MSI K7D Master question

drasnordrasnor Starship OperatorHawthorne, CA Icrontian
edited February 2004 in Hardware
I've got two OEM Athlon XP 1900+ palominos ready for some bridge mods, but I need a dual Athlon board with overclocking capability. I'm given to understand that the MSI K7D Master L fits the bill perfectly but I've got a couple of questions first.

1) Are there any board revisions with good 760MPX chipsets? Early runs of the chipset all featured broken USB, and I don't want to pay $200 for a motherboard with broken USB.

2) Is there any functional difference between the red version and the green version of this motherboard?
1069223639989_K7DMASTERL.jpgMB-MS6501L.jpg

-drasnor :fold:

Comments

  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited January 2004
    1) The USB on mine works. I don't know what revision it is offhand, tho. I think it's a rev. 1 but I'm not sure

    2) AFAIK, the red version is the K7D-L, the green is the K7D (No LAN). I'm not aware of there being -L boards with the green PCB or vice/versa. my K7D had a green pcb, and my K7D-L has a red one, so...
  • mmonninmmonnin Centreville, VA
    edited January 2004
    Damn geeky you have/had 2 of those?
  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited January 2004
    Yes. I bought a K7D in the summer of '02. My first 1.4GHz Athlon TBird died a week after putting it in that board, so I took the board back and RMA'd the CPU. I bought a K7D-L last summer ('03) and I've set it up with the dual Bartons and the RAID array and stuff.
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited January 2004
    AFAIK, all the later K7D boards have working usb 1.1 via the revised southbridge chip. If you are buying from a vendor, then I would think that you would be getting 1 with working onboard usb. The refurb K7D-L I had gotten from Newegg several months ago had working onboard usb.
  • drasnordrasnor Starship Operator Hawthorne, CA Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    Excellent, that's what I wanted to know. Thanks for the help!

    -drasnor :fold:
  • FlintstoneFlintstone SE Florida
    edited January 2004
    Hey Drasnor,
    I have a red K7D Master L in a box because I couldn't mod my Bartons to work on the board. I had two t-breds (1700+'s) running in it no prob. I even have an extra bios chip from MSI for it that I never used. If you're interested, PM me and we can come up with a price. It ain't doing me any good on a shelf. I'm going to go Opteron from here and I've already put one of my Bartons in an NF7-S.

    Just a thought before it goes on Ebay!

    Flint :Rocker:
  • drasnordrasnor Starship Operator Hawthorne, CA Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    YGPM

    -drasnor :fold:
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited January 2004
    I have had maybe 5 total of these now. As well as a couple Asus a7m266-d's and a couple Tyans.... I can tell you for sure that if your getting a msi-k7d then get a red pcb version.

    Me and flintstone are buds and he has a had a couple boards now also but the one he is selling is the later red pcb version I am pretty sure. And he is a class guy. Tex gives him a big two thumbs up rating... You can trust Flintstone 100 percent.

    I have now sold 2 k7d's and a pair of asus dual amds and a tyan dual xeon in the last 45 days or so. Its getting to be a sideline of mine it seems along with the 64bit scsi raid controllers and gigabit cards.

    And the sad thing is I still have three dual cpu rigs running in my house...... I just upgraded to dual opterons basicaly.

    But trust me. If you want a MSI k7d you really want the later red pcb version for LOTS of reasons. I've had more flaky green (early model) msi k7d's then I can shake my weenie at...

    We got a few active dual cpu guys here at S-M .... Mediadude has one.... Geeky and Flintstone come to mind fast..... Shorty ha sone shipped from me today matter of fact.... And Omega was addicted with dualie fever also...... but really for active dual cpu info you gotta check 2cpu.com and go to the forums. No place on the web like it.... And I ask forgiveness from the S-M godfs for plkugging another forum but for specialty stuff I still frequent 2cpu.com and storagereview.com for their specialized stuff besides of course S-M .... our "home sweet home".

    Tex
  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited January 2004
    Tex, I agree with you about dualcpu.com... when Icrontic got hacked, I was just getting around to setting up the dual 2500s. So, I went over there. Very helpful.

    On a totally off topic side note, my MSI Pro266TD-LR dual P3/DDR board just up and died last night, for no apparent reason. :mad2: I hope MSI can replace it, because it's damn near impossible to find dual p3 boards that can run ddr ram...
  • drasnordrasnor Starship Operator Hawthorne, CA Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    Thanks for the recommendations, especially the scoop on those green PCB's Tex. I've been to 2CPU.com a few times now for their reviews of dual cpu motherboards and insight into getting them set up properly. I'm not ashamed to admit I've got dual fever, with the dual MP2100+ rig I built for my sister and the dual Opteron 248 box I'm typing this from right now. I just figured since I have a pile of optical drives, couple spare hard drives, extra True480 psu, and a matched pair of 1900+ CPU's, for an extra $300 I could have another dual processor box for serving and folding.

    -drasnor :fold:
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited January 2004
    For half that even.

    tex
  • mmonninmmonnin Centreville, VA
    edited January 2004
    Half? Ram and a motherboard for half that? Dont temp me, Tex!
  • FlintstoneFlintstone SE Florida
    edited January 2004
    Hey Tex, remember I'm your friend and I'm selling!! Don't cut my throat!!

    Seriously, I finally responded to the PM's and am waiting for replies. Tex, thanks for the Kind Words.

    Flint :cool2:
  • NoFutureNoFuture In a 3D world...
    edited January 2004
    This is rather interesting, I should really go dual. My box is now crawling with some lightwave rendering and 3 days per frame is a bit off my specs concerning speed (damn radiosity... ;) ). Gotta check this...
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited January 2004
    mmonnin wrote:
    Half? Ram and a motherboard for half that? Dont temp me, Tex!

