Epox 8K3A+ plays in the nForce 2 playground 8-)

[STEvil]

Its not quite there, but considering this is only through bios settings (half of which I dont have a clue about and havent really messed with yet), this is pretty good for an "old" KT333 8-)

How do I get rid of weird characters in my bios, though? When im in the bios I get weird characters all over, but its perfectly fine after its past the drive detection and whatnot..

2x 256mb Corsair XMS3200 CAS2 sticks were used, btw. Not the LL (BH-5) stuff, just normal with 8x32mb BH-6 chips.

Might be able to get my hands on some BH-5, though... have to see.

--EDIT--

Picture removed, its old and new one on page 2.

[saaya]

wow! memory bandwidth is pretty much like my nf2@209!

[STEvil]

Im using the 3414 bios off AOA, btw.

I dunno if i'll be able to do 215.. 210 seems just on the edge of stability.. I need more cooling 8-)

[saaya]

more vio :) known mod for kt333?

[STEvil]

I've got 3.22v or so running into the ram right now... highest the bios will let me select 8-)

EDIT

It seems there is a temperature sensor bug in the 3414 bios.. it wont read correctly after a reboot sometimes 8-(

Maybe I should give 3409 a try.

[BrainStorm]

STEvil, very nice! But you'd better ghost your HD. You're into corruption territory on a VIA chipset.

[STEvil]

I am? Nothing hitting right now.

I thought that was on KT400 chipsets, as i've seen some people hit in the 215 and up range with this board (which I nearly lost last night).

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14894

[STEvil]

I did a little more playing and pulled this off...

I need to find some WinBond BH-5 or BH-4....

http://www.wcroller.com/los/linkpics/2411 1.9v 210fsb.jpg

[retrospooty]

Ya the 8k3a is one kickass old mobo, I used to run mine at 225mhz with my Corsair PC3500 at 2-2-2-6-2T 4-way, I got over 3400mb/s with it. Very solid and stable. I kinda miss it. :D

[spaceman]

Yeah, I loved my 8K3A+, but it died during a BIOS flash, right when I got my first 2400+. :( I'd love to see what it can do with PC3500. :D Hmm, maybe I'll try reviving it again. ;)

[ryanpgroovy]

I have become an intel junky,

[STEvil]

I cant get past 212 it seems... nuts 8-/

[stergiopilus]

My 8K3A's highest slightly stable FSB. Totally stable at 233MHz.

http://users.tpg.com.au/muller1/235mhz%20FSB.JPG

Ram is twinmos 512mb PC3200 at 2.9v at 2-2-2-5.

The only mods i have done to the mobo, is add slightly better chipset cooling.

[wierdAl]

your mobos really rock dudes i guess there was something to the old kt333, i guess i should give my kx7 another try :)

[texuspete00]

I have become an intel junky

Uh, thanks for the oh so pertinent news update on your personal preference of cpu :rolleyes:

It was between an 8k3a and 7vrxp when I did my first build ever. I got a 7vrxp because the reviews had these boards with rave reviews but this was better for non-heavy OC. Boy thats was dumb. Known that for awhile. Might even still get one for kicks. I think the board is a legend socket A. Good job too Stevil.

[retrospooty]

ehh...

I switched over too, I loved my 8k3a, one of the classic best mobo's ever. But AMD just cant handle heat very well. I am tired of fighting hot days.

