This piece should be prefaced with the comment that this is a commentary on user experience with the Asus A7M266-D motherboard, not a full blown review.

I’ve always been a fan of dual CPU designs: the prospect of all that extra power just captivated me. Being a fan of AMD as well the Athlon MP line was too good to pass up. The draw of dual AMD CPUs and 64 bit 66 MHz PCI was strong: the focus of the site was moving to ATA RAID controllers and those PCI slots were needed for definitve benchmarking.  Initial MP chipsets were expensive and required unique power supplies, but with the release of the 760 MPX chipset dual Athlons were ready for prime time. Or so it seemed.

Right after the release of the MPX chipset it was discovered there were problems with the USB 1.1 implementation, causing hangs when they were used. Most companies already had the motherboards finished, so a stop-gap measure was put in place: motherboards came with a USB 2.0 PCI card. Checking online specs and reviews I decided on the Tyan Tiger MPX, which was out of stock in Southern Ontario for over two months. This let to option b: the Asus A7M266-D.

More specifically I ordered the A7M266-DL model, which included 10/100 ethernet as well. Imagine my surprise when it arrived and the ethernet came in the form of a small PCI adapter. Now I had five PCI slots, two being occupied with USB and LAN, both of which should have been onboard. Not a huge deal, but annoying none the less.

This is a dual CPU workstation board, and as such has onboard six channel audio via a C-Media chip. Since I’ve used this board as the basis for a server, the audio hasn’t received much of a workout; just system sounds.

With four DIMM slots there’s a lot of headroom for RAM. If you’re using standard DDR RAM, only the first two slots can be utilized. If using registered DDR RAM all four slots can be filled, which is what I did with four PC2700 ECC Registered 512 MB DIMMs. For some reason, no matter what type of ECC Registered DIMMs I used the BIOS always showed registered non-ECC RAM. Switching brands and slots made no difference. My other machines recognized the RAM as ECC, but this board wouldn’t.

For a workstation or server board, Asus should know it needs to have at least three fan headers plus one for each CPU. Modern powere supplies have one fan connection, plus one for the rear of the case and one for the front. The board has two plus two for the CPUs, leaving the front fan covering hard drives unmonitored.

The Asus A7M266-D holds up very well under heavy loads. I’ve used it for days on end running benchmarks and have never experienced a hiccup, blue screen or lockup. The Athlon MP is fading into the sunset with the release and push of the Opteron, but still a great contender for a low cost dual CPU system. Asus has removed mention from it’s site, except for specific searches of the model number. The last BIOS update was March 18th 2003, so don’t expect any more updates.

Editors note: this review was migrated from the old eBabble.net site and the photos updated. Originally published February 25th 2004.

Installation was straight forward, as everything is well positioned on the board and the manual gave all the pertinent details.  For it’s initial home I installed it into an Antec Atlas case, using every onboard function I could and only adding RAM, hard drive, DVD-ROM and PCE-E video.  Performance was good; pretty well matching my Nforce4 motherboard with the same CPU and RAM.  Life was good, except the system saw no usage and I needed the case elsewhere so out everything came and sat around.

The opportunity arose to sell a system so this motherboard went into a new system built inside an Antec SLK3700BQE case: one of my all time favourites and the last I had hanging around the shop.  The build was smooth without a hiccup.  Loaded Windows XP, drivers and updates and still no issues.  I passed the system along to the new buyer.

The system came back: no sound.  Checked the drivers and software setup: Windows XP believed the sound was working as advertised.  I compared the two systems: the Atlas had front audio and the SLK3700BQE didn’t.  Pouring over the manual gave no indication of fault, but that had to be the issue.  I checked for default jumper configuration for the front audio connector but there was no mention.   In the PDF of the manual (since the print copy was with the owner) I zoomed into the front panel audio connector and noticed some pins darker than the others: I took this to represent jumpers, so I put two on as the manual ever so slightly illustrated.  Bang on, audio was working.

