Got Me a KD7 Today!!

Printable View

Show 100 post(s) from this thread on one page

10-10-2002, 08:11 PM
Mr. Fridge

Quote:

Originally posted by mdzcpa
There is little reason to upgrade from the KX7 to the KD7. Unless you are interested in the AGP x8 support, USB 2.0, the better Vcore and Vmem choices, and the onboard sound and NIC, there is little performance gain.

I made the move simply for curiosity and for the purposes of a motherboard review article for Liquid Ninjas .

However, if buying a new socket A mobo, the KD7/AT7Max2 is still the one to get. It can do everything the KX7 can...plus has better features. Just don't go looking at these KT400 mobos as a performance upgrade to KT333 mobos...they're not.

My only complaint so ar is HD corruption at higher FSB speeds (over 203mhz for me). But I am not done yet looking for a fix to this issue. On the up side, my stick of Corsair XMS 3200 512 which was kind of a slug on the KX7 (would only do 194mhz at CAS 2 3,6,3 2T) will run 202mhz at CAS 2 2,6,2 1T on the KD7 with the same voltages.

Yeah like the fella below you posted, the KD7 has more relaxed timing?? Can you bench the mem at 202 on your new, and compare to your old 194 ??? That would tell us for sure.
10-10-2002, 08:45 PM
Player0

The popping occurs on the Audigy or the Onboard sound, and only occurs at 200FSB or higher. Generally, overclocking the PCI bus will alleviate popping because it is caused by latency problems (PCI bus being saturated). I have the latency set at 32, but I notice you can change it on this board, I may try a setting of 64 to see if it helps.

Im 100% sure its not the memory. Im using Corair PC3200C2 at the most conservative timings I can, and giving it a little extra voltage. The board runs Prime95, 3dmark, etc, just FINE at 200mhz fsb. I had it running for 4 hours last night at 2-6-2 Cas2 at 200mhz. The HD still gets corrupted when XP shuts down, even at 3-7-3 Cas 2.5. I know this ram is good for much more.

The CPU is at default or underclocked settings, so I can rule that out during testing as well. I am giving it extra voltage as well (which I do anyway). Its a 2000+, which is good for well over 2000mhz, but im running it at about 1600-1700mhz.

THe problem is with the KT400 chipset. Period. Ive had all these same parts in other boards and did better. Ive covered all the bases here.
10-10-2002, 09:06 PM
OPPAINTER

Heres a thought, how high are you overvolting your 5V??

OPP
10-10-2002, 09:08 PM
Mr. Fridge

Ok, Looks you got it handled.......................
10-11-2002, 06:20 AM
C3

Hi!
Is there any chance,that it'll be possible to use the 1/6 Divider on the ABIT KD7(-RAID)?I bought the Board because of this Divider!
I'm very afraid...
10-11-2002, 06:22 AM
N8

KingXXL,

Welcome to Xtreme :)

I don't think you'll be seeing a working 1/6th divider on any KT400 board...but I've been wrong before ;)
10-11-2002, 06:24 AM
C3

Hmmm...
I also contacted ABIT.They told me that it should work.
They sent me a Problem-Formular,which I schould fill out and send back to ABIT.I havn't done it already.Should I?
10-11-2002, 06:38 AM
N8

I would...be interesting to see what they have to say about the 1/6th divider. If they say it should work, I wonder why they took the option out of their latest BIOS release :D
10-11-2002, 06:47 AM
TheHunter

1/6 divider will NOT work with non of the KT400 boards, the chipset doesn't support it.
10-11-2002, 06:51 AM
C3

I mailed them before I bought the Board.Because on tbreak.com they had also probs with the divider in their Review.
After they told me that it should work I was thinking that tbreak.com made a mistake.But now...
If they wouldn't had mailed me that I wouldn't had bought this Board.
10-11-2002, 07:16 AM
Player0

Opp, Im using the ProCooling 475w beast. I haven't overvolted anything on it yet. 12v and 5v are rock solid and right where they need to be. 3.3v is low like I said. I have been considering opening up this thing and trying to find some pots. I might beable to raise 3.3 and 5v lines. And it saves me some soldering to the motherboard.

