# AMD XP Reliability



## Centurin (Mar 13, 2001)

For the past few months I have been collecting data to build a new main station for my network. And from what I've read, the AMD Athlon Xp 2000 seems pretty top notch. However, I have always built Intel systems, with the exception of my k6-2 500mhz machine. I have been to alot of sights and forums and it just turns into a big fan war over AMD or Intel. I dont want to start a fight with this post, just ask a few simple questions. I have been impressed with the unbiased reviews of the Xp 2000 and I'm seriously considering buying one. But I have one main issue. How is reliability? I have heard both they are excellant and that they stink. I need a reliable system for my main machine and dont want Window's crashing because of the CPU. Any ideas? I just need some simple input on how you guys have faired with it. I want to buy the new Asus A7V333 if I do indeed use AMD. I personally dont think I'll have much trouble, but just incase, I wanted to know what you guys thought. Again, I'm not looking for Intel or AMD fights, just some honest input on reliablilty. Thanks again.


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## rados (Mar 7, 2002)

hey there,

From my experience with AMD's, I think they are pretty reliable. The only thing I found out is that they generate substantial amount of heat, but if you use AMD approved heatsink and a solid fan, it shouldnt be a problem. Im not sure if you've visited tomshardware.com. It has a lot of useful information about CPU's, Mobo's HD's etc...You might find some info to help you out... http://www.tomshardware.com

Have fun!


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## Brooks (Oct 31, 2001)

As Hewee said, just make sure you have an AMD approved Heathsink and Fan.

Here is the list of approved Heatsinks.

AMD Approved 

I edited the page because I noticed that the url was breaking up. This page also contains the links that hewee mentions in the next post.


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## hewee (Oct 26, 2001)

Also get a good case to move the air tru the case and get a AMD approved or better yet a AMD recommended POWER SUPPLY.

Your have a fan at the bottom to suck heat up and out try the back of the PS. 
I can't find the page but AMD has a page that has page that has a list of approved and recommended PS, Heathsinks and Fans.


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## MacFromOK (Mar 19, 2001)

Heat rises. You ALWAYS want the power
supply/fan at the TOP of the case...


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## hewee (Oct 26, 2001)

MacFromOK,

OK I did not say it right.

You have two fans on the PS and the one on the bottom helps take heat out of the PC tru the PS and out out the other fan in the back of the PC.

Like these here at http://cyberguys.com/
You need to put the Item# in the search box.
Item# 163 0185
Item# 163 0190 
Item# 163 0195

430 WATT ATX POWER SUPPLY, FCA BY ENERMAX

Power supplies from Enermax are quickly becoming the industry
standard. This ATX 430 Watt P4 Dual Fan, FC Power Supply is AMD
recommended and ATX 1.1/2.03 compliant (Pentium 4 fully supported).
With dual fans (the 80mm exhaust fan is manually adjustable) it runs cool
and quiet and gold coated terminals assure good connections. The ATX
430 watt power supply has 8+2 connections and is striking blue with a
clear bladed intake fan and 2 gold colored grills.

- Meets AMD K7 (AMD recommended) power standards
- Meets Intel ATX +12V 1.1 and ATX 2.03 (Pentium 4 fully supported)
power standards
- Ultra cool design: one 9 cm intake fan and one 8 cm exhaust fan
- 80mm exhaust fan manually controllable
- FM (Fan Speed Monitoring) Function from motherboard 
- Low Noise
- 150mm wide x 86mm high x 140mm deep
- Gold-coated terminals for high performance and faint resistance


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## Guest (Mar 17, 2002)

Good luck with your system. I'm using an Athlon XP 1800+ and it's been great; very fast machine. It's my first non-pentium and I'd gladly do it again. The mistake I made was the ABIT motherboard...ok but not wonderful. The ASUS you mentioned should be a very good bet. I would advise you to use at least a 400 watt power supply and to upgrade the CPU fan (to an approved one, of course). 

As for Windows XP, I have it running in 3 systems (busy household) and it's been extremely stable. There were a few hardware issues, all quickly resolved with downloads. And when you're building a new system, you can boot directly from the Windows CD, no boot disk necessary. Also, partitioning is a snap. Just follow onscreen instructions. And the system restore is now made for the average user...simple and effective.


