Would ATA 133 card help old SE440BX motherboard?

Moe Hair's log on stardate 13 ožu 2004

Thanks for all your advice. What I may do is buy the Maxtor 80 or
120 gig HD which comes with their ATA 100 controller (or 133 - I'm
not sure).

Well, if it's free of charge, than why not ... )

I was checking the Dell site as this is a Dimension XPS 400 computer.
Some people have upgraded their processors to 1000 FSB Pentium III or
Celeron 1.4 gigahertz chips. The Dell specs say that all these
SE440bx intel boards can handle is 3x128 SDRAM 168 pin DIMMS yet
these guys say they're using 3x256mg SDRAM SIMMS chips because of the
last Phoenix BIOS upgrade (which I have).

It's amazing how Dell support doesn't know the maching can handle
Windows 2000 or that the board (with the BIOS upgrade) can read
larger hard drives. So much for outsourcing loads of jobs to India.

Look, it's brand, right? So, basicly, what they do is tell you what will
_definitly_ work on your computer. Take IBM (haven't worked with Dell
that much), they have special memory orders for their computers. Why?
Because they are shure that that patircular memory works on your model.
I have very good reason to belive that the same thing is with Dell. So,
you can use 3x256 MB of RAM, however, Dell guaranties you that only
3x128 MB will work.

BTW, here is a tip if you plan to use 256 MB moduls.128Mbit DRAM is
supported by the C-1 (and later) steppings of the 440BX chipset in
certain configurations (16Mx8 organization). So, what you have to take
care of is taking 128Mbit 256 MB memory, and hope your BX chipset is
above C-1 stepping. Just a word of advice, since you will have problems
locating 128 Mbit 256 MB moduls, not to say 64 bit (wich I am not shure
they even exist).


--
Ja sjedoh, svi sjedoshe
Ja ustah, svi ustashe!

On Sat, 13 Mar 2004 00:37:34 GMT, Moe Hair wrote:

Thanks for all your advice. What I may do is buy the Maxtor 80 or 120 gig
HD which comes with their ATA 100 controller (or 133 - I'm not sure).

I was checking the Dell site as this is a Dimension XPS 400 computer.
Some people have upgraded their processors to 1000 FSB Pentium III or
Celeron 1.4 gigahertz chips. The Dell specs say that all these SE440bx
intel boards can handle is 3x128 SDRAM 168 pin DIMMS yet these guys say
they're using 3x256mg SDRAM SIMMS chips because of the last Phoenix BIOS
upgrade (which I have).

It's amazing how Dell support doesn't know the maching can handle Windows
2000 or that the board (with the BIOS upgrade) can read larger hard
drives. So much for outsourcing loads of jobs to India.

Dell used a custom version of the Intel "Seattle" main board in this
product line. The Seattle board came in three different version: the
original SE-440BX board supported Pentium II processors up to 400 MHz
and up to 384 MB or RAM. The SE440BX-2 supported Pentium III
processors up to 550 MHz, up to 768 MB of RAM, and used a different
audio chip in versions with on-board sound. The later "V" version had
a re-designed voltage regulator that supported "Coppermine" Pentium
III Slot 1 processors with a 100 MHz front side bus (up to 1000 MHz,
but there are rare in the Slot 1 100 MHz FSB version; the 800-900 MHz
CPUs were used more often). "Tualatin" chips are definitely not
supported and won't work unless some sort of Slotkey with a voltage
adapter is used. Dell used different versions of the board and they
probably just gave you the specs for the lowest common denominator.

In any event, I had no problem using a Maxtor ATA-133 controller with
both the SE-440BX-2 and a SE440BX-2 "V" boards. I think it would work
fine in your system and give you a bit of a performance boost. Be sure
to re-configure the BIOS if you want to boot from the add-in card.

- -
Gary L.
Reply to the newsgroup only

| 440BX chipset. It was a rock solid performer.

Performer my foot, Intel's IDE hdd controller is slow & inferior as usual
( like Mercury / 440LX / BX ). www.theinquirer.net/17010203.htm
In 4-02 I enabled a 440BX's IDE controller's DMA transfer, & could not
see any extra speed ! On ALi / VIA hdd controllers, I always see extra
speed, after enabling DMA trnsfr.
In 2-99, the same Seagate medalist hdd ( ATA33, in DOS 7.1 & FAT16 )
scored just 12 in Norton SI on 440LX ( & PII233 ), but 15 on ALi
Aladdin IV ( & IBM mx233 ), both pc`s had 64mb sdram @66.6 mhz CL3 !

On Thu, 18 Mar 2004 11:03:36 +0800, "TE Cheah" wrote:

| 440BX chipset. It was a rock solid performer.

Performer my foot, Intel's IDE hdd controller is slow & inferior as usual
( like Mercury / 440LX / BX ). www.theinquirer.net/17010203.htm
In 4-02 I enabled a 440BX's IDE controller's DMA transfer, & could not
see any extra speed ! On ALi / VIA hdd controllers, I always see extra
speed, after enabling DMA trnsfr.
In 2-99, the same Seagate medalist hdd ( ATA33, in DOS 7.1 & FAT16 )
scored just 12 in Norton SI on 440LX ( & PII233 ), but 15 on ALi
Aladdin IV ( & IBM mx233 ), both pc`s had 64mb sdram @66.6 mhz CL3 !