Buuut, I need to have a reason to do so. I don't think its going to work. This problem reminds me of the 686B bug, and I only think BIOS patching is going to cure it. Unless I can find a couple BIOS settings to change that might fix this. But I dont think so.

So I'll wait and stay at 198FSB, start focusing on ram timings and overclocking the CPU and Video. A few extra FSB arent going to hurt me. I may try hooking up the WD800JB drive in a single drive mode to see if that helps. Maybe using less PCI bandwidth will clean up the signal. I;ll just wait for a cure from Abit/Via.
10-11-2002, 09:37 AM
xgman

Quote:

Originally posted by Player0
Opp, Im using the ProCooling 475w beast. I haven't overvolted anything on it yet. 12v and 5v are rock solid and right where they need to be. 3.3v is low like I said. I have been considering opening up this thing and trying to find some pots. I might beable to raise 3.3 and 5v lines. And it saves me some soldering to the motherboard.

Buuut, I need to have a reason to do so. I don't think its going to work. This problem reminds me of the 686B bug, and I only think BIOS patching is going to cure it. Unless I can find a couple BIOS settings to change that might fix this. But I dont think so.

So I'll wait and stay at 198FSB, start focusing on ram timings and overclocking the CPU and Video. A few extra FSB arent going to hurt me. I may try hooking up the WD800JB drive in a single drive mode to see if that helps. Maybe using less PCI bandwidth will clean up the signal. I;ll just wait for a cure from Abit/Via.

WD800JB single drive didn'thelp me. Have you tried the PCi beta patch. I was thinking of trying that.
10-11-2002, 09:40 AM
xgman

Quote:

Originally posted by KingXXL
Hmmm...
I also contacted ABIT.They told me that it should work.
They sent me a Problem-Formular,which I schould fill out and send back to ABIT.I havn't done it already.Should I?

They have no idea what they are talking about. You are not speaking to the engineers. We probably know more about the boards than the Abit tech support does from my experience with them.
10-11-2002, 09:54 AM
Player0

Ive thought about the PCI patch (George Breeses right?). Go ahead and give it a whirl for me ;) Im short an OS right now. I really should get Norton Ghost for this project, thats for damn sure. Next OS install I will :)

Uhm. My problem with the PCI patch is that I dont know when it kicks in. Is it loaded right at boot, or does a lot of other stuff get loaded in to windows before this patch takes affect? It would seem to me that this patch needs to take affect before any other part of windows is loaded from the hard drive or read corruption could occur (i notice it occurs in windows, so it must occur outside of windows as well, right?) It may however fix the write problems (which usually happen after loading windows) and this might prevent things like the User Profile files from becomming corrupt.

Don't really know. It might even be an XP bug. Maybe everything would work fine in ME. I dont think thats the case either. In the end, all we have is speculation and the problem could be coming from anywhere really.
10-11-2002, 10:18 AM
Len Hjalmarson

Where is a good place to order CORSAIR memory?
thanks
10-11-2002, 10:26 AM
Player0

Mwave, pcprogress, maybe newegg sells it?
10-11-2002, 10:56 AM
xgman

Quote:

Originally posted by Player0
Ive thought about the PCI patch (George Breeses right?). Go ahead and give it a whirl for me ;) Im short an OS right now. I really should get Norton Ghost for this project, thats for damn sure. Next OS install I will :)

Uhm. My problem with the PCI patch is that I dont know when it kicks in. Is it loaded right at boot, or does a lot of other stuff get loaded in to windows before this patch takes affect? It would seem to me that this patch needs to take affect before any other part of windows is loaded from the hard drive or read corruption could occur (i notice it occurs in windows, so it must occur outside of windows as well, right?) It may however fix the write problems (which usually happen after loading windows) and this might prevent things like the User Profile files from becomming corrupt.

Don't really know. It might even be an XP bug. Maybe everything would work fine in ME. I dont think thats the case either. In the end, all we have is speculation and the problem could be coming from anywhere really.