That started to change, but very slowly with the concept of a workstation motherboard that carried server features over to an ATX form factor for engineering or scientific work.  The Abit BP6 has two socket 370 CPU sockets on an otherwise normal ATX motherboard and used desktop Intel processors.  Mine sits proudly in my “bin of old bits” after years of faithful server as my home server.  Intel got wise in it’s next generation and eliminated the ability to run two desktop CPUs.

I abandoned it in favor on the Tyan Tiger MPX motherboard with it’s two Socket A CPU sockets and 64 bit PCI slots.  This was another standard ATX motherboard with “server” features.  I was getting into ATA RAID and needed the additional bandwidth these slots provided.  AMD rebadged desktop CPUs as Athlon MP server CPUs and enabled one connection on the CPU to allow them to work in tandem.

Today PCI express has eliminated the need for  64 bit PCI and PCI-X 133 slots.  Every motherboard now comes with a PCI-E x16 slot that can give us all the bandwidth we need for add-in cards.  With onboard video this slot is ready to go.  What else is needed on an SME motherboard?  Four to six SATA II connections with onboard RAID 1 or RAID 5: SCSI is now out to pasture with SAS and SATA taking it’s place.  For a small business SATA II will get the job done at a decent price.

I don’t think you even buy a motherboard today without an onboard NIC; with the explosion of home networking and the internet it’s a very common item now.

So what constitutes a server motherboard now?  All those onboard features are still a must for enterprise servers, but for the SOHO and SME market a compact all encompassing model fits the bill, with everything onboard: SATA II with RAID, NIC, video.  Two very different models exemplefy this: the eVGA e-7150 and the Tyan Toledo S5211.

The eVGA e-7150 is an all in one consumer board using the Nvidia 630i chipset with onboard video, SATA RAID 5, audio, gigabit NIC and PCI-E in a microATX format.  It’s fanless and takes all consumer Intel socket 775 CPUs.  Put this in a quiet case with four hard drives and you have a powerhouse storage system.  It’s available for $85-100 CDN.

The Tyan Toledo S5211 is a proper server motherboard, using the Intel 3210 server chipset with six SATA II RAID 5 ports, PCI-E and PCI-X slots, two gigabit NICs, unbuffered ECC memory, and takes all single socket Intel CPUs including Xeons.  It also supports a Tyan remote management card.  It’s about $300 CDN and fits the bill for just about and SME requirement.

Introductory models from Dell and HP are in fact desktop systems: examining service manuals shows basic desktop motherboards.  Via upgrades you can get them more “server” like with multi core CPUs, ECC RAM and hot swappable storage.  Two factors make them valid choices: good add-in or onboard remote management and a solid onsite warranty, neither of which you’ll get from a custom build or white box system.

Let’s take a look at the MicroStar MS-6103 Socket 8 motherboard. I know the first thing you’re going to say; why bother with a motherboard from 1995? My main reason is the number of search hits I get looking for information on this model, plus the emails requesting information. I’ve been using this board with two Pentium Pro 180 MHz processors and 128 MB of RAM in a variety of situations and have made a few discoveries that may help those who are still using it.

The board is your basic dual processor socket 8 AT motherboard with an Intel 440FX chipset supporting Intel’s Pentium Pro. This is pre AGP, so it has four PCI slots and three ISA slots. The 440FX chipset limits us to PIO Mode 4 IDE, plus very early USB implementation. Being an AT motherboard the I/O connectors are on ribbon cables providing parallel and serial ports. MicroStar doesn’t have a page dedicated to this model, but you can get a partial manual and the last BIOS revision. While the motherboard has pins for a PS/2 mouse connector and USB ports, these were optional.

A Little background; I received this system from a vendor friend “as is”. I’ve always been interested in the Pentium Pro but couldn’t afford one when they were new, so I thought this would be good to play around with. It came with a full tower case, motherboard, two 180MHz processors ( 256k L2 cache ) and two 32MB EDO SIMMs.

