AMD 760 MPX recommendations

[jthorne]

I am very much interested in making the jump to a dual proc Athlon MP system...I am an AMD newbie and I am considering the MSI K7D or the Tiger S2666N mbs...I was thinking of going with the MP 2400 processors...

After reading the threads in this forum I have some concerns about amd stability due to all the posting regarding system freezing...Are my concerns founded...Can someone reccomend a stable processor/motherboard combination?

I would also like to run RedHat 8 on this machines...Has anyone run into any problems with linux with this architecture...

Thanks for the help,
Jeff

[OldFrog]

I have had Mandrake 8.2, 9.0 and 9.1RC1 running dual-boot with Win2K in my AMD766-D (rev 1.04) 24/7 since july 2002.
Gave a try to Knoppix, tested a bit some other ones with no troubles.
I never stop my rig, it has 2 running instances of F@H in Win2K, 2 of S@H in Linux.
The only BSOD I got was with the bad sound driver in WIn2K, and it happens only once every 2 months.

About linux install, everything onboard was detected, so I guess you should have no trouble with any recent distro, except for some eventual extra esoteric device you should add.

About stability, don't be focused on the posts from our two fellows who had troubles with the asus. There are more of us here who don't post about our Mb, simply because they are the most stable things we ever had.
I myself opened once the box in 7 months, to do some dust cleaning and change a case fan.
And I really think most stability troubles are related to PSUs, RAM sticks, or bad devices (as trying to run a creative soundcard in a duallie).

[phil]

I am running a few dual AMD systems. I have an Iwill MPX2 running RH8 and a Tyan S2466N running Gentoo. Both are running great with full stability at full load 24x7. My server (the Tyan) has a current uptime of:

11:27:40  up 33 days, 15:44,  2 users,  load average: 1.99, 1.97, 1.72

Both of these systems only get rebooted for upgrades etc.

[jthorne]

Thanks for the response...Two last questions I forgot to ask...How loud are these things...Should I expect to have to put it in a closet...Can you reccomend a power supply so I can avoid the system freeze problems?

Thanks again,

Cheers,
Jeff

[phil]

Originally posted by jthorne
Thanks for the response...Two last questions I forgot to ask...How loud are these things...Should I expect to have to put it in a closet...Can you reccomend a power supply so I can avoid the system freeze problems?

Thanks again,

Cheers,
Jeff

It all depends on your choice of cooling on how loud they are. I ise SLK800's in my Iwill MPX2 and 2x low cfm (low noise) YSTech 80mm fans and the noise is acceptable.

I recommend the Antec tru power 480W psu. It is quiet and will power your system nicely.

[jthorne]

phil...thanks again for the replay...your advice is most helpful...I noticed on the AMD site that they reccomend vertical towers over rack mount becuase of optimal airflow...Have you or any one out there tired a rack mount case...

I would prefer to go with the rackmout case but with AMD's warnings I am worried about over heating...

cheers,
Jeff

[buljarse]

I been running my MPX over 3 months now. I say running I mean HAMMERING and I've never had a freezeup once to my recollection. Also I modded 2 XP's saving myself nearly $200.

[Hubris]

The primary concern in rackmount cases comes in the smaller 2U and 3U cases. A larger case like a 5U has plenty of space for proper cooling and airflow.

Athlon MP chips will need more cooling and airflow than an equivilant Xeon processor....so if you have experience there, you can judge.

[ELF]

my mpx is running redhat 8 atm and I tried redhat 9.0 and it ran fine as well. ( it ran slower so I ditched 9.0)