More Horror Stories on AThWiperMP and Thumper 7 Tyan boards !
AMDroids - Demand a RECALL - it is your DUTY !!!
hardwareanalysis.com
I have now tested a Tyan Thunder K7 board...
Jul 12, 2001, 12:23 PM
By: Brendan Harnett
And I have had problems as well.
The board is very quirkey. The first thing I noticed was that it took a very long time to post, both from the onboard ATI Rage card, and from the Gloria III I was suing in it...
Then, when it did post, the CPUs (a pair of Athlon 1200 MHz MP chips) posted at 1066 MHz... Strange since the chips had a 9 multiplier... So I used the 'post boot summary screen' BIOS option and discovered that the chip was actually being run on a 120 MHz FSB... Weird huh?
There were also a whole series of strange error messages.
So I did a BIOS flash, to version 2.06. That seemed to take care of the error messages, but not the FSB timing issue. I've now got a lead, thanks to a helpful chap at AMDMB.com who has found that by booting several times in a specific order, enabling and disabling the on board video, the problem can be solved.
I have yet to try the method (I'm a very busy guy, and this was only a guinnney pig/demo system anyway) .
But the 2000 install went flawlessly, and the drivers, and software. It has now been through some excruciating real world apps, like 3dsmax, Soft, Maya, Form_z, Photoshop, Premiere, etc. I've yet to see it crash.
Anyway, in the course of getting the board functional, I did quite a bit of research and have to admit that I'm in the middle ground. Lots of problems, but they aren't too serious (most were fixed by the BIOS flash), great stability, and I have to brag a bit here, even at 2x1066 MHz, performance to die for.
Never the less, the BS I had to go through to get this board operational was simply absurd, and I'm pleased to note that in my research I have come across some information regarding AMD and Tyan's responce.
Tyan, dispite their great repution responded with thre BIOS fixes in one week, and then took a long vacation, literally. I'm not too happy about that, and their tech support doesn't seem interested in talking to me.
AMD, on the other hand, seems to realize what it at stake for them. They did briefly pull their recommendation, and handed Tyan a list of parts to upgrade or replace, including, among other things, the very sticky, and difficult to unclip ZIF sockets. As far as I know, Tyan has complied.
If you are interested in buying this board, I suggest waiting for the version AMD forced Tyan to fix to become more available. I know some people have recieved then from Tyan by doing RMAs. They can be spotted by their plastic ZIF levers, rather than steel. This is the most noticable difference to the human eye. They will come with BIOS version 2.06, and so far, everyone I've talked to who has had one of these later versions is pleased.
My opinion is that Tyan should do a recall on all the first release boards. If the fix I have been told about works, I personally would not send the one I have back, however I know of serveral people who would.
Now, my advice about buying this board... wait. AMD is pressuring Tyan pretty dramatically, I've heard, and that should get the newer boards through the channels quickly. But I wouln't mail order the board for at least a month, since it is impossible to know which revision you're getting. If you buy at fairs or shows, look for the plastic ZIZ levers. They are indicative of the later model.
Hope this helps someone!
-Brendan
feel free to email me with any specific problems you might have. Use my RPI adress: harneb@rpi.edu
oh dear...
By: DaveO - Jul 12, 2001, 12:51 PM
Well, well, well. It appears Mr. C0ck-up has entered the building
I personally am extremely interested in this board, or more precisely other AMD MP boards. Am I right in thinking that both ASUS and ABit are now releasing boards based on the same 760MP chipset? In this case, the chipset itself has presumably been through 3 separate testing stages, which would indicate to me that it might be OK, it would be rather extraordinary for all 3 (plus presumably other manufacturers) to all miss any problems with it.
As for Tyan, I'm pretty surprised they would be responsible for such a poor release. They were presumably picked as launch partners by AMD because of their reputation and the high-end market their boards are often aimed at. It would be extremely unfortunate if AMDs reputation were to be soured by a bad launch board for an otherwise OK chipset and MP setup. However, I can't believe AMD would let the board go to market recommended without thoroughly testing it themselves either.
If anyone dealing with this board gets any more information, I for one would like to see it posted in this thread if possible.
