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Gateway Says Bug Affects 1GHz Thunderbird Systems
krautt writes: "AMD's desperate plight for technical superiority looks like it has caught up with them according to
this article from CNET. I guess that's what happens when you ignore your Q&R engineers and release improperly tested hardware to market." According to the article, the "chip itself is not the likely cause. Instead, the flaw probably results from the overall design of the system or other components." Sounds more like a kink like a showstopper, but a disappointment for anyone in line for a Thunderbird.
The words "pot, kettle,black" are ringing in my ears. My bad - sorry timothy.
I'd lay odds it's a power supply issue. Why? Pure heuristics. PC makers like to save money where it doesn't really make sense, like in the power supply. Most Gateway, Dell, Micron, etc., PCs come with a measly 200 watt power supply - and a no name one at that, which may or may not be up to spec. Add to that the presence of a new chip, for which motherboard designs may not have stabilized yet, and you've got a system with stability issues. Someone mentioned the problematic FIC SD11 design that had PS issues back when the Athlon first came out -- I'm writing this on my cobbled together Athlon 550 / SD11 with a 300W power supply, and I've seen all this before.
:)
My first and only "major manufacturer" PC, top of the line in the summer of 1998, shipped with a PII/400, VoodooII, Riva 128 AGP, DVD-ROM + decoder card, PCI NIC, modem, ZIP drive, and 2 hard disks. Even with all that hardware, I was shocked to discover it only came equipped with a 200 watt power supply, which caused all kinds of lockups and crashes and on occasion prevented the system from even booting. The manufacturer refused to replace it, even though Intel's own website confirmed that, for the motherboard design, the PS was not adequate. They claimed that their "engineers" who "designed" these systems knew what they were doing and wouldn't have spec'd inadequate components. If that's the case, why did a $80 300W PS cure all of the system's problems?
Basically, if you read through the marketspeak in the article, Gateway screwed up by putting something really cheap in these machines and now they're having lockup problems. "Designing" PC's from off the shelf parts is not rocket science, the only place where these people "push the envelope" is in seeing how cheap they can get the parts and still put together a system that will be usable by an acceptable percentage of the buying public.
Yes, my argument is both anecdotal and based on a small sample size. Tough. Between all the corpo PC's I've dealt with, the predatory habits of big companies like Gateway, and my own vast intelligence, I still bet I'm right
The commentary by timothy reads like an astroturf advertisment for Intel.
*exasperated sigh*
Doesn't anyone know the difference between quoted and unquoted text?
timothy: According to the article, the "chip itself is not the likely cause. Instead, the flaw probably results from the overall design of the system or other components." Sounds more like a kink like a showstopper, but a disappointment for anyone in line for a Thunderbird.
timothy states three things:
1. Article says the problem is not with the chip.
2. Problem is minor, not a show-stopper.
3. Disappointment for anyone waiting for systems with the chip.
#1 and #2 seem pretty much in favor of AMD. Number three seems pretty neutral to me, too. This would be a disappointment to anyone waiting for one of the systems, as they would now have to wait longer.
Now, yes, krautt's comment seems rather biased, or at least jumps to conclusions, but everyone's entitled to their opinions.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
My bad - sorry timothy.
Totally off-topic at this point, but I just wanted to take the time (and bandwidth) to commend rodgerd for his apology. Most people, it seems, these days, when caught in the wrong, either ignore it or deny it outright. It takes guts to admit a mistake.
My hat comes off for you, Sir.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Two things:
1) THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE ATHLON. Apparently, according to the article, there is a problem with Gateway's MB or power supply. There is no indication of AMD's engineers warning against a damn thing. There is no indication that there is any problem whatsoever with the Athlon.
2) On what grounds is the AMD chip better than anything Intel has? Most of the benchmarks I've seen have the high-MHz P III's handily defeating the Athlon in just about everything, especially games like Q3A. How is the AMD good enough for an unqualified "superior" to anything Intel has?
