Filosofia wrote:

I've got this P2B-DS laying around and no idea what to do with it, its working with a couple 350 Deschutes and 2x256MB SDRAM... any ideas?

>_>

<_<

Send it to me. Lol.

m1919 wrote:

>_> […]
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Filosofia wrote:

I've got this P2B-DS laying around and no idea what to do with it, its working with a couple 350 Deschutes and 2x256MB SDRAM... any ideas?

>_>

<_<

Send it to me. Lol.

What would you do with it?

Filosofia wrote:

m1919 wrote:

>_> […]
Show full quote

Filosofia wrote:

I've got this P2B-DS laying around and no idea what to do with it, its working with a couple 350 Deschutes and 2x256MB SDRAM... any ideas?

>_>

<_<

Send it to me. Lol.

What would you do with it?

Not sure, maybe try to run a pair of Tualatins on it. I remember seeing a page dedicated to running Tualatins on the P2B-DS, or a similar board.

Ok thanks, gonna try and find that page right now.

Filosofia wrote:

Ok thanks, gonna try and find that page right now.

They'll have to be P3-S chips that have 512kb cache though, the other Tualatins don't support SMP.

Is this SMP any good for gaming? Do dual 350MHz cpu works as a single 700MHz? Or this is just for multitasking?

Filosofia wrote:

Is this SMP any good for gaming? Do dual 350MHz cpu works as a single 700MHz? Or this is just for multitasking?

SMP doesn't scale linearly, it only really benefits multitasking or multi-threaded applications. If you run an SMP capable OS, like 2000 Pro or XP Pro, you might get some slight performance increase simply because the one CPU won't be as loaded down with both OS processes and whatever other application you are running.

You'd still need a fast processor to get the high-performance in single-threaded applications like games though.

More modern applications and even newer games seem to be taking advantage of multi-core processors and multi-threading, but even then most programs out there are heavily single-threaded.

Dual processors won't do much for most games. Writing a program that can get much benefit from more than 1 CPU is difficult. The game industry didn't put much effort into that until dual-core CPUs became mainstream much later on. In the late 90s, mostly just server software and high end workstation apps paid attention to dual CPU support. Video encoding software also can make use of them, but nowadays you're probably more likely to do that on a newer machine.
2 separate apps can run simultaneously on different CPUs, so it can still benefit multitasking. The difficulty is in programming a single app to use both of them for a common overall task.

I had one of those boards once and it didn't overclock the FSB very much, it got maybe 112MHz. It might have just been an old revision, but I expect dual CPU boards generally aren't going to overclock very well. You'll almost surely need to stick with 100FSB processors on that board.

I would be more inclined to use a board like that for a server application. Whether to fill both CPUs depends on the need vs whether you care about more power consumption, but the RAM capacity is nice. For a 24/7 app I'd use registered ECC, which is usually cheap 2nd hand, because there's more companies getting rid of it than consumers who have a use for it. But if you use it for short game sessions, unbuffered RAM probably makes more sense because it's faster.
Do you know if it works with Coppermines? I'd use those if you can. Some of the earlier revision boards have a Coppermine VRM chip in them, even though Asus didn't promise that until later revisions.

If you have any interest in software programming, this would be a good machine to learn SMP programming with, or as a means to test your software on older hardware / OS versions. Some bugs in SMP code are only apparent when executed on an actual dual CPU machine, and won't be noticed on a single.

Since it has onboard SCSI, you could use it for testing SCSI hard drives.

For games, I'd be more inclined to use a late revision single CPU board that can reliably run a 133FSB CPU. But if this is what you have, there's nothing wrong with using it for games, it just wouldn't be my first choice for that application.

To my knowledge, the only game from back then which will do anything with a second CPU is Quake 3. The game engine has an experimental SMP environment var that can be tweaked. However it has barely any effect.

you could run linux or an earlier version of windows like 2k or xp. Over at, http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showforum=8 they have been working on getting dual cpu support working in 98se. The last time i checked it was still fairly rudimentary.