Intel is simply better these days. Maybe Hammer will change all that, but considering its been delayed over 2 years already and they are still having troubles getting it over 2 ghz, i seriosly doubt they will be able to keep up with Intel and the .09 micron prescott's. :(

[Jeff]

:confused: Yeah... AMD has trouble keeping up. :rolleyes:

Maybe if you're only into 3DMark... otherwise it's absolutely fine. :D

(no harm, no foul! Just beer... :toast: )

[retrospooty]

Originally posted by Jeff
:confused: Yeah... AMD has trouble keeping up. :rolleyes:

Maybe if you're only into 3DMark... otherwise it's absolutely fine. :D

(no harm, no foul! Just beer... :toast: )

Nah, I'm into a silent running PC that can take a hot summer day, thats all. :D

Beer= good :toast:

[Jeff]

Beer = very good!!! ;)

Yeah... silent probably would be easier with Intel... but I'm just an AMD/cheap bastard by nature. ;)

BTW... did I mention that Beer = very good? :confused: :D

[Jethro]

wow nice clocks stevil, u inspired me to try 198mhz FSB today and it worked like a charm, hadda use 2.0 vcore to hadnle 2.575 (13x198) tho. I may bump this multi back down now for fun seeing how its possible to hit 200 stable =)


what other components u running , drives etc.

[STEvil]

Its all in the sig 8-)

Should be the bolded items, unless I forgot to update it recently.. heh

[Jethro]

running 13x 198 2.575g's but i need 2.0 vcore its rock stable so i dont think its overheatin heheh. im just under 3000mb's

No problem at all doing 198 finally i think getting good rails tweaking my psu and the agp volt mod did the trick man.


when i use 200FSB my mem scores get wacky, not sure why yet

[Penti]

Oooh dear 8K3A+

http://w1.157.telia.com/~u15705008/wcpuid234mhzfsb.jpg
Not stable thoug this is just the highst fsb wcpuid

http://w1.157.telia.com/~u15705008/sisoft225.jpg
Could probably get higher with ~220 fsb, better timings and wpcredit tweaks.
I have finished super pi 1M around 218-220 tops.

Just stock heatsink and 60mm fan, havn't any good sink laying around that i can use on the nb.

TwinMOS windbond BH5 memories.
Pretty much the nb that's holding me back, better cooling would probably give 5-15MHz more stable then now and that i burnt the 5v rail of my stronger psu, so i'm only using an old aopen 300 now.

BIOS version 3117

[N8]

I've been thrashing 3 8K3A's in 3 PC's for over a year now...my main rig still holds 1 as shown in my sig...best mobo ever made IMO........best ;)

[NoStra]

I have had a 8k5a2+ (KT333ce) that did 235Mhz @ 2.0-2-2-5 with Twinmos/Winbond BH5...

3440mb/s...not NForce2 bandwith, but some nice FSB ;) Not 3dmarkable btw.... AGPtearing and stuff..

Can't find my screenshot anymore.

[Jethro]

6A=FF
93=FF
6B=F0
94=FF
97=1F
70=A6
55=86
96=FF
71=C8


these are the registers im running stevil they get me 200+mb's more in sandra and much better pci performance. I was wondering what ones u use so maybe i could figure out which one is bad for 200 fsb.

[STEvil]

I just set it all up through the bios..

Heres all the timings I used in the bios:

Cas - 2
Bank Interleave - 4
Trp - 2
Tras - 6
Trcd - 2
Burst Length - 8
Queu Depth - 4
Cmd Rate - 1
DClk I - Auto
DClk O - Auto
Fast R-W - Enabled
Continuous DRAM Request - Enabled
Write Recovery Time - 2

EDIT

Changed northbridge heatsink and put a small one on the clock generator for fun.

Result...
http://www.wcroller.com/los/linkpics/216 2373.jpg

Fixed my 5v problem slightly while I was at it, too.. darn ATX connector things were widened a bit much or something, bad contact.. 8-/

Sitting at 210fsb 3.0v right now.. seems stable so far 8-)

EDIT

Just set it to 201fsb and give it a try. Your divider might not be kicking in soon enough for your PCI components.

EDIT 2

Fixed a spelling error (Trcd, not Tred).

[Jethro]

are u saying the 1/6 divisor is working on kt333? i thought this was proven a myth my friend.

[saaya]

some kt333s have it... its really weird. some kt33s were just renamed kt400s maybe thats why...

