Congrats on the board, its a very nice one indeed!

-Watch out for the caps, even if they look pristine Abit used some cheap ones back then. If you run into trouble like instabilities and the such, these should be your first suspects.
-On eBay there are pre-modded Tualatin CPUs, if you choose to go that route. They are still on the expensive side though.
-When matching CPUs for SMP usage, the important thing is to match the stepping codes. Where they were manufactured is of no consequence.
-The CuMine-T you found will perform identical to a normal CuMine. They are compatible with motherboards that support normal CuMine signaling and motherboards supporting Tualating signaling.

Personally, having built a dual CPU system and ran Tualatins in it, I would just run CuMines. Cheaper, and less headache to get them running. Of course, you have to consider what you want to do with the system and how much money/time you want to spend on it. If the intention is to max it out then Tualatins all the way; for playing the occasional game and experimenting with SMP, either Tualatin or CuMine will do.

Good luck, and post some pics as you build!

My VP6 has horribly bloated caps. I hope yours is okay!

The motherboard look fine, no bloated caps. I do not have identical coolers so for testing I used some socket A ones. Memtest is now running to determine the stability and the right memory modules to use with the board. The BIOS is version YT and not the latest DR - but that one is only for the highpoint controller; should I upgrade or just leave it as it is?
Build progress:

nd22 wrote:

The BIOS is version YT and not the latest DR - but that one is only for the highpoint controller; should I upgrade or just leave it as it is?

"If it aint broke.......you havn't fixed it enough !"
But seriously, one BIOS revision will most likely not have anything you need with that setup.

I want to build this gaming computer.
With a Cooler Master Wave case and Jet-7 CPU coolers.
Maybe paint the motherboard flat grey.

once you go dual, you dont go back!

I encountered a problem with the system!
With 2gb of SDRAM PC133, even form 2 different manufacturers, the system will pass memtest86 multiple times - 3 times in one night I think is enough!
I tried multiple HDD and they are all recognized - I choose a Western digital 250gb from 2004 I think.
As a test video card I used some geforce 5500 and 93.71 drivers. For network duties I used a TP-LINK 851nd compatible with every Windows starting with 98.
Both windows 2000 and XP installed just fine and the system is up and running however the problem is with the sound card! I used 2 different Creative Live - 0060 and 0220 - but they are not recognized by the system - they do not appear not even with an yellow mark in device manager! I changed the PCI slots - first time the 5th slot now the 4th slot but with no luck! I tested both sound cards in different systems and both are running just fine - one in an Abit BX6 2.0 with Windows Millennium and one in an Abit IC7-MAX3 with Windows XP - so both of them are OK! I have several others Creative Live - different revisions - I will try them but any suggestions would be great!

check the bios.

there might be something funny in the PnP setup.

Another joins the SMP family, welcome 😀
Creative cards can be a PITA. You doing a clean build every time or moving the card hoping it will be picked up as new hardware?
not that it matters, I've had the exact same problem then after yet another reinstall it comes up in device manager so I just back away slowly.
I am thinking of trying the daniel k drivers next time it happens.

nd22 wrote:

Cut

Huh, looks like I'm not the only one who had such an issue with the later SB Live! cards. And in my situation, it's a single CPU motherboard (QDI Advance 10T). I tried both models you have, and even the older CT4830 SB Live! but no dice, it won't be detected by the system. The CT4620 on the other hand, the original Sound Blaster Live!, works flawlessly. I suppose the later iterations aren't as compatible as the earlier ones are. The SB X-Fi works too, but it slows some games down.

In the end I wouldn't recommend the SB Live! much anyway, it's a resource hog and its drivers are poorly optimized: in XP the standard Microsoft drivers work better than the Creative ones! Just to say one thing. The Yamaha YMF-724 in my case ran way better, although it was slightly more noisy than the Live!, and had real OPL3 and supported 3D sound with the right driver version, if you care about 3D sound. IMHO, I'd go with a YMF724/744, better drivers than the Live!, real OPL3 and 3D sound capabilities, with the proper driver version.

I tried over 10 Creative cards and they are not recognised by the board!! Not a single one! Live 4830, 0060, 0100, 0220, Audigy 2 ZS, original Audigy and the list goes on and on! As last resort I installed a cheap C-Media CMI8738 sound card that was recognised on the spot and all drivers installed by Windows - it even works with 5.1 surround sound! I do not know if the problem lies with this specific board, with the VIA chip-set or with Creative but I am disappointed because Live was period correct and one the best sound cards of the era!

Did you try the CT4620? On my motherboard it's the only Live! that gets detected. Besides, the Live was not one of the best sound cards available, quite the opposite: even with the standard XP drivers, the Live! loaded an executable to enable the front speakers support, causing an increased load on the CPU and reducing performance. It wasn't that silent either, my two CT4620s are affected by a very faint crackling noise that was there even when they were new. The Aureal Vortex was way better... But no Windows XP drivers. 😢

How does the C-Media sound? Is it noisy? I never had such a card, but so far, the most noisy cards I used in my RDD system are the Yamaha YMF-724 (great drivers and performance, but man, the noise...) and the ESS Allegro (horribly bloated drivers, less noisy than the YMF-724 but I could hear the continuous hissing when the system was silent). Ironically enough, the best PCI sound card I used on my system was the Ensoniq AudioPCI, despite doing everything in software, it had a way lower overhead than the Live! and less noise, before I switched to the AWE64 Value I currently have.

I do not have that version! But after 12 Creative cards tested I gave up - way too much incompatibility problems - I am now testing them on an Abit BX6 2.0 and some of them are working just fine while some others are not - same problem as on VP6, not detected by the board! I am starting to think that the problem are Creative cards and not Abit boards or the chip-sets!
C+media does not have hardware acceleration so it consumes CPU resources but otherwise I do not hear any crackling and in Diablo 2 I have surround sound! I will continue with C-media simply because it is working!
Now I installed Windows XP and the performance is surprisingly good - it feels very snappy and responsive! Microsoft update works just fine and all updates up to April 2014 were picked up and installed correctly. The question now is: should I use POS2009 patch and get those updates or leave it as it is? I am fully aware of the problems with some of the updates and SSE1 only processors!
As an observation using a fast hard drive makes all the difference; period correct drives from 2000 - 2001 are atrociously slow! This one is from 2004 and fits perfectly!

Avoid installing any update. It will only slow your system down. I know by experience. I told you that performance would increase with faster storage... You would be surprised if you try a WD Velociraptor or an SSD in combination with a PCI SATA controller.