First thing I did was install an ATI PCI video card, two more 32MB EDO SIMMs, an old Toshiba IDE CD-ROM, a 10/100 PCI NIC and an old 6.4 GB PIO 4 hard drive. Next up was an operating system; I didn’t want to push it so I installed Windows NT Workstation 4.0. Everything worked fine, but I wanted to add a second NIC and a Promise ATA100 controller to get Small Business Server 4.5 installed. Then the fun started, all relating to the motherboard and the reason for this article.

For some reason the fourth PCI slot wouldn’t assign an IRQ, either by itself or shared. I thought this was a resource issue, but there were lots of free IRQs available. Then I removed all cards and put the video card in the fourth slot; same problem. This let me to checking the BIOS on the MSI page. I had the latest Award BIOS, but for some reason MSI offered both Award and AMI BIOS’ for the MS-6103. I checked around and found a flash utility to switch between the two; why you’d want to flip flop I don’t know, but I took a chance and installed the AMI BIOS. Now the fourth PCI slot worked, and I had an option to enable PS/2 support.

I went to the local computer shop and tried a few generic PS/2 mouse and USB adapters, going by the pin count on the motherboard. They’re out there if you need them, but I don’t have much use right now.

My next issue came when I had Windows 2000 Server installed and running on the machine. I had moved my home network to Windows 2000 to take advantage of IntelliMirror and to get my cable internet going properly. It seems NT is not able to be a DHCP server and have a NIC set for DHCP in the same system, which I needed since my cable company actually changes the IP address monthly. About two weeks after installation the floppy drive stopped working; nothing I could do would get it to work. I tried switching drives and cables, removing and adding but to no avail. I eventually wiped the drive and re-installed. No reasonable explanation for this, other than a glitch. Somehow I relate this to the motherboard, since it developed over time with no real changes to the setup or OS. I wiped the system and flashed the BIOS to get rid of the issues.

There are limitations to the board, but those are to be expected by the use of the 440FX chipset. PIO Mode 4 IDE connections allow for 16 MB/s burst speed, but the real problem is the limitation of the 8 GB size cap. I’ve got a WD 6.4 GB in there now with a Toshiba CD-ROM, but they do seem a little slower whether real or perceived. The second problem are the 72 pin SIMM slots; I’ve got four 32 MB SIMMs in there now, but to bump them to 64 MB SIMMs would cost a fortune. You don’t realize the pace of RAM changes until you want to upgrade an older system.

I’ve had this board and system set up in various configurations. For a while it was my home server running NT 4.0 Server, but I gave that up with Windows 2000 Server and it’s hunger for 256 MB or RAM. Next I set it up as a secondary system running Windows NT 4.0 workstation with a Promise Ultra100 controller and my LG 8120 CD recorder. I wanted to play games on it as well so I installed Windows 2000 Professional, but the CPU and PCI graphics just weren’t up to Counter-Strike. As of late I’ve installed various brands of Linux, toying with the idea of running it as a Samba server. The machine has taken each itineration without difficulty.

Issues of age aside, this is a very stable motherboard. I’ve had lockups or crashes relating to hardware, except for the odd floppy trouble. It’s solidly built and a good choice for your Pentium Pro chips. I’ve been checking the web for price parts; a Pentium Pro 180 MHz CPU is $5, and a single socket 8 ATX motherboard can be had for $40. While older, these systems run Windows NT 4.0 and Linux very well. I hope some light has been shed on this board and what it’s still capable of.

Update:

I can’t believe the hits this and it’s parent page receive. I’m still using this motherboard, with an Adaptec AHA-2940UW adapter and two Seagate Cheetah 18 GB drives. Various flavours of Linux have been installed, all working well. Current configuration is listed below.

Picked up a PS/2 port backplane with an AT header ( 5 pin ). When I enabled the PS/2 port in the BIOS, exiting out would reset it to disabled. No matter what I did or how I fiddled I couldn’t get the PS/2 function enabled. I wanted to get it going so I could use the system with my KVM.