[Jethro]

so does the 8k3a have it or just certain revision? i dunno how i could even find out scisoft is wacky for reading pci speeds sumtimes hmmm

[stergiopilus]

No 8K3A's have a 1/6th divider.

saaya: Not even the KT400's had the 1/6th divider.

When i run my FSB at 230, the PCI is at 46MHz and AGP at 92MHz. That is with the 1/5 divider.

[STEvil]

Yes, not 1/6'th, but there seems to be a hurdle at 200fsb for some boards.. kinda odd.

[Penti]

Originally posted by saaya
some kt333s have it... its really weird. some kt33s were just renamed kt400s maybe thats why...

No, but the boards probably have it, even some kt266a boards have pllchips that support 6:2:1 but the chipset don't. KT400 Do not support 1/6 divider and not kt333 either.

[LORD]

The 8K3A+ were excellent boards for all round action. I actually used one for benching 3Dmark at a 220 fsb in the past. In hindsight only wish it had slightly better performance in 3D. This was attributed to bios timings obviously.

[Jethro]

wow made it to 204 today without issue, 3dmark passed np wo!

[STEvil]

Found out one of my sticks was bad... was wondering what was up with the errors.. 8-/

Going go give 220 a try sometime eventually, it passed in MemTest86 as far as I can tell (whats a good test to test with??)

[Jethro]

memtest is bout a good as u will get dood it detects errors windows wont even. IE u get to windows and bench but its not stable.

I can do up to 207 so far, 12x204 is a nice setting maxes out my mhz on cpu for 1.84vcore.

I cant imagine my samsung having much mroe than 207 in it wow!

[Jethro]

DOOd i finally broke 3000mb's woohoo

got 3015/2835 @204 cas2.5 3 6 3 1command etc

i cant believe how well this board does 200+

[STEvil]

I broke 3k at 199fsb, heh. Then again I have all my timings right down as low as they go 8-)

Try 2.5-3-6-2-1t.


I was just wondering which specific test in memtest. I can run it through all the default tests no prob at 220 but windows gets an instant BSOD and reboot.. 8-/

[Jethro]

if u pass memtest then your ram has more in it the chipset doesnt, something isnt liking them extreme PCI speeds or the chipset is lacking voltage and cooling to go that high.

[STEvil]

Any volt mods for this old beast?

I've tried about 3 different northbridge heatsinks, and even dropped my pelt on it for a few hours.. but nothing got me past 218.

I think my pelt is messed up, too.. the darn thing is supposed to be "86 watts" but the heatsink i've been putting on it can barely keep the backside near 30c... either that or it isnt really 80 watts..

[Wolf]

I loved mine and had no plans of going to nf2 until my power connector went up in smoke on my 8k3a+. All 5v rails fried No volt mods on the board and it died just lke my 8kha+, 8k7a+. This last board took out my true power Antec and thats when I went with a PCP@C PSU.

[Jethro]

Im really liking 204 FSb wow! have u put heatsinks on your mosfets stevil? this board does volts well otherwise. I think your just at the extreme end of what this board will run without extreme measures dood. ;) Them pci speeds are getting way up there man.:)

@ 200+ FSB this board may be old but its no slouch! very impressive "old" kt333 thats for sure.

[STEvil]

My mosfets arent getting hot.. at least thats what my fingers tell me 8-)

[Jethro]

well mine get downright toasty, the heatsinks stablized the volts nicely. The chips got quite hot before heatsinks, now there warm and definatly radiating heat.

where u at north pole? heheh

[Penti]

Originally posted by Wolf
I loved mine and had no plans of going to nf2 until my power connector went up in smoke on my 8k3a+. All 5v rails fried No volt mods on the board and it died just lke my 8kha+, 8k7a+. This last board took out my true power Antec and thats when I went with a PCP@C PSU.