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## norm allan (Feb 13, 2002)

hi centurin,
if you take one piece of advice re. computers in your whole
life, heed that regarding GOOD heat sink and fan,for your
athlon.
they run hot,fact of life!! but its no problem if your cpu cooler
and case air flow are well sorted.
if you check my post re. athlon temp. you will see i got it all
wrong, my 1900xp was running at 60-70 degrees C. yes it
died.
my new one has a swiftech mcx462 heat sink and fan,and
has never been over 55 degrees C. at max load.
one point, i did use a recomended heat sink and fan,a global win
wbk38, and it was useless. buyer beware!
good luck with your system!


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## richardp (Jan 11, 2002)

I am quite pleased with XP 1800+ Duel Processors but there are not many duel XP Motherpoards about


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## the1bacon (Mar 15, 2002)

You mentioned an AMD heat problem. I plan to install a Thunderbird in my next computer. Any overheat problems there? Can you recomend a good board and heat sink setup if it needs one?


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## Brooks (Oct 31, 2001)

Nose around some of the overclocker sites. These guys run those athlons way up which causes them to overheat.

They have to use very good heatsink/fan combos to avoid frying the processors.

Just go to google and do a search for overclocking.

One place that I know of that reviews heatsinks is http://www.extremeoverclocking.com/articles.html


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## Whitewolf (Feb 23, 2002)

I have done some serious research into AMD chips and motherboards, because I am planing to upgrade myself one of these days. I have read some reviews about AMD's and some motherboards being highly unstable to downright uncompatible w/ Win XP, just be sure to read alot of user reviews before you buy. I think the best motherboard I have found for the price is the SOLTEK SL-75DRV4 . It comes bundled w/ some pretty good software. Plus almost every review I have read says that it is extremely stable.


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## norm allan (Feb 13, 2002)

can testify to suitability of the soltek mainboard to athlons and
win xp, have had no problems [ related to the mainboard ] with
mine.
not sure of the prices in the US, in Aus. the soltek is about
10 to 15% cheaper than any compatable board.
small point, the defult switch settings on the board are 100mhz
times 12, forget to change it and your athlon 1900 will only run
at 1.2ghz not 1.6, yes, been there done that!!


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## B3gbie (Nov 30, 2001)

I agree, I'm using an athlon 1700+ and soltek sl75 drv2 -It's quick and hasn't crashed yet after a month of use (Again, AMD approved fan and Heatsink).
The motherboard was a really good price £70 compared to most out there and it's as solid as a rock and benchmarks show it to be quicker than most too -also comes with overclocking technology on board-haven't tried this tho so can't comment on reliability.


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## RGV312 (Sep 5, 2001)

Brooks,
the volcano 7+ is the best heatsink/fan on the market....


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## griffinspc (Nov 16, 2001)

> _Originally posted by the1bacon _
> *You mentioned an AMD heat problem. I plan to install a Thunderbird in my next computer. Any overheat problems there? Can you recomend a good board and heat sink setup if it needs one? *


 I'll help with this one. I built a machine with a 1.2 Thunderbird, ASUS A7V-E 256 133 SDRAM, gforce 64MB 400 MX Nvidia graphics (produces some serious heat on it's own) and assorted periphials and networked.

I have an intake fan (front, low $10.00) an AMD recommended 300W PW w/standard fan and I bought a case with a side mounted exhaust fan. ($54.00)

I have had that puppy running 24 hours straight under load and had no heat problems. I have a heat monitoring utility installed that measures MOBO, CPU and PW temps in real time and all are well within comfortable range.


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## Rikku (Dec 11, 2001)

For what its worth, I have an AMD 1800+ running on an EPOX motherboard with a VIA 266a chipset.... 

Its extremely stable and I've yet to have it crash on me - I've had it for a few months now...

Getting a quality motherboard and RAM will make your AMD processor Stable and perform much better.


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## dexthageek (Jun 5, 2002)

I just got a new Athlon XP system (which I built myself) last month. It consists of the Asus A7V333 mobo which is an absolutly incredible motherboard for the money.

I am running an Athlon XP 1700 and 512MB of DDR300 running WinXP and the system is COMPLETELY STABLE.  

About the heat problem YES AMD chips run VERY HOT but with the proper cooling on the chip and in the case this will not be a problem. This is my 5th AMD based computer and I have absolutely NO complaints at ALL. And I will continue to use AMD in the future.


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## Guest (Jun 5, 2002)

I have an 1800+ in one computer and a 2000+ in another and both are fine, no probs at all. I use Abit mobos for both. Also, replaced the heatsink/fan that came with the cpu and used one that moved more air. Just be careful that the mobo you buy has the latest BIOS for the 2000+ or you'll have to do the old flash routine so it will recognize the cpu speed.