The bug is in Gateway systems, not AMD processors per se. That's hardly AMD turning to custard. Or a "desperate AMD" ignoring their QA teams.
The commentary by timothy reads like an astroturf advertisment for Intel. It's bad enough when luser posters don't bother reading an article and go off half-cocked. It's inexcusable when the editors do it.
Why is this a surprise? When the Athlon first came out, the first motherboard to become widely available was the FIC SD11. FIC rushed the SD11 product to market, and screwed up the voltage regulator design. This design error caused a periodic spontaneous reboot -- not a lot of good press for AMD, even though the fault was not with the processor.
FIC identified and fixed the problem, and replaced the defective motherboards. I'm sure the same will happen with Gateway's systems, although I have to take issue with an earlier poster's implication that Gateway customers are seeking a premium quality product. Gateway is pretty clearly a middle-o-the-road system supplier, both in terms of price and quality. This would not be the first time the Gateway has crossed the line from their usual design scrimping into shoddy components or QA. (Not that I'm knocking Gateway; I think their products are usually a good value for the price.)
I think not...(*poof*)
Okay, repeat after me: "I will read the story before I post. I will read the story before I post. I will read the story before I post. I will read the story before I post. I will read the story before I post." The actual story referenced mentioned it as a problem with *Gateway's* GHz Athlon system. It is *NOT* a flaw in the chip, it is a flaw in Gateway's crappy, shitty, pissy, worthless motherboard/chipset/firmware/drivers, pick any or all of the above. Read the Techweb story at http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20000630S0011 for better coverage.
Unfortunately, the idiot who submitted the story was clearly--read his words, his bias--an Intel nut, who was ready to jump the gun and blame AMD for the problem which is Gateway's fault. Now, look at the commentary by Slashdot guy timothy right after the quote from the submitter, that it appears to be a Gateway problem not an AMD problem.
What you must understand is that motherboards by Gateway, Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, Packard-Bell (yuck), and most other big-name systems manufacturers are substandard pieces of junk. To begin with, they are usually so tightly integrated that they have no available AGP slot and few PCI slots, with integrated crappy audio unfit for an old Gravis Ultrasound, integrated video that's four or six generations behind and shares system memory instead of using its own, an integrated NIC which is okay since a NIC is a NIC is a NIC but often it has an IRQ conflict with whatever you plug into the PCI slot, and uses ancient in-house circuitry designed for older chips and manufactured in some third-world hellhole by people who are more skilled with using stone implements than modern silicon-working machinery, by third-tier motherboard manufacturers whom you wouldn't trust to make a decent wristwatch much less a functional motherboard. The BIOSes are almost always in-house vendor-specific stuff, and usually nonstandard and way behind in their support of anything recent. Which is why when you buy a Gateway system it comes with, in addition to the OS, a "system restoration CD" with custom drivers because Windows doesn't even work properly on such a nonstandard shitty motherboard with crufty old custom logic without special nonstandard drivers. The Gateway 1 GHz motherboard in question is manufactured by Jabil. Ever heard of them? Few have or ever will, because they produce crap that no one would ever buy unless it were in a Gateway box with pretty cow-colored cardboard all over it.
This is all, completely, totally, absolutely, undoubtedly a Gatway problem. AMD's Athlon does not bear any responsibility whatsoever for this. Intel zealots will want to exploit it and blame AMD, but the fact remains that the Athlon gives superior performance numbers now that the L2 cache has been integrated on-die, and that there is no problem with the 1 GHz or any other Athlon.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
"It involves the 1-GHz with the Thunderbird. We don't know the cause. We are looking into the problem," the spokesman said. "We think it is a motherboard or power supply issue."
If AMD determined the exact problem, or worked along side Gateway to fix it or find a solution, it would show alot of support for thier product. Right now this makes the Thunderbird look really bad, despite the fact its is clearly not AMDs fault.
"Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality." -Jules de Gautier
I don't see anywhere in the article that would lead to this conclusion, or even give the impression that AMD's engineers had any clue that any problems would arise. In fact, the article states that it was very likely that there was another component in the system causing the problems.
I've heard a lot of horror stories from G2k, but all my personal experience (one computer for one relative) hasn't been bad. I even knew one friend who was able to get brand new system gratis when CIH fried his old one.
Take it for what its worth. I'm still looking at the AMD line for my next CPU--unless Digital rises form the dead :(
--
Never trust anyone over 90000.
YAEOSMH (Yet Another Example Of Slashdot Media Hype)
Read the headline - oh no! Athlons have a bug! I knew it!
Read the actual story - oh wait, Gateway announced that their motherboard may have a slight problem. Or maybe even their power supply. (How hard is it to build a power supply?) The same thing could affect Intel, Cyrix, G4, or Sparc motherboards, and HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE PROCESSOR.
Sorry, I'm a bit pissed about slashdot content lately. Is it just me, or have their been ALOT of crappy stories lately, as well as alot of missed ones.
---- I made the Kessel Run in under 11 parsecs.
Depends on what you are mesuring. A stright per Mhz comparisin isn't really any more useful then a per transistor rating. Granted they are done all the time, and people fixate on them.
More useful are the per dollar rating (and you probbably need to include the cost fo the support chips at the very least, whole system is better). After all most people don't go to the store to pick which 800Mhz system is faster (or which 190HP car is faster), but to pick which $700 PC (or $18,000 car) is faster. (assuming faster is what they are after, as opposed to quieter, safer, less poluting, or a nicer color -- for the car or the PC!)
Useful for another set of people is "screw the money, of the systems I can lay hands on, which is faster". Maybe an expensave quad XENON with RDRAM, maybe a single fast AMD K7 (for non-multithreaded FP bound apps). Of corse an Alpha (lower clock speed and all) toasts 'em both (at least for SPEC like apps), if you can recompile the app. Or with the car analogy again, maybe a Ferari, maybe the Lotus, or maybe even something that isn't streat legal at all.
Useful for a far smaller set of people is the "which is faster per Mhz", and those are mostly people trying to figure out why a system is fast. Not people intrested in buying it for that reason.
Other people are intrested in waste heat given off, and power sucked up (people buying portables).
On all of those, diffrent applications may be more important. Quake III to you, POVRay for me, Kernel compiles to Linus, how fast AOL loads for my mom.
Others might be intrested in the politics of the company (do they donate money to polititions I hate?). Or how much the enviroment is hurt per CPU made. Or how the workers are treated.
Oh, and lastly, there have been benchmarks the AMD womps the Intel at, even the slow slow extrnal cache 1Ghz models. The "NT 3D content creation" ones, which seem to have lots of FP, and are too big to fit whole in either cache for example. The newer Thunderbirds (less cache, but at full speed, even with a relitavly narrow bus) do quite well. They are per clock competitave with the Intel's on many benchmarks, beating them on quite a few (quite a few being more then half I think, competatave is normally with in a few percent). More importantly they are per dollar competitave, beating them on almost evey single benchmark I have seen.
Go look at the Thunderbird benchmarks again, or point me at URLs of the P-III soundly beating the Thunderbird. (it could be, I only looked at a few benchmark pages, I can only look at so many 15 page long half bar graph articles before I've had enough!)
I don't know if the per dollar thing is enough to claim AMD is (unqualifyed) superior. In my mind the max speed you can actually buy, plus the per dollar, in the vast majority of benchmarks would at the very least rate a qualifyed superior, possably even unqualifyed. Possably. I would definilty give it a qualifyed, like "for POVRay, it kicks Intel's ass on uniprocessers", or "per dollar, it kicks everyone's ass, for POVRay at least".
Then again if nobody benchmarked your app, or if your value scheme is not even reprsented by a benchmark, all those things are worthless.