Dual Athlon XP

Phew...after a painful parturition my new computer is finally up and running Well, most of it. I'm getting the second processor today, but I'm pretty confident it will run in dual mode with two Athlon XP processors. I modified the proc by the instructions found here and at the boot time the BIOS reports: AMD Athlon MP 2000+ For the modification I used silver paint meant for repairing cut foils on a PCB.

Putting the system together was the most difficult one I've ever done (i've built numerous computers). First of all I had to alter my old midi tower case to fit all the components in it The back panel cover plate had to be removed due to the extra connectors on the main board. I also had to move the fastening thing that holds the HDs to a new place. Otherwise the memory sticks would have been in contact with it.

Then the real fun begun. It was time for the first boot:

- no smoke -> this is a good sign...
- some text on screen -> it might work...
- "AMD Athlon(tm) 1250MHz" -> WTF? A BIOS Bug? Hmm...let's continue to the bios setup.
- setup done; reboot; same texts plus "This is not an MP compatible processor..blah blah" -> Crap. It doesn't work. Let's continue anyway...
- Windows 2000 Starting (I was lazy so didn't reinstall it) -> *cronkle cronkle cronkle* -> looking good... -> *cronkle cronkle crash* -> oh well...

Then I removed all extra peripherals, disabled some on-board stuff and booted with the w2k restore disks. Ok, windows booted but behaved really weird? I tried installing the drivers which came with the mobo but the computer was extremely unstable. One time it would boot and the second time it would crash immediately. But I didn't give up. After a while I remembered that in the past I had changed the computer type from ACPI Compilant System to a Standard PC to gain full manual control over the IRQs and stuff. So I changed it back to ACPI and it got better. But still kind of unstable. I kept wondering why the bios detected the processor as a 1250MHz Athlon??? After few hours it hit me. Darn...F(&%&/ ...The frigging FSB jumper! I had set it incorrectly. It was in the 100MHz position while it should have been in 133MHz. After correcting that I booted again:

- no smoke -> drumroll...
- "AMD Athlon MP 2000+ 1 CPUs" -> WHEE!
- Windows booted and all problems were gone!

A DIY man's nightmare one might say but still so far so good. Let's see what happens when I throw in the second proc. Whish me luck...