dual cpu question

[the_knight]

good evening!

tomorrow, i'm off from our little town to go to the big city computer show (or sale if you may). let me bring you guys up to date.

i'm looking to buy an Abit vp-6 motherboard, which supports dual celerons/pentium3 fcpga.
anyhow,my friend has a perfectly working 500MHz celeron, of which i might buy, but i've heard heresy that to get dual cpu's to work, one has to get them out of the same batch? or at least of the same revision?!?

i know little about the specifics of running dual processers, but i know slack supports smp, and dual celerons/pentium3 can make for a really economical, blazingly fast machine, thanks for the tips! :cool:

[FoBoT]

check www.2cpu.com (http://www.2cpu.com)
i believe the 2 cpu's need to be the same "stepping" whatever that means, something like the same batch, as you said

i don't know much, i haven't got a dually (yet), but from what i have read, you definetly should buy both cpu's at the same time, and from the same dude

ask the vendors if they have a "matched pair"
good luck! :)
i am hoping to try a dually this summer, maybe

[jgrimard]

Abit VP6

CPU
1. Supports Pentium III Coppermine FC-PGA 370 processor (Based on 66/100/133MHz clock)
* Does not support Dual Celeron Processors.

[ph34r]

Doolies can be kinda tricky at times. I sat down with 6 CPU's, all P2-450's, and tried them all in various configurations. I found that 2 processors that weren't even made at the same factory worked, but only if a certain one was in slot 0 and the other in slot 1.

I'd get the 2 processors at the same time, preferrably in the same batch, with a returnable policy that will let you swap them in and out until you find a pair that works.

[Urko]

There was as of p3-450 a small number on the chip itself sl###### something called the step lading number if the first digits of this match you have a much higher chance of the two cpu's working together working. Also dual boards appear to be more memory sensitive. You may want to try ebay alot of people selling sl matched cpu's there

[Aboroth]

You don't really need matched steppings, and the processors don't need to be made any time near each other. The only reason it is recommended is to play it safe if you don't have much experience. One reason is that different steppings sometimes use different default voltages. For instance, the cB0 stepping of the P3 has 1.65v and the cC0 stepping is 1.7. It is a problem when the motherboard doesn't use different voltage regulators and detection for each processor.
I am using a cC0 and cB0 stepping together on an MSI 694D and they have worked fine together nonstop for the last 2 months. If you are using a VP6, use the same steppings to be safe because it gets mixed up with 2 different default voltages.
Intel itself says different steppings don't usually matter, at least with the P3. I have never bothered looking up the docs for other processors. Here is the page for P3:

Intel's P3 Dual processor considerations (http://support.intel.com/support/processors/pentiumiii/intnotes.htm#Dual Processor System Considerations)