K7 Thunder Serial Number Poll

[dieu]

Because of the divided groups of success and failure, leads me to believe that there are at least two different lots if you will, of the K7 Thunder motherboard circulating through distribution. Because of this, I will ask three questions:

• Manufacturing Date? (found on the backside of the mainboard)
• Stable or Unstable? Yes/NO
• Serial Number? (found on the box)
• Five digit number in the upper corner above DIMM slot four.

If followed properly, this information may provide an illustration between the serial number, date of manfucture, and stability of the motherboard. Therefore, a user may be able to predict the likelihood between a successful and unsuccessful installation/configuration by the serial number. This is the information that I believe Tyan is trying to repress. This is also a similar situation encountered with the ancient Asus K7M motherboard.

[duplo]

I have a Rev B K7, which hasn't been tested, but I haven't heard of any problems involving the Rev B model.

The problem might be as simple as Rev A=bad RevB=working

duplo

[hessd]

My M/B has a large "A" placed between two PCI slots. I purchased the board on 6/20/01 and it has been very stable to date. I'm afraid I did not note the S/N before I mounted the board, and it does not appear to be on the top face of the board. I have the NMB power supply. When I first turned the P/S on, I had many devices attached, and I was likely drawing a fair amount of current.

[hessd]

BTW, my board came with the 2.06 bios, the heatsink on the Northbridge and the plastic handles on the sockets.

[dieu]

*Update*

2nd K7 Thunder
Revision A
Stable-Minor Lockups
S/N TY1G01811456
01E0A

[Ryan]

K7 Thunder
Revision A
Stable
47-0041-197S

[amazon]

33 boards shipped in systems or to clients direct all Rev A.

All stable.

All with Samsung original memory

Even down to the one I have personally at home running Windows XP Professional RC1

[cigaraficionado]

Okay, I think I have some info on the Thunder K7 that may be of relevance... and I haven't seen a post with this info.

When I received my S2462UNG it was the 21st of June. I assembled it together and had nothing but problems. All the BS everyone has been pointing out (lockups, no post, long post, freezing during install,... etc,...). I tried the different BIOS's (up to 2.06) - nothing helped. I finally called Tyan Tech Support. I spoke with Tim (aka tech9@tyan.com). He and I worked on resolving my issue. Here is what it came down to:

If you look near the DIMMs on your board (on the edge of board by the corner) - there is a marking... at the time I talked with Tim there were 2 - 01EOA and 01RONA.
01EOA is a pre-release board from Tyan. It was intended for use by people other than end users. In other words, it was an engineering sample not intended for resale. The signs of this board are as follows:
1. No heat sink on the northbridge (and it gets hot...).
2. Older style socket 462 with metal handle.
3. A few capacitor changes (minor).
4. Comes with a BIOS prior to version 2.00 (ie 1.0x).
5. Tyan CD is version 2.80 (not 2.90 which has the real drivers for the board... big hint here...)

(Another thing to note... the picture on Tyan's site showing the board - it has a board with no heatsink on the northbridge. It makes it misleading as the working product has a 45 x 45 mm 3/8" heatsink firmly glued in place...)

It was highly suggested to me by Tim to get the 01RONA board and return this pre-release version right away. He said he could modify my board, but that it would be much easier to return to my vendor and just get a 'Release' board based on the 01RONA. As the 01EOA board even when patched would not fix some of the cold boot issues that had been fixed in the 01RONA. He said they shouldn't be selling the board as it was a free demo. Makes you wonder about the profit margin...

Anyway, I sent back my 01EOA board to a very unhappy reseller... they did not want accept it, but in the end they did. They could not find a 01RONA. I then ordered from Ingram Micro and received the 01RONA board. It has worked flawlessly as I have expected (except for the POS 3Com NIC cards).

I would suggest that if you are going to have a 'poll' of information based on boards,... look at the etching in PCB near the DIMMs and report that. The number between the PCI slots had no bearing on the board's status (as per Tim - or better said - he just wanted to know the etched value not the letter between the PCI slots). The key element was telling between 01EOA and 01RONA.

My current system config (for those who care):

S2462UNG 01RONA (has an "A" between the 4-5 PCI slots)
2 AthlonMP 1.2 GHz
1 GB PC2100 ECC Registered DDR SDRAM from Crucial
VisionTek Geforce 3 (using 12.41 drivers)
Creative Labs Soundblaster Live Platinum 5.1
Plextor UltraPlex Wide SCSI CD-ROM
Plextor 12/4/32x SCSI CD-R/RW
Toshiba SD-M1401 SCSI DVD-ROM
Intel 82550 3DES Server NIC (I disabled both the onboard NICs as they are worthless)
IBM 36.7 GB 10K RPM Ultrastar (DDYS-TN3650N) x 2
NMB 460W Power Supply
Running W2K Pro SP2.

