Dual-Athlon MP install question

[jpheg]

Hi! I've got an Athlon MP 1600+ in the rig I've built, on a Tyan S2460 Mobo, BIOS rev. 1.03.
What I'm trying to do is add a second processor of the same speed and type to the other slot on the motherboard (I bought the board to give me a cheap upgrade option in the future after I built it) but the board isn't recognizing the second proc.
I either get an error message or it doesn't detect the second proc at all when it POSTS.
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Here are my system specs:
Windows XP Pro/Windows 98SE dual boot
Athlon MP 1600+ @ 1.4Ghz
Tyan Tiger S2460 Motherboard , BIOS rev 1.03
512MB Registered ECC PC2100 RAM
Antec 300W power supply
60Gig IBM Deskstar 7200rpm
Promise RAID card (no second drive yet!)
Plextor 40/12/40A CDRW
Creative 5x DVD
Creative DXR3 DVD decoder board
Geforce4Ti4200
Soundblaster Audigy Platinum Ex
V.90 Hardware Modem
Linksys 10/100 NIC card
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The system works fine otherwise, and its a pity it won't work with another MP proc.
I'm guessing its either an inadequate power supply, a need to flash my BIOS, or a bad proc.
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Any suggestions???

[jpheg]

anyone?

[FreakyOCR]

That's odd.. I highly doubt you woudl need to update the bios to get it to work in dually mode since the whole point of it is to be a dual mobo.

Try the new proc by itself and see if it works.

[KenKun]

Frankly, i`m not into the world of SMP .. but it seems that two MP1600 processors have more power than the 300watts PSU can actually handle .. besides, you have a lot of parts in that case ..

My AOpen 300Watts PSU, which is considered a high quality one, couldn`t handle a slightly OCed XP1900 .. (i have about the same parts as you)

Try another beefier PSU (400Watts one sounds good) ..

Good luck

[Thud]

Hmm. Your BIOS should pick that second CPU right up. If it's posting, it doesn't seem to be a problem with your PSU (although it is a bit weak for that system, and might give you trouble in the future).

I'd go to Tyan's site and check for CPU support/BIOS updates. Also try clearing the CMOS, and see if it'll pick it up then. Anything beyond that, I'd start leaning towards bad mobo, or CPU.

Best of luck!

[sheriff]

I have a dual mp 1600+ asus system. Win98 probably wont work with a dualie. I am not sure but I think you need to have both processors installed and then install the xp pro os so that it will detect and instal smp support from the start. I am not familiar with the tyan boards, I cant help with the post prob.

[sKiT]

I would say you need another PSU also at least a 400W.....450 even better. The minimum recommended PSU for 1 AMD 1GHz & above is a 300W PSU. I would say you need more Juice buddy

[goldenbuddha]

Yup Windows 98 has no multi processor support. It will not see the second CPU.

Windows 2000, Windows NT and Windows XP are the only flavors of Windows with multiCPU support.

Also your PSU is rather insufficient for that setup.


I would recommend having both CPUs in there and reinstall XP, if your current install was done with a single CPU. After that, it won't matter if you take CPU2 out, it will still see CPU1. But for the 2460, you need at least a CPU in the first socket for it to work, wheras in the 2466, either sockets will do.


You do not need to flash your bios I believe. 1.03 has AMD MP support already. But you should give that a try regardless. I believe the revision after yours has some bugfixes:

****
New features and Fixes in 1.04:
Fix Win2000/WinXP shutdown problem with Firewire card. Fix the display distort problem with ATI Radeon 8500 VGA card. Add IO ports Dynamic Enable/Disable support for ACPI.
****

If that does not work, then it could be a bung CPU. Try removing the one that works and using the new one in its socket. If it doesn't boot... there yer go.

[Mntsnow]

I either get an error message or it doesn't detect the second proc at all when it POSTS.

Switch the CPU's around. Put the new one in the CPU 0 spot and the Old cpu in the spot that was empty. What happens?

Double check your CPU to make sure you didnt crush the die and kill the cpu in the process of installing the heatsink(very common problem with AMD cpus)

[jpheg]

Thanks for all your help. I knew about Windows98 not using a second proc if available, but I didn't think XP Pro would need to be reinstalled.
I'm ordering a new 450W ps from antec as we speak, so we'll see if I can't get it to work when it arrives

[Scott Tiger]

Good Luck - and let us know how it goes. The one thing (okay, one of many things) I've never played with is an multi-proc motherboard so I'm wondering how this will work out for you.

[DVNT1]

BTW, you don't need to reinstall XP to make use of the 2nd processor. You just need to change the driver.

The basics:

When you installed Windows 2000 for a single processor, you also installed the proper hardware abstraction layer (HAL) and kernel files for a single-processor system. You have to change this to enable simultaneous multiprocessing.

If you have the resource kit disk with Windows 2000/XP, you have a utility called uptomp.exe that should make Windows see the second CPU.

If you don't have uptomp.exe, Windows has a Wizard you can use:

Click on the Start menu, point to Settings, and select Control Panel.
Open the System control panel.
Click the Hardware tab.
Go into the Device Manager and select Computer.
Whatever entry is there (Standard PC, ACPI), right-click on it and select Properties.
Click on the Driver tab and then on Update Driver. This will start the Driver Upgrade Wizard.
Hit Next.
At the "Display a list of the known drivers for this device" window, hit Next.
In the next window, there should be a multiprocessor driver in the selection box. Select it and hit Next. If there isn't one, you can select "Show all hardware of this device class" and several multiprocessor and uniprocessor drivers will appear.

Be extremely careful when picking a driver from the list. If you pick the wrong one, it could spell disaster. A good rule of thumb is to pick the multiprocessor version of the single CPU driver you currently have. If under Computer it showed ACPI, then select ACPI Multiprocessor PC. Once you have completed the wizard, Windows should now recognize the second CPU.


If all else fails, drag out your Windows Installation CD and try to boot from the CD and do a repair installation on your system. This will correct the kernel and enable SMP.

[prexaspes]

You really need to verify that both processors work, as previously stated. Test them both singly in the mobo. Either should work if nothing's broken. If not, check to verify that they are both MP processors, not the XP processors. If one or the other or both is/are a/an XP processor, you have some modding to do

[NDC]

You won't need a different mainboard to test the CPU's individually. Just pop in 1 CPU in CPU socket one by one...