You had something configured wrong if an Aladdin IV board beat an LX board
at *anything* with comparable CPUs installed, same memory bus freq.

Intel had a virtual performance lock-down until the Via 694X boards
matured. Anything ALI, SIS, and Via pre-694, looked pitiful compared to a
BX board.

kony wrote:
On Thu, 18 Mar 2004 11:03:36 +0800, "TE Cheah" wrote:

440BX chipset. It was a rock solid performer.

Performer my foot, Intel's IDE hdd controller is slow & inferior as
usual ( like Mercury / 440LX / BX ). www.theinquirer.net/17010203.htm
In 4-02 I enabled a 440BX's IDE controller's DMA transfer, & could
not see any extra speed ! On ALi / VIA hdd controllers, I always
see extra speed, after enabling DMA trnsfr.
In 2-99, the same Seagate medalist hdd ( ATA33, in DOS 7.1 & FAT16 )
scored just 12 in Norton SI on 440LX ( & PII233 ), but 15 on ALi
Aladdin IV ( & IBM mx233 ), both pc`s had 64mb sdram @66.6 mhz CL3 !


You had something configured wrong if an Aladdin IV board beat an LX
board at *anything* with comparable CPUs installed, same memory bus
freq.

Intel had a virtual performance lock-down until the Via 694X boards
matured. Anything ALI, SIS, and Via pre-694, looked pitiful compared
to a BX board.

And even if he did get faster disk access times with an Aladdin board,
what's the use when the CPU and memory is ham-strung?
--
~misfit~

| You had something configured wrong
Bull****, the same hdd booted up 2 different pc`s into dos 7.1 with
DMA enabled. U obviously cannot think of any other factor.

| if an Aladdin IV board beat an LX board at *anything*
LX* & PII233 ( except its math coprocessor ) was also inferior to
Aladdin IV & IBM mx233 : * took 4x as long to do IBM's puzzle
..exe test.

| ALI, SIS, and Via pre-694, looked pitiful compared to a BX board.
Mysterious posters can bluff all they want, to push ( without proof ) /
sell their prdts ; no 1 will know who bluffed him / her. Vanguard & u
are shareholders / salesmen of intel.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdhpnews01
http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/...829/index.html
www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20000828S0021
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...566782,00.html
www.winmag.com/fixes/txchips.htm
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...chkpt=zdhpnews

On Fri, 19 Mar 2004 13:01:27 +0800, "TE Cheah" wrote:

| You had something configured wrong
Bull****, the same hdd booted up 2 different pc`s into dos 7.1 with
DMA enabled. U obviously cannot think of any other factor.

DOS?
LOL, try running chipset drivers THEN compare them.


| if an Aladdin IV board beat an LX board at *anything*
LX* & PII233 ( except its math coprocessor ) was also inferior to
Aladdin IV & IBM mx233 : * took 4x as long to do IBM's puzzle
.exe test.

ONE WHOLE TEST?
Wow, I guess If we're building an IBM-puzzle-test workstation then we
should go with an MX233 during that era, except that it and the Aladdin
chipset would still be problem for most every other use.

A CPU manufacturer's benchmark wouldn't be intended to show off that
manufacturer's processor? Extensive testing was done during that era, the
low-end MX CPU and 3rd party chipsets were seen for what they are, low
performance relative to Intel's offerings.

To come back years later and whine about intel is just silly and a waste
of time. Nothing but budget low-end boxes had the MX CPU in them. For a
brief while the super 7 platform was a good alternative if the user didn't
need strong floating point performance but rather memory throughput
(relative to the similar cost Celeron w/66MHz FSB alternative) but the LX
and BX chipsets had much better performance otherwise.


| ALI, SIS, and Via pre-694, looked pitiful compared to a BX board.
Mysterious posters can bluff all they want, to push ( without proof ) /
sell their prdts ; no 1 will know who bluffed him / her. Vanguard & u
are shareholders / salesmen of intel.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdhpnews01
http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/...829/index.html
www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20000828S0021
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...566782,00.html
www.winmag.com/fixes/txchips.htm
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...chkpt=zdhpnews


Half of your links don't even work. Don't post links if you haven't even
bothered to check them.

From the remaining working links we can see that you're not really
interested in the viability of the BX chipset, but rather you have a chip
on your shoulder against Intel. I made no claim that all of Intel's
products are bug-free, but if you're going to ignore the bugs in Sis or
ALI products then you must be wearing blinders.

I don't think Intel's products are worth their price-premium in all cases,
but nobody who'd read the hundreds of benchmarks (not synthetic IDE driver
benchmarks but a variety of them) would choose an ALI Aladdin IV or SIS
chipset compared to the BX if the cost were equal. A couple of years
after the BX's release it was still the most efficient chipset for PCs,
prompting many people to o'c them to 133Mhz FSB just to continue reaping
the performance benefit of the BX.