By: Sander Sassen - Jul 12, 2001, 12:56 PM
Brendan,
You wouldn't believe the number of different configs we've tried on our board, without succes, and I can assure you we know how to setup a system properly. I sent the following email to my contact at AMD and he would fwd it to the people at Tyan, unfortunately I haven't heard back from Tyan yet.
"Hi Damon
I have come across a few problems with the dual Athlon MP platform and am hoping you can help me, or at least give some pointers. Let me give you a breakdown what our testsystem looks like first and then get to what problems I've come across.
CPU: 2 x AMD Athlon MP 1.2GHz
Motherboard: Tyan Thunder K7
Memory: 2 x 256MB Crucial Registered ECC PC2100
Video: Elsa Gladiac Ultra, GeForce2 Ultra 64MB, onboard video disabled
SCSI contr. : Adaptec 29160 64-bits SCSI, onboard SCSI disabled
CDROM: Plextor PX40ts, 40x SCSI, 50pin Ultra-SCSI, ID0
HD: 1 x Quantum Atlas 10K II, 37GB, 10000RPM, 8MB cache, 68pin U160 SCSI, ID1
PS: NMB 460watts, WTX
All drivers/bios and patches are the latest as found on the AMD and Tyan websites.
For some reason I cannot get the system up and running stable. It crashes frequently during bootup, while running apps or simply when not doing anything. I've checked everything with the manual and I also tried running it with default BIOS settings and an IDE HD and CDROM with onboard video enabled, with the same instability.
I've also swapped out all of the components for different brand/models one at a time trying to track down any compatibility issues, but it wouldn't run stable. I have replaced the HD, the memory and the PS already, with the help of the nice people at Quantum, Crucial and NMB. The most stable setup was with the onboard video and the Quantum Atlas 10K II plugged into the onboard SCSI controller but it still couldn't finish a single run of a more stressing benchmark such as SYSmark 2001 or Sciencemark.
Symptoms included BSODs, hard lockups, freezes, reboots and the occasional inability to boot after pressing the power switch. I've rechecked all of my settings twice and have had someone else double check the settings too to make sure. To my impression my motherboard is defective, or isn't doing what it should do. Unfortunately the distributor who got me the motherboard doesn't have any more samples to hand out so it is all I have to go by.
Unfortunately, at this time, I don't have a contact at Tyan that could swap it out for a new one, or give me some pointers. I'm hoping you can either give me some suggestions or get me in touch with someone at Tyan to see whether the problems are motherboard related."
If I read through the other two threads all I can say is that Tyan has either released a pre-production design, that wasn't thoroughly tested, to manufacturing. Or there's some problems with the components mounted or the layout of the motherboard. I'm 100% sure my motherboard is acting up and whatever I try I cannot get it up and running stable. I'd be interested to learn who else has been having problems and what their configs look like, or whether the only working configs are the ones that AMD demo-ed and sent out to a number of editors?
Looking forward to your reply.
Sander Sassen
CEO, Hardware Analysis
Email: ssassen@hardwareanalysis.com
Visit us at: hardwareanalysis.com
Disturbing to say the least.....
By: Robert Kropiewnicki - Jul 12, 2001, 01:31 PM
Sigh, anyone getting that Yogi Berra "deja vu all over again" feeling? Reminds me of the problems found early in the Athlon's release with boards using substandard power supplies. What really bothers me is that the power supply being used (NMB) is listed as a recommended supply right on the Tyan web site!!!! So even if it turns out to be the power supply at fault, shame on Tyan for not catching this earlier!!! It sounds like something that would be brutally apparent in testing.
Brandon, are you using the NMB PSU? If so, have you tried the Delta PSU? IIRC, DieU on the amdmb.com was not able to get a hold of one where he lives. And I did notice that the few people who mentioned having working systems were using the Delta.
Sander, do you guys still have the board in your possession? If so, could you get a hold of the recommended Delta PSU listed on Tyan's site and see if that solves any of the problems?
For the record, as well as for those who are aware of my pro-AMD feelings, even if this should be just a PSU issue I am in NO WAY absolving Tyan from this mess. To me, Tyan was always one of the mobo manufacturers I'd look to for a completely stable platform. We used to use them when I was with a company that built workstations all the time as our boards of choice. Considering stability was supposed to be their trademark (performance never was), SHAME on them for not catching this in testing no matter what the issue may end up actually being. |
