abit kt7a for amd xp??? UPDATED yogi!!

[deakie]

right, my boy's comp is a abit kt7a raid board and i was thinking of upping the processor speed. now we know that normally it tops out at about 1.3gig. they did introduce a mod to swing it to 1.4.
well, i thought why not the true xp chip? though its working with the previous socket A athlon style.
did some rresearch and it turns out that there were 4 revisions. 1.0 to 1.3. now 1.3 with just a bios update can run the xp chip. this is due to hardware changes. so what about rev 1.0 to 1.2. abit says noooooo. however, some brave souls have found that they do work but there is a snag. its the boot signals on the board. there is a fix. you boot and then press reset and then bingo, everything is fine. mine is rev1.0 :(
thats the deal so far. well guess who fell like burn some money on this :D
meantime, at work, we are looking how we could incorporate a lil hardware solution that could do away with the need to do the reset thingy.

anyway, particularly fo yogi, here is a site thats really clued up on this sort of thing. i'll let ya now what happens when i do it. worse case, my boy gets a new board and chip and memory....waaaaa.....mommy..... :D

http://www.sudhian.com/showfaqs.cfm?fid=2&fcid=29

any thoughts guys??

im a bit troubled by the 266 fsb on the xp....shouldnt matter right? its just double clock right.......nerves man nerves.... :o

[yogi_hm]

Well deakie I'm going to have to check this site out from top to bottom cause I'm still having shutdown issues with my board.

[deakie]

i have ordered the xp2000 proc today..... :o....no turning back now..... ;D

[yogi_hm]

i have ordered the xp2000 proc today..... :o....no turning back now..... ;D


Ok just let us know what happens

[deakie]

OK..the chip arrived this morning and I felt this cold chill run down my back. the moment had arrived for me little piece of playing.

first thing i did was to lose that thermal stuff they have on the chip. i hate that stuff. then i stuck on my paste/thermal.
nicely coated with a lil on the chip.

stuck it in and immediatly went to the bios. selected fsb 133/33. chose the 1200a chip selection and left the cpu at default voltage.rebooted.
booted ok and did the reset like they said. hung like washing pon line. nothing/nada.....

went back did some fiddling, turning off things and turning on what was off.....nada.

finally, thinking that my mem is 100mhz, i put the fsb back to 100/33. chose the 1200a option, which means above 1200mhz by the way.
booted and bingo!
ok so the chip is being reported at 1250mhz speed and everything is running like clockwork so far. my boy is currently testing the hell out of it. hoping to find a fault, no doubt, in order to get a new motherboard :D but him naaaaw win tiday 8) q3 runs sweet.... :D
so it seems that the fsb at 133 wont hack it with the 100mhz memory. i'll get hold of some 133mem to test it.

must say that it did boot a couple of times on 133fsb and did report the chip correctly at 1667mhz, which is what a 2000xp is. so i expect when the proper ram is in then it will perform to spec. 8)

so there ya go yogi, if you want to up your performance without buying new motherbord etc, get yourself an xp and some 133mem. though you dont need the ram to begin with. ;D

I'll be dealing with the having to reset problem latah by making a lil timer circuit that will trigger reset when you press the power button. that will do away with the having to remember to press reset to facilitate the warm reboot the chip needs. ;)

will give the circuit for that and any other details as they come available. :P

[yogi_hm]

great job. I would love to try it,just got to wait till I have some cash to get that xp

[deakie]

well after a couple of days of intense gaming and multiple apps open amongst other things, i can report its very stable.
also, havent needed to use the reset button once.
so i dont understand whats happening. in fact, its rock solid.
im impressed with it. now all thats needed is the pc133 mem to enable using the higher fsb speed. :)

[yogi_hm]

hey deakie I tried my pc at fsb 133 and it hanged as well. I'm running pc133 memory so it doesn't seem to be a memory issue. Did you use the preset for 133 or did you customize it

[deakie]

i used the regular preset for 133.
you pv will hang if your chip (cpu) is 200mhz bus, which i suspect it is. our old one was.they didnt introduce the 133 until the 1.4gig i think.
once i test the 133 fsb with the 133 mem and cpu together, then we will know for sure. i expect it to.

just goes to show, motherboard manufacturers dont want us keeping the same board eh. so they keep pushing for changes.
this is one of the reasons i like abit, asus and gigabyte boards. they come later into the foray, but hold out far longer than most, when things change. ;)

here is one speed tip, havent been able to get near his comp to try yet....4way interleave setting in bios for memory. try it and see if you get a lil speed gain. reputed to bring around 5%.
well, its not much but hey. :P

[deakie]

ok update on this issue. got some 133ram to go in ;D

well i stuck the ram in and changed the setting to 133/33. hung at first but played with settings a bit in bios and it got going......
woohoo i thought until after opening a couple of apps, it just couldnt stay the course. everything just stopped. grrrrr.
multiple playing around didnt help either, oh no, i bought 133 ram for nothing. den inspiration hit me like a bolt.
tured down the multiplier on the chip from 12a = '12 and above' and set it to 12. now the chip will clock at 1600 rather than 1667 mhz. its a loss of 670mhz but hey.
rebooted and BINGO.....no errors discovered so far. now the thing is flying on its way.

