socket 462 board with 333/400 FSB

[aurgathor]

I have a k7VM2 mobo (FSB@200/266 MHz) and a 2500 Athlon XP with a 333 MHz FSB, and seems to me it might be easier and cheaper to get a mobo that supports a chip with a faster bus than a faster chip with a slower bus.

Which chipsets support Athlons with 333 and 400 MHz FSBs? Is there any that better than the others, or one that should be avoided?

How do I identify the boards made with those chipsets? I think the Northbridge is normally covered with a heatsink, so I can't just read what's on the NB. I think those boards probably won't support SDRAM any more, but will a DDR only board guarantee a 333 or 400 MHz FSB?

I'm going to visit a nearby PC-recycle place that will have many different boards, but I won't be able to google model numbers until I get home, and it's kinda far away (40+ miles) that I normally visit them only when I drive by for some other reason.

Are there boards that were popular and sold in large numbers, so they are more likely to show up in recycle shops?

TIA

[puntoMX]

Most models that support 400MHz bus will be market as K7M400 or so, so it has the "400" in the model number. When you pick a used motherboard always pick the ones with good capacitors on them. I would go for sure with a VIA chipset although nVidia made some good ones as well but VIA drivers are better supported by windows.

[dencorso]

SOYO SY-KT600 DRAGON Ultra Platinum is a real good choice. It can use 2 GiB DDR RAM @ 400MHz or 3 GIB DDR RAM @ 333MHz, as do all boards based in VIA KT600. It's not an M chipset, though, so it has no onboard video included.

[aurgathor]

I did score a functional KT600, but it turned out to be an ECS KT600-A Rev 1.0.

Not a Dragon Ultra Platinum, but for $5.20 (with tax) I guess I can't complain much.

BTW, I did look on eBay just to see what the prices are on the Dragon, and there is a used Dragon Plus for $155!!! ( http://www.ebay.com/itm/Soyo-SY-KT600-Dragon-Plus-v2-0-SY-K7VKPE-VIA-AMD-Motherboard-/261014105866?pt=Motherboards&hash=item3cc5a72f0a )

And it doesn't even come with free shipping!! Not sure what the seller is thinking....

In any case, I did find out the following with respect to Socket 462 boards:

a] boards with the newer chipsets (VIA) will have a VT8237 Southbridge versus 8235 or 8233 for previous ones

b] they will usually have some SATA connectors on them

Edited May 20, 2012 by aurgathor

[dencorso]

Congratulations!

It's a good board, and all you need as far as support goes is in its page at the ECS Site.

I do, however suggest you add a fan to its Northbrige heatsink, and a passive heatsink to its Southbridge. Akasa has a chipset cooling kit (AK-VCX-01), which is perfect for this purpose, although it'll cost you more than you've paid for the mobo, and it has more parts than you need: a 28 x 28 x 8.75 mm heatsink for the 8237 and a 40 x 40 x 10 fan for the Northbridge heatsink are the only parts you'll need. I always add such complements to my KT-600 mobos, except those by SOYO, which have them already.

As for the SATA connectors, they're SATA I, be sure to jumper any SATA II disks you decide to add to it, before installing them, or they won't work.

BTW, I did look on eBay just to see what the prices are on the Dragon, and there is a used Dragon Plus for $155!!! ( http://www.ebay.com/itm/Soyo-SY-KT600-Dragon-Plus-v2-0-SY-K7VKPE-VIA-AMD-Motherboard-/261014105866?pt=Motherboards&hash=item3cc5a72f0a )

And it doesn't even come with free shipping!! Not sure what the seller is thinking....

More than that, it's a v.2.0! Those boards have just two slots for RAM, so they cannot take more than 2 GiB, and they don't come with the fan on the Northbridge and the heatsink on the Southbridge... any and all Dragon v.2.0 boards aren't a good idea.

[puntoMX]

Ah yes, the KT600 and the KT880, I knew they were there but forgot about them. It was when I moved from Holland to Mexico so I'm missing about 1 year of hardware knowledge... darn .

[Ponch]

Cheap (1Gig sticks) DDR1 is not easy to find either.

[aurgathor]

Well, the judge is still out on that KT600.

I'm having some issues with seemingly random reboots, though they seem to happen when I transfer large amount of

data through USB and ethernet. (I have since added a multi I/O card containing USB/Firewire/Gig Ethernet to see if that makes any difference)

E:\WINNT\Minidump>dumpchk mini052012-02.dmp

****************************************************************

**

** Windows 2000 Crash Dump Analysis

**

****************************************************************

*

Filename . . . . . . .mini052012-02.dmp

Signature. . . . . . .PAGE

ValidDump. . . . . . .DUMP

MajorVersion . . . . .free system

MinorVersion . . . . .2195

DirectoryTableBase . .0x00030000

PfnDataBase. . . . . .0x820de000

PsLoadedModuleList . .0x804815c0

PsActiveProcessHead. .0x80483048

MachineImageType . . .i386

NumberProcessors . . .1

BugCheckCode . . . . .0x0000000a

BugCheckParameter1 . .0x00000020

BugCheckParameter2 . .0x00000002

BugCheckParameter3 . .0x00000000

BugCheckParameter4 . .0x80441b0d

ExceptionCode. . . . .0x80000003

ExceptionFlags . . . .0x00000001

ExceptionAddress . . .0x80467e33

As for the chip coolers -- the NBs heatsink is only lukewarm (some air from the CPU fan passes over it) so I don't think it would need additional cooling. However, the SB was rather hot, especially during USB transfers, so that may very well benefit from the extra cooling.

In any case, I need to figure out and fix the reboots.

Or I need to go back for another mobo.

Edited May 22, 2012 by aurgathor

[aurgathor]

Cheap (1Gig sticks) DDR1 is not easy to find either.

It's still easier than finding 1 Gig SDRAM, though.

But in any case, I may need to cannibalize my i-RAM, but I should have enough 1 Gig DDR1 modules to fill up a 3 Gig mobo.

[dencorso]

There's KVR400X64C3A/1Gs galore at eBay, and amazon.com still has them, too. There really is no need at all to decomission your i-RAM.