Current System Configuration

• Intel Pentium Pro 180 MHz 256k L2 x2
• MSI MS-6103 Socket 8 AT Motherboard
• 32 MB ECC DRAM SIMM x4
• ATI Xpert 98 8MB PCI Video Card
• Creative Sound Blaster 32 Sound Card
• Seagate Cheetah 18 GB SCSI-2 7200 RPM Hard Drive x2
• Pioneer 2x SCSI-2 DVD-ROM
• Aiwa Travan 1 8GB SCSI-2 Tape Drive
• Iomega Zip100 SCSI Drive
• 3.5” Panasonic Floppy Drive
• Intel 10/100 PIC Network Adapter
• Aopen AH08 Full Tower Case with Aopen 300 watt AT power supply
• Red Hat Linux 9.0

Editors note: this review was migrated from the old eBabble.net site and the photos updated. Originally published May 10th 2001.

]]> http://tech.ebabble.net/msi-ms-6103/feed 0 http://tech.ebabble.net/asus-a7pro http://tech.ebabble.net/asus-a7pro#comments Fri, 26 Jan 2007 19:33:02 +0000 Scott VanderPloeg http://www.ebabble.net/reviews/asus-a7pro/

Motherboards are a difficult item to review, for good reason. After listing the features from the manufacturer’s web site, what do you discuss? Installation is pretty well the same for all boards, depending on form factor. Benchmarks are difficult unless you have a lot of different boards to test. This is best left to dedicated motherboard sites like Anandtech, which does and excellent job and covers most of the boards on the market. What’s left are the idiosyncrasies and odd bits that make an impression. That’s what we’ll review at eBabble.

I picked up the Asus A7Pro because it didn’t have RAID built in. I’ve been steadily impressed with the price / performance ratio of AMD processors and own a few. I wanted a quality motherboard to use for my home system, but didn’t need RAID and didn’t want to pay the extra for something I wasn’t going to use. I wanted a full size ATX board for the five PCI slots, so that left out the bargain micro ATX boards. At the end I had two choices: the Asus A7Pro and the Gigabyte GA7XZ. I ended up buying both, but we’re strictly on the A7Pro here and now. At the time good Intel boards were using the 815E chipset and getting ATA100 support, but Via was using the 686A South Bridge that only provided ATA66. Tests have shown minimal to no improvement between ATA66 and ATA100, so I wasn’t worried.

Upon opening the package I saw the usual: ATX motherboard, installation CD, a floppy cable, one 80 wire 40 pin IDE cable, one standard IDE cable, and a user manual. One addition caught my eye; an Asus sticker in the same vein as “Intel Inside”, with the Asus logo and a Pegasus. The front of your case can get pretty cluttered; stickers for processor, motherboard, case and who knows what else.

Installation was straight forward and painless. Layout is pretty good, with my only problem arising from the odd placement of the fan connectors. Normally case fans would be at the lower front and the rear middle; Asus has put two at the top front. The board has an auto fan off feature when the system goes into sleep or hibernation mode that I liked the “sound” of ( ouch ), since I leave my system on all the time. Unfortunately the placement left me using case fans with Molex connectors instead.

My other beef with Asus’ line of socket A motherboards is the lack of support for the iPanel. Basically it’s a small box that fits into a 5.25” bay and shows current temperatures and voltages on an LED screen, plus motherboard status via lights. All the socket 370 board support it, as do the newest DDR socket A boards; what’s left out are the boards I have.

Yet a third odd happening; the BIOS said the board was an A7V, not an A7Pro. I scoured the Asus web site but couldn’t find an update; going to the Taiwan site rewarded me with a version 1.04 BIOS update. I flashed the board and upon boot showed it was an A7Pro. Looking at the board, you can see it’s an A7V with a few features missing, like the Promise ATA100 IDE connectors.

Some interesting tools included on the CD, including a temperature monitor, internet BIOS updater and software DVD player. I’ve used Asus Probe to monitor motherboard temperature and fan status for some time, and it gets the job done. I have yet to get the BIOS updater to work; it always says “can’t find ftp.asus.com.tw” or close to that. The DVD player looks good, but I’ve got a full surround sound system in the living room and don’t watch movies on my PC.

