On Monday 01 March 2004 06:45 pm, Kathie wrote:
> I am thinking about purchasing a AMD TBird/Athlon 2400 XP 266 MHZ computer.
> What I would like to know if this PC has had any issues (problems)? Any
> information would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thank you,
> Kathie Ribblett
> [log in to unmask]


Kathie:
I've been running an Athlon 2500 since last spring, and I'm very satisfied
with it. Any concerns that I would have would be directed more towards the
system vendor. Before you make a commitment, here are some points to
consider:

1. Athlons run hot -- very hot. Therefore, it is important that your vendor
provide adequate case ventilation. The fans on the CPU and power supply are
unlikely to be sufficient.

2. Athons draw a lot of power, and will not function properly with undersized
power supplies. (When the Athlon series was first introduced, AMD would not
honor warranty claims unless the power supply was on their list of certified
devices. They have since dropped this requirement, probably in recognition
that the general performance level of power supplies has greatly improved
over the past few years.) FWIW, I have a 400W PS, which is probably too big.
However, I would be suspicious of anything rated less than 300W.

3. One possible problematic area would be the chipset used on the motherboard,
and it might be useful if you did a google to determine if others have
reported difficulties with whatever chipset is used on the vendor's
motherboard. My motherboard (Asus A7V8X-X) uses a VIA KT400 chipset, and it
has been trouble free. While I have heard of some configuration problems with
nVidia chipsets, these have been from Linux users, and it's quite possible
that these chipsets work quite well with Windows. One warning: One of your
first tasks on firing up your new PC is to get the latest driver upgrades
from the either the motherboard or chipset website.

Regards,
Carroll Grigsby

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