Help! Anyone running >2 Pulsars with AMD mobo?

menno · Post by **menno** » Fri Oct 08, 2004 4:33 am

I am at my wits end. I bought a Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe motherboard with an Barton 2500 Athlon CPU to upgrade my Pulsar PC. But it doesnt work, so need advice on what to replace it with. I have 2 Pulsar1s and 1 Pulsar2.

The A7N8X-E works fine with only 1 pulsar, but with more than one it produces major crackles when playing back music, and SFP.exe cpu usage shoots through the roof. I have tried every PC slot/BIOS combination, different XP installs, even removing my SATA drive and using a normal IDE drive, and tried a different graphics card (but unfortunately I only have two ATI cards to try). Just to be sure it was not a Pulsar problem, I put them all back into my "old" A7M266 1.3ghz PC and they worked fine.

So after weeks of trying to make this combo work I am now trying to figure out if there is another motherboard for my 2500 Athlon that is known to work with 2 or more Pulsars. I have searched the forums and maillist and cant find any definitive answer.

The only thing I did find was that there are known Intel combos that seem to work fine with >2 Pulsars. Should I forget my AMD 2500 and move to Intel? FYI I dont want to spend a fortune on the latest bleeding edge (hence my AMD 2500 buy).

Your help is appreciated,
Menno

valis · Post by **valis** » Fri Oct 08, 2004 8:15 am

Many people seem to have problems with Intel's latest chipsets & HT (especially cubase/nuendo users) so I don't know that Intel is a 'guarantee' anymore. i865perl seems more 'stable' for a Creamware platform, and the word is still out on i915P and i925X.

Also I might add that Nforce3 *might* be ok for an AMD system, although I think there's only been 1-2 reports on its use.

Post by **garyb** » Fri Oct 08, 2004 12:55 pm

ht is not nessessary....

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: garyb on 2004-10-08 13:55 ]</font>

Herr Voigt · Post by **Herr Voigt** » Fri Oct 08, 2004 4:57 pm

Menno, I also own a A7M266 and replaced the 1.4GHz CPU (which was very hot sometimes) with a 2000+ CPU, the fastest possible CPU on this MoBo. Works very stable. I'm satisfied with this system. This is the first time that I don't buy a new computer after 2 years.
Well, I have only 2 cards. They don't cause problems but when I use fat samples together with STW 4080L reverb, I get some crackles. But this can be solved, when I work step by step. It's a bit ennoying, but I have much patience.

Greetz, Thomas

menno · Post by **menno** » Sun Oct 10, 2004 7:21 am

Yes, i865perl seems to be the safest bet, then i'll have to ebay the amd motherboard and cpu.

Thomas, I was going to go that route initially and just upgrade the cpu on the A7M266, but as I wanted an extra PC to run as an mp3/divx player for my living room I thought it was a good excuse to relegate the A7M to the living room. Obviously I am regretting that at the moment! Interesting that the 2000+ cpu runs a lot cooler, my 1.3ghz is also quite hot.

Still undecided as to what to do.

Cheers,
Menno

Herr Voigt · Post by **Herr Voigt** » Sun Oct 10, 2004 3:12 pm

What about keeping your A7M system as your DAW and buying an el cheapo but silent computer for your living room?
Only a thought ...