After running the board for the past two months, I’d have to say it’s very stable. No problems or odd behavior; just trudging away. In the end, isn’t that the best recommendation?

Editors note: this review was migrated from the old eBabble.net site and the photos updated. Originally published April 19th 2001.

My uncle had a socket 754 motherboard that had received a power surge and fried.  Everything else was still good ( except the power supply ) so he needed a new motherboard, so I picked up an MSI K8N Neo-FSR ( MS-7030-020 ).  I don’t really understand why MSI uses product names and product numbers interchangeably but they do.  I installed this board and reinstalled everything and ran Passmark’s Burn In repeatedly over the next three days.   Everything was smooth sailing so back it went to my uncle’s home.

He’s not a real PC technical type but he tries to fix things himself and asks for help when needed, unlike most people who screw things up and then dump the PC on your doorstep.  Once he had the machine home it would blue screen periodically.  He diligently updated the drivers and BIOS, checked for conflicts, ram memory tests and kept working on it.  Oddly the blue screen errors were different each time.  He finally gave up and dropped it at my house.  I watched it a while but no issues, so I wiped it and started fresh, returning a new and ready to go Windows XP installation.  I figured he had done something odd with a software or driver install.

He had the machine home for a few days and reported back the same issue.  What was going on here?  Some time passed and the blue screens increased so much that you couldn’t reliably use the PC.  He dropped it off and I went to work again.  ( I’ll work on family and friend’s PCs gratis but only if they drop it off and leave me alone while I have it; if they’re in a big rush they can go and pay for service! ).

Wiped the machine and did a fresh install.  This time I installed a standard software collection and ran them on and off.  I experienced memory errors with all the programs but no blue screen crashes.  I ran Memtest86+ but found no errors.  I checked the BIOS settings for the memory and they were set to automatic.  Three 512 MB PC2700 DIMMs were installed, all identical.  I removed all but one and checked the memory settings, rotating in all three DIMMs.  One of the three had different memory timings; removing that DIMM eliminated the memory errors.  I didn’t have another exact DIMM to see if there was an issue filling all three DIMM slots on the motherboard, but removing the odd timed memory did the trick.

Running the PC now showed no memory errors and I still hadn’t seen a blue screen crash so I signed off on the PC as working.  My uncle asked if I could load a few games up for him so I installed some of the great free games available now ( MechCommander series, America’s Army and Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory are great freebies ).  When I loaded a game I received a vague memory blue screen crash.  Rebooting and trying another game put me again in blue screen territory.  Only running games gave me the issue, so I checked out the video card for problems.

Everything was installed properly; it was an Asus GeForce 6800 that had a perfectly working fan and proper power with the latest drivers installed.  I know you’re thinking IRQ conflict but no such luck: everything was in order but I was crashing constantly now.  I ran the MSI Windows Flash BIOS utility, Live Update 3,  to make sure I had the current version, and it listed 2.10 as current and the same for what was installed.  I had read of flash issues using a Windows utility and decided to reflash the BIOS from a boot disk.

Checking the MSI web site revealed three different motherboards with the MS-7030 model number.  Checking all three showed no 2.10 BIOS.  I knew we had the K8N Neo-FSR version 1 as that’s what was silk screened onto the motherboard ( only MS-7030 is listed on the web and on the motherboard, but -020 is listed on the product page and is the final information needed to be really sure what board you have ), yet the latest BIOS listed was version 1.90.  Thinking myself blind, insane or both I checked the Windows utility and it indeed showed version 2.10 as the latest.

I downloaded version 1.90 and flashed the BIOS.  After making a few adjustments ( why don’t motherboard manufacturers enable S.M.A.R.T. by default; I mean who doesn’t want to know their hard drive is about to die! ) I booted into Windows and played a little of all the games without a blue screen crash.  Fully functioning PC with no issues, finally.

Two issues plagued my use of the MSI K8N Neo-FSR: memory timing and BIOS versions.