Processor did in fact show up today. Decided I'd open up the box and make sure nothing was damaged/missing since the box it was shipped in from Amazon was partially open when it arrived. Quite honestly, I'm surprised by the size of the HSF. I've seen larger installed on motherboard chipsets. It is nice to see that AMD wasted little money on packaging. The box is just large enough to hold the processor and HSF without risking damage to either by skimping on the plastic surroundings. There's enough additional plastic surrounding each piece to ensure they'll survive shipping if packaged and handled properly. The motherboard is projected by UPS to be delivered tomorrow. It's an Asus AM1M-A. We all know how Asus packages their products so that won't be any surprise at all.
Nice, I actually just finished building a HTPC / Media Server on the weekend with the 5150 (5350 was OOS) and the Asus AM1M-A in a Bitfenix Prodigy M. Performance is quite good for such a low power chip and although it's not really needed I've managed to OC it to 1.8ghz (base clock of 125 & 14.5 multi) and the RAM up to 1920mhz.
Update: Motherboard has arrived. The processor and HSF have been installed. Soon as my wife lets me shutdown my HTPC I'll start on the "upgrade" and hopefully will have something to post about it later this evening.
Temps seem good, hottest I've seen it get so far is 40c while running prime @ 1.875Ghz (upped the multi to 15) and RAM at 2000mhz not 1920 (dunno how I got that number?). All seems quite good so far, and it manages the transcoding out to my other devices (2 Sony blu-ray players & a WD TV Live) through Serviio while doing playback on the loungeroom TV through XBMC with no issues.
Very nice. I got mine together last night. Got everything setup. It was looking good until I made the mistake of installing the AMD AHCI driver....then it all fell apart. For some reason, every time I install AMD's chipset drivers instability ensues.... So, reinstalled Windows this morning before leaving for work. I'll install the necessary drivers when I get home at lunch time. This time, much like with my HTPC, no AMD AHCI driver..... Can't believe they still haven't figured out how to write a properly functioning AHCI driver yet.... Performance was a very nice surprise though. It performs quite well until I install the AHCI driver.
Hmmm I haven't noticed any issues with the driver installed. What sort of issues do you experience with it?
System takes upwards of 45 minutes to load Windows, BSoD's.... Some software installers will crash. Some software will install but will crash when trying to load. It acts as if either the harddrive or memory is failing. Had all the same issues with the A4 5300 and it's MSI motherboard. Without the drivers, it's rock solid.
Might be finding out later. When I tried to activate Windows, it said my license was invalid and I refuse to buy another license. I'll be calling them later to argue with them about licensing and activation. If they refuse to fix the issue, I'll probably just load OpenSuSE on it and be done with Windows.
Damn that sucks, can't say I've noticed any of those symptoms though on this build. Maybe try using the driver package from ASUS's support page that has the chipset, graphics & USB3 included but not the SATA/AHCI driver. Guess I've just been lucky.
I checked out that driver package and the only thing it wants to install....is the AMD SATA/AHCI driver.
This thing actually performs quite well considering it's gimped by the harddrive....and it's a budget processor. Obviously, an SSD (or at least a newer harddrive) would make a difference but if you're on an extremely tight budget an SSD isn't a great option for a budget build. I've only tried to overclock a couple times so far and it hasn't worked. Haven't tried since getting Windows reinstalled but I'll give that a shot tomorrow. Not sure if the first couple attempts failed because of the issues with AMD's SATA/AHCI driver, memory or my particular chip needs more voltage. Got in a quick 3DMark Ice Storm run. Scores were not impressive and 3DMark doesn't recognize the processor. That doesn't always work when changing cpu/mobo. I had MS flat out refuse to reactivate a copy of XP "back in the day" after I changed cpu/mobo. Fortunately, they did give me an activation code so all is well.
Did you set the NB speed by any chance? I've had it fail to boot after making changes to the NB, it doesn't seem to like running any slower than 800 for me
Coincidentally, that's exactly what happened with the system MS refused to re-activate Windows on.... I tried adjusting one labeled "APU Frequency"
Out of curiosity, how tall is the cooler? I've got a spare 1U rack case, I wander if it would fit in there...