Same thing happen to me, but with an Chieftec 340W PSU.
Also i burnt a drossel and some caps, but i fixed the board and replaced the atxconnector. So my board is still running strong :D

The atxspecs and all the cables and connetors is way under dimension, for overclocking.

[texuspete00]

Back up to a slightly o.lder topic in this thread. The kt 333, some had 1/5,some didnt. Noone had 1/6 as far as I know. I had no 1/5th on my 7vrxp, the suckage for sure.

[STEvil]

3 miles north of Couts boarder crossing in Montana (im in Alberta).

24c ambient in my case with 360+ cfm of airflow right now... but those backside mosfets could be getting hot now that I think about it...

[Wolf]

Same thing happen to me, but with an Chieftec 340W PSU.


I thought abut repairing the atx connector but after I put down a lot of cash for the best psu available I had second thoughts. This is the third time an Epox board had blown all the 5v lines out on me and I didn't want to take any chances. Of course , I couldn't find a NF7-s so I had to settle for my fourth Epox. If it happens again, I won't be going back. I loved that board though it would run 2.15v with ease unlike my board now.

[Penti]

Originally posted by Wolf
I thought abut repairing the atx connector but after I put down a lot of cash for the best psu available I had second thoughts. This is the third time an Epox board had blown all the 5v lines out on me and I didn't want to take any chances. Of course , I couldn't find a NF7-s so I had to settle for my fourth Epox. If it happens again, I won't be going back. I loved that board though it would run 2.15v with ease unlike my board now.

You must be pissed at EPoX when this happend on 3 board :/
I runned 2.15V 24/7 for some month before it burned. Never runned my 8KHA+ so long that it happend on that board. So this is the first board that this happends on for me.
BTW shouldn't your antec psu be fine if you changed the 5v wires and atx-connector?

I hope they change the atxspecs in the future it's not good enough anymore, not for overclocking atleast.
Maybe it will be better with Opterons and A64's, but what will happend with prescott, they will draw very high currents overclocked.

[Wolf]

It might have been ok if I went to the trouble to replace it but it was soo charred I just trashed it. Pissed is not the word for it after it happend the 3rd time. The 8k7a+ lasted about 7 months 24x7 , the 8kha+ lasted 3 months 24x7, the 8k3a+ lasted almost a year 24x7 but they all eventually blew out all 5v lines. These were all run at at least 2.15v but that's still not an excuse for this poor design. Total casuality count is 3 boards, a 400w true power antec, and a 400w regular Antec. Everything else hardware wise was fine.

[STEvil]

I wish they would just combine all the like wires (voltage wise) into one that go to the atx connector... its very pointless to run so many individual wires when they are connected internally in the psu anyways..

[Penti]

STEvil

What do you mean? They have to few wires already.

[STEvil]

I mean all the wires going to the molex that are 5v should be one single large guage wire that is split ON the motherboard, not in the PSU.

Same goes for 12v, 3.3v, and all the other wires. A few wires for on/off are fine, but the ammount on there is just rediculous.

[Wolf]

I thought this was an interesting article on Overclocker.com about power regualtion.

http://www.overclockers.com/articles781/

Although a little dated, since people have been cooling mosfets and power regualtion circuits for quite a while now.

I don't know enough about power regulation to say what needs to be done I just feel right now all the boards that claim to do over 2v stable or either intentionally underpowered to prevent overclockers from milking more power or it could be an enginerring design issue. I really don't understand why one board maker can't make a board that can handle the high voltages overclockers like to play with.

[STEvil]

Because it would cost a LOT.

It would be nice, but part of the challenge is taking a stock part and seeing how much performance you can squeeze out of it... 8-)

[Penti]

Well it would work if you like more expensive cables and connectors, would still be like 12 wires anyway and the cables need to be slightly thicker to handle high currents. Becuse we don't want any voltagedrop in the cables, like we have with 4 5V wires and high currents...
But sure why not use less thicker cables and stronger connetors.