Have fun and hope some of this info helps.

[dieu]

cigaraficionado:

Good information. I'll look into it.

Thanks!

[grubber]

Well, well, looks like Monarch made a $500+ profit on my engineering sample if what you say is true (barring the shady middleman theory). OTOH, it seems like there sure were a lot of engineering samples out there if no bios versions less than 2.0 were supposed to be sold. And FWIW, I'm happy with the stabilty of my system, although reboots not always finding the 3ware 'disk' might be a 'cold boot' issue.

Since it's a lot easier to check if you have a northbridge heat sink than pulling out the mb to check the serial number, or even this 01EOA mark, lets get some statistics on board function vs nb heatsink. Also, if you got a 'sample,' who charged you for a real board?


I've got no heatsink, but a stable system.

[duplo]

Well.. my k7 is running quite stablily. Something interesting is happening though. I have 2x athlon MP 1.2ghz cpu's, the bios detects them as that, but 2k says they're both running 6mhz shy of that mark, ie 1194Mhz a piece. Is this normal?




Thunder K7 2462NG Rev B
2x 2ghz AthlonMP
512mb Crucial Pc2100 registered
Tekram 3940UW
2x 18gb u2w 10k rpm
Elsa Gloria II
Win2k Professional

[dieu]

Mine do as well and that is normal.

Originally posted by duplo
Well.. my k7 is running quite stablily. Something interesting is happening though. I have 2x athlon MP 1.2ghz cpu's, the bios detects them as that, but 2k says they're both running 6mhz shy of that mark, ie 1194Mhz a piece. Is this normal?




Thunder K7 2462NG Rev B
2x 2ghz AthlonMP
512mb Crucial Pc2100 registered
Tekram 3940UW
2x 18gb u2w 10k rpm
Elsa Gloria II
Win2k Professional

[Los]

I have been flip flopping on the purchase of the K7 board. Does anyone know if there are still engineering sample boards still in the system, or do I just take my chances and order a board and see what happens? I have been looking at ENPC they have a system K7 board 256 x 2 ECC ram (Ram is not Samsung for what it’s worth) dual 1.2 mp processors and NMB power supply. They’re asking 1,315.00 plus shipping and handling. No bad I think. If you have any other deals or recommendations where I can buy the board, please let me know. I read where one person bought the board from Ingram Micro, I went to the web site Ingrammicro.com but did not see that it where an end user could place an order. If you can help please let me know.

Thanks in advance
Los

[dieu]

According to a large Tyan distributor, the engineering sample tittle-tattle was blown out of proportion. They state, the actual number of engineering samples that Tyan sent out to reviewers was minute.

It seems as though the “newer” lots are making way into distribution and should be widely available. There seems to be no way of determining the stability between the “A” version of the K7 thunder. My first one failed to run properly for five minutes whereas, the second K7 Thunder ran as expected. These are both revision “A” boards.

I would not recommend purchasing the earlier non-updated “A” version of the K7 Thunder. However, some users have claimed that their board indicates a “B” revision. I recommend that you opt for the revised version with the passive heatsink on the Northbridge and the AMD certified heatsink.

In spite of everything, I do encourage you to purchase the K7 Thunder from a reputable reseller or partner of Tyan such as ENPC or Monarch Computer. They have both indicated to me that they have the “revised” version of the mainboard.

Ingram Micro is for distributers only.

Originally posted by Los
I have been flip flopping on the purchase of the K7 board. Does anyone know if there are still engineering sample boards still in the system, or do I just take my chances and order a board and see what happens? I have been looking at ENPC they have a system K7 board 256 x 2 ECC ram (Ram is not Samsung for what it’s worth) dual 1.2 mp processors and NMB power supply. They’re asking 1,315.00 plus shipping and handling. No bad I think. If you have any other deals or recommendations where I can buy the board, please let me know. I read where one person bought the board from Ingram Micro, I went to the web site Ingrammicro.com but did not see that it where an end user could place an order. If you can help please let me know.

Thanks in advance
Los

[Los]

Dieu,
Thanks for the info, I will let you know what happens.

Aloha
Los