    Not with ram... but a MPX usually works with two sticks of regular DDR. Not generic crap but good DDR.

    Got some crusial, mushkin, corsair or other quality pc2100 ddr your set to go. You don't need registered stuff with MPX boards but it sometimes help if you end up with stability issues.

    Fo what i been paying for registered ecc ddr on ebay its not worth the hassle to not use it.

    Tex
  • BudBud Chesterfield, Va
    edited January 2004
    can you get a good dual cpu board for a decent price? also do cpu's have to be matched, cause i have a 2500+ and wanna do a dual 2500+ box cause im getting back into autocad
  • drasnordrasnor Starship Operator Hawthorne, CA Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    They have to have the same core and bus speed for the machine to boot, but ideally the two processors should have the same core type and stepping as well. Same week is extra preferable. Preferable in terms of stability, that is.

    Depends on how you define decent. The going rate for most dual CPU workstation boards is $200. That's excluding s604 Xeon boards and most dual Opteron boards of course, though the K8T Master2 FAR is an exception ($215 when I bought mine). If you're Tex, you can probably get one for a lot less.

    -drasnor :fold:
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited January 2004
    Tex just scarfs around for deals. I have no pull to get stuff any cheaper then anybody else if you scarf around. I have paid as little 83 bucks for an Asus a7m266-d dualie motherboard for example. Sold it last week for $230 with a pair of modded XP's in it. The ASUS dual amd boards and the early green msi-k7d's can be had for under $150 usually. The red ones are a little more usually.

    I paid $250 for my k8d master F dual opteron and the 240 cpu's were like $145 a pop.

    Im trying to decide if I realy ant to sell my other msi-k7d. Its a red one and has a pair of 2100's in it. Its been so so stable I think I'll regret it if I do but sorta want another opteron also and would need to sell one to get the other.

    Tex
  • Omega65Omega65 Philadelphia, Pa
    edited January 2004
    Are those the two 2100+ I sold you?? :)
    Bud wrote:
    can you get a good dual cpu board for a decent price? also do cpu's have to be matched, cause i have a 2500+ and wanna do a dual 2500+ box cause im getting back into autocad

    Be aware that modding Bartons XPs for Duallie operation is a hit or miss affair. Some have had success and others (like myself) couldn't run stabily. And I had 4 2500+ to play with. I grabbed some cheap MP2000+ from Hotrodsun and all was golden. But reports are the Tbreds run better in Dual mode than the Bartons do. Unless of course it's a MP 2800+ (Barton MP core)
  • drasnordrasnor Starship Operator Hawthorne, CA Icrontian
    edited February 2004
    OK, I'm having trouble and maybe someone has some ideas.

    My new K7D-L won't POST. When I turn it on, the fans spin up but the little diagnostic LED comes on with this pattern [top]RGRR[board], which in the manual refers to:
    Memory Detection Test
    - Testing onboard memory size. The D-LED will hang if the memory module is damaged or not installed properly.
    It also emits an intermittent beep from the speaker: a long beep followed by a long pause, then another beep, then a pause, and so on and so forth.

    Trouble is, I've tried this with a few sticks of known good RAM and it gives the same result every time. I've tried it with the following sticks:
    Corsair XMS3200RE-512 registered ECC DDR400
    Crucial PC2100 256MB registered ECC DDR266*
    SimpleTech PC2700 512MB unbuffered DDR333
    Mushkin PC2100 128MB unbuffered DDR266
    * this stick is known to be bad, though my Tyan Tiger MP will POST with only it installed.

    Right now it's got dual known good Athlon XP1900+ processors, and won't work with either one in CPU0 or both installed. I've also tried swapping the BIOS chip with my spare with the same result. It has a brand new Antec True480 power supply and nothing connected besides RAM, PSU, and processors. Any ideas?

    -drasnor :fold:

    PS- prime, memtest isn't going to help this time. It won't POST. :D
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited February 2004
    if you have cleared the bios by removing the battery without the psu connected for 10 minutes or so I'm betting its the motherboard and not the memory. I rma'd a couple with those same symptoms. it was easier for me to test and RMA since I had multiple dual AMD motherboards including multiple k7d's sitting here at the time to test with.

    email me if you need more help. Check your serial number on the back and see how much warranty is left.
    Tex
  • drasnordrasnor Starship Operator Hawthorne, CA Icrontian
    edited February 2004
    Tex wrote:
    if you have cleared the bios by removing the battery without the psu connected for 10 minutes or so I'm betting its the motherboard and not the memory. I rma'd a couple with those same symptoms. it was easier for me to test and RMA since I had multiple dual AMD motherboards including multiple k7d's sitting here at the time to test with.

    email me if you need more help. Check your serial number on the back and see how much warranty is left.
    Tex

    No dice on pulling battery and power supply for >30 minutes. I've got the Monarch receipt for the board, though it's dated from May2003. Flintstone kindly offered to take the board back, and I may take him up on that since my experience with MSI support has been lackluster. They haven't replied to my e-mails regarding the dual Opteron machine and it's been a month now.

    -drasnor :fold:
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited February 2004
    They will turn that RMA in 3 weeks or less. I send them to MSI priority mail which is usually there in two days. Usually it takes about two weeks from the time they get it. You don't have to talk to anyone to get a RMA. Its an online form.
  • Omega65Omega65 Philadelphia, Pa
    edited February 2004
    My experience wih MSI RMA was positive. The 2 K7D-L's I RMA'd were back in my hands less than 3 weeks after I shipped them.
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