About voltage regulation i don't see why not use 4-phase voltageregulation. It would probably don't cost more to add a mosfet and and use a 4-phase voltageregulator instead of 3-phase (wtf some boards even use 2-phase like A7N8X, over 100W to the overclocked cpu running throught 2 mosfets, that must be tough for the board), atleast not so much they would loose any money on it. Many P4 boards use 4-phase voltage regulation for example, why don't use it on AMD boards that will draw much more power overclocked.
but i'm no expert....

BTW for does how is intressted in modifiying the board for better voltageregulation u might wanna check this out http://www.overclockers.com/tips1095/
Hi is regulating the 12V rail down to 5V to use, so it wont be as tough for the 5V rail. Maybe usefull, but solder 5V wires directly on the mosfets thats handle the cpuvoltageregulation would also help out quite i bit i guess.

[Royal Oaks]

IIRC, there was one KT333 board that had a 1/6th divider, and that was the IWill XP333. It was the first KT333 to come out IIRC, and it was strictly built for OC'ers. But, AFAIK, that was the only board to have that. I know my 8K5A2+ has the 1/5th :cool: I gotta wait till Winter though to see what my max FSB is. :cool: I can run ~187 now fine, but I really wanna clock it to the death around Christmas :cool:

[Jethro]

the xp333 which i owned for awhile had an ALI based chipset not via.

[Royal Oaks]

Originally posted by Jethro
the xp333 which i owned for awhile had an ALI based chipset not via.

I thought there were 2 versions of the board??? Man, maybe I am getting this confused with something else :rolleyes:

[Jethro]

well u were right about one thing it did have a 1/6 divisor :D

[STEvil]

Yarg.

Went ahead and did the R468 vmod. @ 1.74v agp now... anyone know of one for the chipset?

[funkflix]

Hi

http://funkflix.bei.t-online.de/222FSB.jpg

8K3A ... I love it ;)

cya grave

[BigDov]

Did you gain any sort of stability or higher overclocks on your video card with that mod?? I've been a little hesitant about doing it so far.......

Also, I seem to remember reading on AOA one time that the vdimm adjustment also adjusted the chipset voltage to a certain degree.


Originally posted by STEvil
Yarg.

Went ahead and did the R468 vmod. @ 1.74v agp now... anyone know of one for the chipset?

[Jethro]

wow 222 fsb!!! do u get agp tearing at them speeds?

[funkflix]

Hi

No Probs with the AGP, but @ 225 MHz +, the Gforce is at his end.
Get Artifacts ... but i dont had the courage to go any further :D
Maybe 230 MHz .. dunno .

cya grave

[Penti]

222MHz fsb with an 8k3a isn't much if it isn't stable. Its pretty easy to get higher then 230MHz, so is it stable?

[sjohnson]

Not an ePox (ABIT KD7-E) but a VIA 333 chipset. This is an old SS, I've been sidetracked on overclocking for about 6 months.

No AGP tearing even at 226, which is why I like this board so much. I've had it to 230 unstable, 226 is mostly stable.

This KD7-E gets run at 220 day in, day out. No disk corruption in over 8 months of hard running (bf1942, mohaa, rtcw, max payne, etc etc).

[STEvil]

215 is still my max I think, but I gained 10mhz on my memory of the GF256.... lol.

Doesnt seem to have influenced my chipset temperature, so I doubt it affected the voltage of that at all...

[Jethro]

goofy agp stuff at 220+ my limit is 210 for ram i think anyway. Ill take that out this ol samsung.

at least im in the 200FSB club woohoo!

[STEvil]

I get minor tears from 185 right all the way up, but thats it., though I havent seen one yet with the new monitor... odd.

I get weird characters in my bios and at post at 216+, though, and haven't a clue as to what is causing them (i've tried all timings at absolute minimums and no effect)...

I just need more chipset voltage, I think.