I really think it is a Via chipset problem. I am really ready to try a NF2. Thanks god for Ghost. My replacement AT7MAx2 zapped out when I changed the Highpoint #3 controller (boot) to a SATA (boot) connector/serielle adaptor to compare HD performance. Corrupted at 200 just after Spash screen in XP that way. I really wish we could pin this down. It is ashame to be able to get 214+ on this board without video tearing and have to worry about drives dying.
10-11-2002, 11:07 AM
Player0

Yeah, I agree 100%. This board will run at 200mhz, and it runs great, my ram scores are much better at 200mhz on this board than at 200mhz on the KX7. Funny that it will run WinXP for a little while at 200+, but the hd's get corrupted hehe.

So ghost just copies everything to a cd or something huh? Will I need a CD burner? Never used it before. Sounds like i should tho.
10-11-2002, 11:38 AM
xgman

wpcrdit kt400 tweaks

http://www.amdforums.com/showthread.php?threadid=163826

Ghost is great if you have a 2nd drive , you just boot to the ghost floppy and your whole drive is cloned in minutes. If you crash, you reboot to the floppy and restore in minutes to exact copy of drive. There are many options for cdrom, individual partitions, etc. My most valuable tool. System restore doesn't do you any good if you can't get into windows.
10-11-2002, 11:46 AM
mdzcpa

Quote:

Originally posted by Mr. Fridge
Yeah like the fella below you posted, the KD7 has more relaxed timing?? Can you bench the mem at 202 on your new, and compare to your old 194 ??? That would tell us for sure.

Nope..the timings are not relaxed on the KD7. In fact I can get better bandwidth at lower FSB speeds with the KD7 than I could with the KX7.

I'll post some benches when I get home from work.
10-11-2002, 12:18 PM
OPPAINTER

Running a stick of Geil 3500 right now rock stable at 204 max timings except useing 2T. I put the GeForce 3 in to make sure my Radeon wouldn'y mess things up for testing.

Heres some halt action if you want some Idle temps by the way.
D5 to 1E and D2 to E8

OPP
10-12-2002, 02:32 AM
DuraN

Try 3DMark with the GF3 OPP! Bet you will end up pretty high on the GF3 scores :)
10-12-2002, 10:18 AM
TheDude

Dead Kd7r?

My KD7 raid with XP2400 was up and running fine at 15x140=2000mhz. Temps were good..default voltages. I left it folding all night and this morning fans were spinning but screen was black..thought the monitor was sleeping, but it would not come up so I rebooted. Nothing..black screen, no post, no beeps, nada. I cleared CMOS numerous times, no help. It is out of the case with only CPU,HS, PS, video card and memory. I tried known good video card, no help. I remounted and inspected CPU and HS, no help and no indication of burning or overheating (cpu shut down was active in the bios at 60c). I moved and reseated stick of Corsair XMS3500/433c2 DDR, no help. PS is brand new TTGi 520w and seems fine. This board ran fine at stock settings and folded for at least 5 hours at good temps. I have no idea what to do next, short of an RMA. Anyone got any ideas? The only component I have not replaced with known good is ram. I do have a stick of Corsair XMS3200 in another rig that is running. I hate to wait for an RMA.GRRRRR!:mad:

PS Right now the battery is out..gonna leave it our for a while and try again...running out of ideas!
10-12-2002, 10:40 AM
mdzcpa

Sorry to hear of your bad luck:(

It seems you've done all of the right things so far. But before you rma the mobo, you might want to try swapping in the PSU, CPU, and memory (one at a time) from the rig that is running just to eliminate the possibility of any of these items being the culprit.

If you boot with no memory in the mobo, do you get a memory error beep code? If not, it's likely the CPU or mobo which is FUBAR'd.
10-12-2002, 11:00 AM
TheDude

well ...it's not in the case, so there is no speaker to beep. It will spin up with no ram. Guess I can try putting the 3200 stick in there to eliminate the ram. Could even use my xp2200 to check cpu..just a royal pain but that would tell me its the mobo.

Show 100 post(s) from this thread on one page