my analysis is that due to the clock calls, when multiple apps were open, it couldnt handle the calls between the chip and the ram. the speed between them has to be the issue. i still think there could be a bios fix.
ok, so it doesnt recognise which chip it is but it still handles the calls ok and does recognise the speed at the multiplied ratio. 12x133.
so its just a matter of dropping the clock a notch in bios to get things moving. the speed prob rests with the motherboard to proc's circuitry. not the ram. so it doesnt hang because of the ram. cool to know.
now i have done a lil dabbling with other settings in bios, speeding things up a bit and so far no probs. just cant wack the multiplier up to its hilt.

now that in itself is a bonus, why? well, the chip will always be running a lil shy of its full marks and so heat wont be too big an issue....see what im saying?

so yogi, there could be the solution to your prob. now what is interesting is this. if i put a bigger chip in, like a 2400/266fsb, would it work? or, am i limited by luck to the 2000. could be that 1200x133 = 1600 is the max if you get what i mean. that is after all, the setting below the bios max. i could have bought an 1800 i suppose and got the full wack, or would i? considering the bios max multiplier setting failed to work.
so its best to say, stick with a 2000 proc max. just to be safe for this mod. :D ;D 8)

ps. im about to stuff a 8x fx5200 128mbddr graphic card in there to run at agp4x.....lol
but he deserves it. tore up his mocks with 97% ordinary level and 98% advanced level gcse maths........haffi gi him nu true...ee wok fi it... ;D

[Simplicity]

Did you try adjusting the voltage? Athlon XPs are capable of much more than that, and since you have it running at less than stock, you not doing it justice. Everything after the XP 1700+ was made for overclocking (some say it uses the same wafer as the barton...).

Your memory definately bringing you down, anything less than DDR 200 and your mobo gonna have probs, but since you have PC 133Mhz in there right now, that is not a concern, you can't use DDR RAM. But try fiddling with the voltage, if your mobo allows it, and see what happens. Just know that the temp is gonna go up, maybe in excess of 45, going on 50 C, but the increase in speed will be worth it.

Just to show how good these XPs are for overclocking, I have an XP 1700+ Tbred A that I clocked at 2.4 Mhz (1GHz increase) recently. I don't run the PC at that speed, I like the processor too much to do that to it, but every now and again I juice it up just to show that it can.

[wheelman]

Really, thats really amazing. What kinda Mobo you running it with and is it with the same Volcano heatsink + fan combo that you stated in another thread?

[deakie]

simplicity....did you know the best athlon ever made was the slot a.
if you were fortunate to own the original 1400 then you could kick the p4 arse toatlly off the map up to 2.4 ghz. i kid you not. i kicked it at 2ghz without even stepping it at all.
then they changed the format......mainly because of heat and now they run a lil less current. pfffftttt.
ye i understand what yur saying but this board cant run the ddr.
its fully clockable board and so far we aint clocking nuthin yet.
im beginning to see some freezes now over time and i suspect the fx5200 nvid card is responsible. it locks on the most stupid of things. roughly 1-2 lock ups per day. i havent sat down with it yet but i feel its in the clock settings for the core. its running at 4x agp as thats the max for the board. could be the clock is running normal for 8x.....thats what i suspect ayway at this juncture. so no serious clocking till i sort that stability problem. just too busy with dvd's at the mo.... ;D

[Simplicity]

It was clocked at 2.4 Ghz using a MSI KT4v mobo, with the same fan/heatsink I mentioned in the other thread (Thermatake Volcano 6 Cu+), another fan for exhaust, DDR 266 RAM, and ATI Raedon 9000 w/ 128 DDR RAM. Sweet, and cheap...

The vid card might be causing the prob, but chances are it's your voltage, I am almost sure that upping it a couple notches should smooth everything out. But then again, I can be extreme when it comes on to these things, so try increasing the CAS latency on the DIMM RAM for more stabilty first, can't hurt. If the mobo can't support AGP 8x, then it can't. Vid card can't overide that.

All hail AMD.... :D

[deakie]

hail amd fi sure!

ok i may play wit those settings then over the weekend.... :o

i like to touch touch... :D

[wheelman]

It was clocked at 2.4 Ghz using a MSI KT4v mobo, with the same fan/heatsink I mentioned in the other thread (Thermatake Volcano 6 Cu+), another fan for exhaust, DDR 266 RAM, and ATI Raedon 9000 w/ 128 DDR RAM. Sweet, and cheap...

The vid card might be causing the prob, but chances are it's your voltage, I am almost sure that upping it a couple notches should smooth everything out. But then again, I can be extreme when it comes on to these things, so try increasing the CAS latency on the DIMM RAM for more stabilty first, can't hurt. If the mobo can't support AGP 8x, then it can't. Vid card can't overide that.

All hail AMD.... :D


KT4v, my next upgrade might be the KT4 Ultra which is the fastest board using the VIA KT400 northbridge chipset.