Advanced Micro Devices - Moderated (AMD) Message Board

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Technology Stocks : Advanced Micro Devices - Moderated (AMD)

AMD 206.21

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10:05 AM EST

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To: TGPTNDR who wrote (65575)	12/13/2001 9:01:57 AM
From: fyodor_	Read Replies (1) of 275872

Scott: Sounds to me like a totally unwarranted decision. Why? My main issue here is that ECS is totally denying that the problem even exists. Sounds too much like Intel + MTH for my comfort. I would feel much more confident buying their product if they would go out and say "yes, there are a small number of people who experience issues, but only because they use a bad PSU" or whatever. It's the total denial of the problem's existence&#133 I just have a really hard time accepting that when literally dozens of people have, successfully I might add, "repaired" their boards by soldering in new resistors or the like (two specific solutions requiring use of a soldering iron were given, neither of which I bothered reading in much detail). Going by anecdotal evidence, there does seem to be a correlation between the problem and use of certain power supplies. There seems to be an indication that it either doesn't supply enough amps at 3.3V (which the chipset uses, I believe) or 5V (which is what the processor uses). This is corroborated by the observation that the problem is virtually nonexistent below ~ 1GHz and becomes more and more common as you move to 1.4GHz. With AthlonXPs, the problem appears to not be as significant, which fits the same pattern since they use less power. The problem seems to stem from a change ECS made to the board in the later revisions in effort to follow a recommendation from AMD to raise the CPU bus driver impedance to 56 Ohm. This happened right around AMD's introduction of the AthlonXP and I am not sure what the recommendation was prior to this, but ECS used 40 Ohm. One could imagine that power supplies that were spec'ed to work fully with 1.4GHz Athlons, but were relatively close to the edge, no longer function properly when used in conjunction with an ECS board with a 56 Ohm CPU bus driver impedance. But when the product manufacturer flatly denies the existence of any problem, the chance of actually finding the root cause takes quite a hit. -fyo

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