[NTLUG:Discuss] AMD K6 200 vs Pentium MMX 200

[Pete. Koren]

Steve Baker wrote:
> 
...
 
> >  I'd suggest visiting http://www.bitwizard.nl/sig11 for a definitive
> > discussion of hardware-related problems and kernel compilation.

Steve, to add more info than my previous post, my
64 MB AMD K6 200 was bought in the time frame when
the problem was discovered. I was not into kernel
compiling at the time and I do my kernel compiling
on another machine. But I always had CDROM based
OS install problems on the AMD based machine that
I could usually cure by selective package installs
after the main installation completed.

I always thought it was a marginal CDROM drive
that was the culprit on my system, because the
kernel problem was the one talked about on the
Linux news groups. Things have recently
deteriorated on the AMD system to the point where
about a dozen install attempts have failed. I have
since tried again with a new CDROM drive and Linux
gives sig 11's or sig 7's, often late in the
package install phase. This results in not only a
broken install, but the old Linux is hosed. BTW,
WinBlows also fails with a message to clean the CD
media and the old Winblows is also blown away
(Hmmm, there are some good effects of this problem
:>). I have tried with different media as well as
different drives, so I know that is not the
problem. I suspect there must be a tight
verification loop in a low level driver that is
hammering the marginally capable AMD chip and
exposing a timing problem, but that is just a
guess.

My solution is a Celeron upgrade, which will be
done when Computernerd ships me my new CPU/MB/Fan
combo.

Regards,

Peter Koren