The perfect board for my low power Sempron?

buf · Post by **buf** » Tue May 10, 2005 2:09 am

Good morning everyone! It's my first post here at SPCR, I already searched the forum and other pages but still could not find the solution for my problem.

I want to build a fanless or very quiet HTPC, mainly for timeshifting, watching videos etc. The Via Epia are too slow and expensive and so I purchased a low power Sempron 2600+, 25w for socket 754, which seems to be a very good tradeoff between power and heat. I already found a very promising µATX mainboard, the SL-K8M800I-RL by Soltek (click), which is supposed to have very good undervolting features.
But this mainboard isn't available in Germany anymore, the only shop who once offered it can't sell it now because of problems with the German division of Soltek. So I need to find another board for my precious mobile Sempron

It has to be a µATX one, because I want to put the computer in a nice HTPC-enclosure. Of course it must support the mobile version of the cpu and also have some undervolting features to reduce the heat as much as possible.
One candidate could be the new s760GXm by Aopen, but it seems to lack the adjustable vcore.

I'd greatly appreciate anyone who can give me any tip for my project, especially a recommendation for compatible mainboards.

egghat · Post by **egghat** » Tue May 10, 2005 6:48 am

I'm not sure, if adjustable vcore is that important, when Cool'nQuiet is supported. In theory every CnQ enabled board should allow undervolting. It's important to use a software like CrystalCPUID or RMClock (which is what I use), that can set the multipliers and core voltages (AMDs standard drivers won't do this).

I don't have a tip regarding a MicroATX board for you. I use a DFI Lanparty UT nF3 250GB with my low power Sempron. It detects the CPU and sets it to 1.075 volts and a multiplier of 4. The multiplier should be 8 and if my information is correct, the default voltage is 1.2. But the system starts up fine. The other board that is known to work with the Low Power Mobile semprons is from MSI, but it has active cooling on the northbridge and was a no-go for me therefor.

Bye egghat.

buf · Post by **buf** » Tue May 10, 2005 9:53 am

Thanks, that already helped me.
I looked further and found a thread at the Anandtech forums:

MSI K8TM-ILSR [Tested with Athlon 64 Mobile 1.4v] - a user claims to have this combination running. Upon booting the CPU will lock down to a 4x multiplier for a speed of 800mhz. However, using ClockGen and CPUID the proper multiplier and voltage can be selected for a perfectly working mobile Athlon 64 setup.

When it works with an mobile Athlon 64, the chances for a mobile sempron are not that bad, I suppose?