up at 333. It POSTS! But
> no go for getting into XP. I ratchet it down to 300 and now it's humming
> along happily at 2.7GHz under full load. No CPU voltage boost at all, no
> DDR voltage boost at all. I want to keep this as cool and quiet as
> possible. I'm just OCing to get the "free" headroom the chip has built-in.
>
> So what do you all think? This mATX board is really really impressing me
> with all the features it has at <$50. I spent days getting my own system
> stable at 2.95GHz, spending $300-400 on it only months ago, and this thing
> just plops in at 2.7GHz in 60 minutes for $165 including 1GB memory???
> Jeez, what a deal for fast 2D compy.
>
> Will let you all know how the ORTHOS results run overnight.
>
> --
> Phil
>

Bob Johnson wrote:
> Updates?
>
> thx
>
> bob
>
>
>
> "Phil" <> wrote in message
> news:4714389c$0$7473$...
>> So I just got the following setup in this afternoon and have been
>> setting it up for the last hour:
>>
>> BIOSTAR P4M890 VIA Socket 775 DDR2 1066MHz P4M890-M7 SE
>> Motherboard Retail ***Free Shipping*** @ $48.98
>>
>> INTEL Pentium Dual-Core 1.8GHz FSB800MHz 1M LGA775
>> BX80557E2160 CPU Retail ***Free Shipping*** @ $85.00
>>
>> MEM 1G|A-DATA DII800 VDQVE1A16 R - Retail (Qty=1, Price=$28.99)
>>
>> I pulled out the old Abit NV7-133R with a Athlon XP TBred 1700+ and
>> the old 184-pin memory, then connected up the new PSU and the front
>> panel connectors. I got the new E2160 + stock fan snapped in in a
>> jiffy. All in all, the old parts were pulled out and the new ones
>> put in after only 45 minutes.
>>
>> I powered it up and other than a few minor BIOS quirks, it booted
>> right up into 1.8GHz default. Nice. I've never had a unit power up
>> right the first time. Onboard video made it that much easier; no
>> daughtercards at all.
>>
>> Default voltage on this board and chip combo is showing at 1.180V at
>> idle, 1.296V on load. No problems there.
>>
>> I then begin my upwards trudge up to 3.0GHz. I inch up the FSB to
>> 220, no problems. I try to run TAT just to double-check but it
>> doesn't work with these E21XX's. Coretemp works just fine. Next, I
>> click it up to 266, then give up on waiting for it to boot into XP. 280,
>> 290, 310 pass in quick succession. I go for broke and start it
>> up at 333. It POSTS! But no go for getting into XP. I ratchet it
>> down to 300 and now it's humming along happily at 2.7GHz under full
>> load. No CPU voltage boost at all, no DDR voltage boost at all. I
>> want to keep this as cool and quiet as possible. I'm just OCing to
>> get the "free" headroom the chip has built-in.
>> So what do you all think? This mATX board is really really
>> impressing me with all the features it has at <$50. I spent days
>> getting my own system stable at 2.95GHz, spending $300-400 on it
>> only months ago, and this thing just plops in at 2.7GHz in 60
>> minutes for $165 including 1GB memory??? Jeez, what a deal for fast
>> 2D compy.
>> Will let you all know how the ORTHOS results run overnight.
>>
>> --
>> Phil

Bob,
No problems so far. Humming along at 2.7G's and haven't found the time to
do a 24-hour ORTHOS burn yet, only an overnight 8-hour. The mobo probably
has an FSB wall at around 300MHz because it wouldn't really go higher, or a
pinmod would be required to bump it up higher but this is plenty enough for
what the comp is being used for.

Integrated graphics and the PCI bus work in locked mode just fine, no
problems. I'm having one small problem with getting sound working but
that's because I swapped over the HD to the new build without reinstalling
XP and I can't get the driver to talk right. I'm going to be reinstalling
XP tomorrow and will let you know what I find out. I kept all stock
voltages but it has .1V increments for DDR and CPU.

--
Phil

">
> I'm having one small problem with getting sound working but that's
> because I swapped over the HD to the new build without reinstalling XP and
> I can't get the driver to talk right.


Can you do that? I thought that was a major no-no


bob

Somewhere on the interweb "Bob Johnson" typed:
> ">
> > I'm having one small problem with getting sound working but that's
> > because I swapped over the HD to the new build without reinstalling
> > XP and I can't get the driver to talk right.
>
>
> Can you do that? I thought that was a major no-no

You can do it. However, as (the uncredited) Phil points out, you do need to
expect problems. XP isn't a forgiving as 98SE was in this respect IME. I
prefer to do a clean reinstall if changing motherboards. Most everything
else is usually OK. Sometimes, if the mobos use the same chipset it works OK
too.
--
TTFN

Shaun.

"~misfit~" <> wrote in message
news:ffmaur$fni$...
> Somewhere on the interweb "Bob Johnson" typed:
>> ">
>> > I'm having one small problem with getting sound working but that's
>> > because I swapped over the HD to the new build without reinstalling
>> > XP and I can't get the driver to talk right.
>>
>>
>> Can you do that? I thought that was a major no-no
>
> You can do it. However, as (the uncredited) Phil points out, you do need
> to expect problems. XP isn't a forgiving as 98SE was in this respect IME.
> I prefer to do a clean reinstall if changing motherboards. Most everything
> else is usually OK. Sometimes, if the mobos use the same chipset it works
> OK too.
> --
> TTFN
>
> Shaun.
>

I reinstalled XP and it came up with the same problem.

It turns out that the website's "updated" drivers were actually completely
the wrong ones. Installing the ones on the CD worked out just fine and it
had nothing to do with the HD swap.

--
Phil