Abit BP6 worth keeping?

[WNG]

I was given a tower case yesterday, and I found an ABIT BP6 dual socket-370 motherboard with two Celerons installed. Haven't confirmed their speed, but I believe they are 500 MHz.

I pulled out all the parts from the tower, and the motherboard doesn't appear to have any bad caps.

I see the Abit VP6 thread, and this board is older, one less RAM socket, Intel BX chipset, but does have 4 IDE ports. If it can support some P3-1 GHz cpus, it may be fun.

Is this old setup worth holding on to, and good for anything? I've not ran a SMP system before, so, not sure if it'll make much of a difference.

[gastorgrab]

Re: Abit BP6 worth keeping?

With a hardware mod. - http://geta.yoh-tech.com/eng_top.htm

More here: http://www.geocities.com/_lunchbox/
.

[Lance Thornton]

Re: Abit BP6 worth keeping?

I found one with very bad caps. Recapped it with Rubys and all is well. I've never used it since. It is nice to look at though....

[WNG]

Re: Abit BP6 worth keeping?

I agree, it's an curious system to check out once it's up and running. Caps on mine look intact. I don't plan to recap this thing.
I have the two 500 MHz celerons humming. I don't think these will overclock much.
The UDMA-66 controller is a bitch to get working, and no Coppermine core support.

Win2k loaded fine and recognizes the smp set up. Never thought Task Manager could be so entertaining.

Need to run a benchmark to see how it measures up. I can't think of a use for it. But w/o running faster cpus, I think this one is past its prime.

[gg1978]

Re: Abit BP6 worth keeping?

If you've got a BP6, you're going to need to change the caps, unless it's already been done..

[WNG]

Re: Abit BP6 worth keeping?

I detected some IDE port timeout errors today, and noticed the tone of the cpu fans kept changing. The PSU is a 300W Enlight, and I don't think it's underpowered.

May be the caps. They don't look to be bad, but could be dried out. I think I'll put this board out to pasture. Not worth the recapping effort.

[willawake]

Re: Abit BP6 worth keeping?

I think I'll put this board out to pasture. Not worth the recapping effort.

uuuuuh dont throw stuff away , put it in the buy/sell section

bx is nice chipset

[Spacedye69]

Re: Abit BP6 worth keeping?

uuuuuh dont throw stuff away , put it in the buy/sell section

I second that!

[WNG]

Re: Abit BP6 worth keeping?

I agree, the BX chipset was very reliable and robust. But it does have its issues, like 512 MB max RAM, no divider for 133 MHz, AGP 2x max.

And in this beast, it's not fully utilized, I can't run it at 100MHz, only 66. and only yielding 160 MB/sec transfer rate according to memtest86+.
The two Celery 500s aren't good overclockers.

It's definitely for enthusiasts, and I ran into headaches just like BP6.com had listed. Drivers, IRQs, fast IDE ports not booting, old tech is finnicky.
The IDE timeouts, and odd Windows Update behavior are 2 things I must look into before posting it for sale. Might be my HDD not compatible. I want to verify it works. It's not like me to pawn off junk onto the next guy for a few $.
The PO kept the board in great shape. Clean. The pics are probably too small to show, but no caps are popped.

[gdement]

Re: Abit BP6 worth keeping?

I agree, the BX chipset was very reliable and robust. But it does have its issues, like 512 MB max RAM, no divider for 133 MHz, AGP 2x max.

The max ram is 1024MB, you might be thinking of the 512MB limit on the i810/i815 or on the 440ZX variant of the BX. By the book, Intel does say if you go over 512MB then you're supposed to use registered memory, but I've never found that to be necessary. They also said it maxes out at 100MHz, but as we all know it can handle 133MHz on a good board.

They do have a 1/4 PCI ratio for 133/33MHz, but it might not always be marked. The only thing that has to run out of spec is the AGP port. Finding a card that can run 89MHz isn't very difficult, and the increased speed compensates somewhat for AGP2X. I'm not sure if AGP4X would make any difference anyway.

I've not ran a SMP system before, so, not sure if it'll make much of a difference.

There's times when I wish I was on my old dual-CPU system. For example, if I'm running a game and playing winamp in the background, then winamp can sometimes stutter. I can usually fix that (temporarily) by increasing the winamp priority, but a dual-CPU just doesn't have that problem at all since a single thread can't hog the whole system anymore. Similar situations can happen with buggy apps or those lovely Flash ads. But mostly it's just a nice to have thing and there aren't many programs which will actually run faster.

no Coppermine core support

Is that based on what ABit says, or did you look up the datasheet for the voltage regulator chip? I know at least with Asus P2B's, there are many boards with Coppermine capable VRM's that weren't advertised as such. Once identified, they just needed a BIOS flash to make it boot.

I agree, the BX chipset was very reliable and robust.

Truly, I love the thing. I realized a while back that almost every computer I've set up or helped buy for family and myself is a BX or derivative (1 ZX, 1 GX, 4 BX desktops, and 2 BX laptops). One of them was upgraded to a Core2 though, so I guess we're down to "only" 7 active from that family. I finally broke the streak a few months ago when I built an NForce2 system for my nephew.

[kc8adu]

Re: Abit BP6 worth keeping?

those old school boards are still in use even today.
i recapped 2 bp6 this week alone.
i still see a few vp6 a month.
if you are gonna throw it away post here first.i or tc will take it.

[willawake]

Re: Abit BP6 worth keeping?

the 512 limit on the i815 boards goes on the list of the gayest things that intel did. I have seven in the office and with 866 processor they are perfect for work and very stable. i could use a bit more ram these days myself though. i have a backup server which is basically being a second print server and will serve files if there is a problem with the main one. runs centos without gui very nicely on a 400mhz PII BX chipset with 512 ram, totally stable after recapping. so still there are many uses for these old machines. I think with the dual procs you can expect 1.5x more speed not 2x though.

[Spacedye69]

Re: Abit BP6 worth keeping?

I'm up to 4 dual cpu boards now. Running multiple apps, you will notice a difference. Look at this link for the Asus p2b boards. Abits slot and socket 370 boards have similar sites to help with what a bp6 is capable of.

[WNG]

Re: Abit BP6 worth keeping?

I stand corrected. I was thinking of the i815 chipset! I was looking forward to the new BX based chipset back then, until the stupid 512 MB ceiling.
>:-(

The socket 370 needs extensive rework to accept FC-PGA Coppermines. There is a good site called BP6.com that's been useful to get this board running.
Looks like it runs, investigating a few hiccups...then perhaps I'll put it up for sale.

[WNG]

Re: Abit BP6 worth keeping?

Bump...

Decided to sell it, hit me up if you're interested in the motherboard and 2 cpus.

[Newbie2]

Re: Abit BP6 worth keeping?

those old school boards are still in use even today.

Because two single-core processors will yield the performance typical of a dual-core over single-core processor. Say hello to Celeron "Dual-Core" 500MHz for example!

Older computers are great for running older operating systems (Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows 2000 Professional, or Windows ME for example) and older applications run great on them.

[kc8adu]

Re: Abit BP6 worth keeping?

you will have to recap that board to get it stable.no way around it.
i have 3 in a machine shop running nt4 to run cnc milling machines.
customer had me recap them this summer when they got flakey.
no bulging caps but every tayeh was open.