I had one of those boards once and it didn't overclock the FSB very much, it got maybe 112MHz. It might have just been an old revision...

Yep, old revision. The last couple versions properly worked at 133FSB, but versions 1.04 and below (IIRC) topped out at lower speeds due to a bug in the PLL chip. The ones that work at 133 have an ICS9250 chip, the older ones have an ICS9150.

I have one of these boards as well, and it's been sitting around for years because I haven't figured out what to do with it either. It's far from ideal as a general purpose desktop these days, dual processor isn't useful for old games, but it's too slow for new games... I guess it might make an OK basis for a server, but I already have another machine better suited to the task. That doesn't really leave a whole lot of options. Probably the best bet from a practical standpoint would be to just use it with one CPU.

can the old pll be replaced or modded if one has the required soldering skills? I know on my current laptop i was able to unlock the pll with a jumper wire.

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

I had one of those boards once and it didn't overclock the FSB very much, it got maybe 112MHz. It might have just been an old revision...

Yep, old revision. The last couple versions properly worked at 133FSB, but versions 1.04 and below (IIRC) topped out at lower speeds due to a bug in the PLL chip. The ones that work at 133 have an ICS9250 chip, the older ones have an ICS9150.

I looked in my old notes and the board I had was 1.05 P2B-D (no SCSI). But it also didn't have a Coppermine VRM so I'm not sure I actually had a proper CPU to test it's bus overclocking with. I don't think I've ever owned a 133FSB Katmai.

I must have been trying to overclock it with a Deschutes or a 100FSB Katmai, which wouldn't have gone very far regardless of the board. So my experience with only reaching 112 doesn't mean much. 😀

I have a system built around a P2B-D board (rev. 1.06 PCBA D03) and two 1GHz Coppermines underclocked from FSB 133 to 112 (FSB 133 would overclock the PCI bus to 44 unless a hardware mod is made - http://tipperlinne.com/p2b-ds150.htm ). I ran it for a few weeks as my day-to-day system with WinXP, although Win2000 might have been a "lighter" choice, even for its 1GB of RAM and 9GB Quantum Atlas 10K II drive. I guess I'm keeping it for the hope that some day I'll have the time and skills to perform that mod I mentioned, but if a good opportunity comes along I wouldn't mind sending the whole system to a new home...

if you know what you are doing there are number of services you can disable to lighten it up. I got xp home running as light as 57-59mb idle usage with no anti virus.

I admit I'm running Avira (Personal/Free Edition) on it, and I probably should try to disable automatic searching for updates at start-up - I think those two take most of the (too) long booting time... which is what actually annoys me - once the system has started, antivirus initialized/updated and Windows updates searched, everything runs pretty smoothly.

can the old pll be replaced or modded if one has the required soldering skills?

Yes. It's a direct swap. The main obstacle is finding a replacement chip, as the ICS9250 has been out of production for quite some time.

I also don't know if the chip swap by itself will enable a stable 133mhz bus on all boards... it's very possible that there could have been some additional unseen changes in trace routing or part values through the various revisions. I imagine it should work on any board new enough to have the Coppermine-compatible VRM (and there have been documented cases of success at it), but earlier revisions are sorta uncharted territory in that regard.

Suggestion from me, create dream machine from it!

Use any AGP video card (TNT2 was sweet spot, not M64), use pairs of 3dfx Voodoo2 SLI, use SCSI stuff (like SCSI CD-ROM, SCSI CD-RW, SCSI DVD-ROM, Jaz Drive, Seagate Cheetah SCSI, and more that I can't answering it. Remember, paying SCSI devices not always cheap), SoundBlaster Live!, any cheap ethernet card, MPEG2 playback card (finding this stuff was not easier), and one other PCI slot whatever yourself (USB 2.0 card was good idea). Use dual Pentium III 1GHz (I'm doubt if P2B-DS run correctly on Tualatin because 440BX issues), 1GB SDRAM memory, and use full tower case if you want it.

If you can't do it, use them as file server. 😁

do the PLL's have a firmware of their own or are they just hardware only?