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## Skivvywaver (Mar 18, 2001)

I love AMD!


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## CPU_Polizei (Jul 23, 2002)

I have 3 athlon systems, two of them are XP's, a 1700 and a 2100. Both are top notch in performance, both are extremely reliable. Do not doubt reliability, it is a bluff rumor spread by intel over the years after the K6-2 processor because that processor was not reliable. Every one since then has been perfectly reliable. The 2000+ is a great choice in the market right now, you can get one for about $135 bucks at http://www.newegg.com which is a reliable online vendor with good prices and good shipping. As others said, make sure you get a sufficient cooler for the athlon. Here's what I reccomend-

For the Non-Overclocking Crowd XP 2000+

- CoolerMaster HCC-001 Copper Heatsink and Fan

For the Overclocking Crowd XP 2000+

-Alpha PAL 8045U
-Swiftech MCX-462
-Thermalright SLK-800 with vantec tornado

a good place to get any of these is- http://www.heatsinkfactory.com


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## Guest (Jul 23, 2002)

Those are two of my absolute favorite outfits to deal with.


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## CPU_Polizei (Jul 23, 2002)

Nooyawkah, how come you don't like your abit board? Abit rules, especially for XP's, I'd reccomend the KX7-333R any day over the Asus A7V-333. Well I suppose for overclocking...


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## masamichi (Feb 23, 2003)

Hello, I am new to these boards and have a question. I just built a new box with AMD 2100+ 1.77MHz CPU, SOYO KT400 Dragon Ultra (Plat Edition) Mobo, 512 MB DDR Ram PC2700. I switched from an AND 800 MHz processor and I liked it. The issue that I cannot seem to figure out is that it seems, at times, that my machine is running very slow. I checked and found the processor is running at 866 MHz at times and at 1.765MHz at others. Anyonr know what would cause this? OS is Windows XP Home Edition. I have updated the BIOS on the MOBO and it's drivers, as well as the drivers for the CPU. Help please.


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## gotrootdude (Feb 19, 2003)

Been running this Athlon 900 for almost 3 years now, It's on a older GA7IE4 motherboard, it's still fast as hell, I leave it running continuously and it's never showed the least sign of instability except when the user causes the instablity by playing around with capture cards, beta software, and badly written software that he's trying. This thing benches in Sisandra as the same as a P4 1.4ghz.

I wouldn't buy anything else. I built a server at work using the A7V333 board with raid, and a 1.6 AthlonMP and have the multiplier set at 10.5 so it clocks at 2.0ghz. It's surprizingly rock stable.. What heat problems.. I believe it got hot one time, I opened the case, and it looked like the surface of mars with all the dust inside 
A little compressed air took care of that... Temperture dropped back down to 35C.
I wouldn't buy a Intel anything untill they have a reasonably priced chip that could clock the same, and by reasonably priced, I mean under $100.


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## pronute (Feb 13, 2003)

I have built over 50 computers in the past 7 years and have used just about every combination of processor and chipset out there AMD vs. INTEL very little difference in hardware and both work fine with Microsoft O.S.'s but for a LAN System I would go Intel, for work station Intel, for general home use ether of them will do nicely, for a extreme gamer AMD. As for the CPU causing windows to crash windows can crash all on its own without help from the hardware.


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## $teve (Oct 9, 2001)

ive used and built both intel and amd with similar results,the k6(2) was quite dodgy game wise,i have an 800meg p3 and i put this Athlon together about a month ago and i love it so far.

have fun guys


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## antmakis (Feb 21, 2003)

I have built 4 AMD based PCs within the last 2 weeks, 1 with xp 2000, Asus A7V8x with Raid motherboard, MSI Geforce 4,128meg , TI48se 8x graphics, 80 gig western digital HDD with 8meg cache. 512 ddr 2700 ram.

1 with xp2000, Asus A7V8X with Raid motherboard, MSI Geforce 4, 64 meg 8x Graphics. 80 gig western with 8 gig cache. 512 ddr 2700 ram.

I same as above but with Xp 1800, And Chaintech G4,64meg,8x.
Ibm Deskstar 60 gig HDD. No Raid.

I also built the same PC as the second one for my nephew but used a ATI radeon 64 pro 4x. No Raid.

All these PCs a running WIndows 98se.

The first and third are my own and I run them from when I get up in the morning til when I go to bed at night. 

They all have bog standard Akasa fans and heatsinks but they do have an extra case fan.

They all work like a dream, apart from the odd software conflict which everybody suffers.


I hope this is of some use to you.

Regards Ray.


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