Listen up KD7 owners

[MrIcee]

Hi guys

My Abit contact just dropped me an email today. He's been quite busy prepping for Comdex,etc, and asked me for issues or information that has come up on the forums. What I'd like to compile is a shortlist of the current unresolved isues with the KT-400 boards, the AT7Max2 and KD7. I don't want to hear the 1/6th divisor doesn't work either..LOL We know thats a KT-400 issue. My initial thoughts are:

1) HD corruption just over 200FSB whether native IDE or Highpoint controller. KX7 was not as prone to this, I've run mine up to 226Mhz with no corruption.

Ok..let em fly my friends....I'll email a list to Abit on Monday.
Thanks in advance

Randi

[OPPAINTER]

Temp sensors are Outrageously high. The mobo does get very hot though around the Caps, Mosfet, 4pin 12V conector Area.

How about fixxing the can't use reset button at 180 or higher problem.

Since we cant have the 1/6th divider, all I want is a 5-3-1 devider, not much to ask for

OPP

[Nohto]

What's up Randy! Well on the KD7 it doesn't OC nearly as well as my KX7 did. First of all to get a decent OC out of it you have to run the FSB at 166 or close to it and if you use the 5:2:1 ratio then you can't set the DRAM Clock manually. It locks it in at 166. The board definately isn't as stable as the KX7 maybe its just me but you could OC the KX7 with just about any setting and it was very forgiving. With the KD7 it is a picky MOTHER F****R. Also what is up with using no heat transfer material/grease on the chipset and with using smaller/cheaper mosfets (refering to the heat problem). I also thought that the board was suppose to take advantage of the 8X feature. With the new bios unless I am missing something it isn't available anymore. These are just issues off the top of my head I have only been using the board for about 2 days and I am not impressed.
Thanks for taking the time and initiative for refering these issues to Abit for all of the Xtreme members.
Nathan

[TheDude]

In addition to the areas OPP mention, I had to add HS to my SB. 1st one died after getting blistering hot.

[Drozdov]

undervolting of the +12v rail. (at least for me)

[emtp563]

Me too- undervolting of the +12v rail. Abit fixed the low +5v problem, but added a low +12V rail problem.

I do not like the inability to swich AGP transfer rates in the bios. I have a Radeon 9700, what if I wanted to run it at 4X?

The relative unoverclockability of this board is a serious issue (especially with the AT7-MAX2).

The rest has already been mentioned.

[Bravo]

Wide variation of performance. Most Australian/New Zealand users are having problems with the DDR speed being set to anything except 266 (it will default to this if set higher).

[[NH]Woxxman]

Hi guys!
This info is more about the KT400-chipset it self but witout saying to much I can tell you that both the ABIT KD7-RAID and AT7-MAX2 is invloved..
I have been testing seven different KT400-boards the last two weeks for a big roundup that we are going to post this week on our website. I can tell you that the KT400-chipset is very strange.. at least that’s my conclusion. The boards I have tested are getting very different performance results and I mean big differences.. And that’s with DDR333 and max timings on all boards. As the roundup isn't public yet I’m not going out with any numbers but I will report back to you guys as soon it gets public. And the “FSB-bug” really looks like a KT400-problem as you have already mentioned. Of the seven boards tested three of them got up to 202Mhz FSB but anything over that corrupted the windows installation.
I will have more info for you soon.

[MrIcee]

Fella's

Could I have some numbers on each of your boards undervolting +12v Lines to have to present to them

Randi

[emtp563]

Randi, with my Antec PP403X, the 12v rail havered around 11.1V, and that's with the pot being tweaked. Just got a new TTGI 550W PSU, and the +12v rails is still low- +11.5V as I type this, pot untweaked.

[PappaSmurf]

A couple of really annoying issues which I've been having with my KD7 which are really putting me off this board:

[list=1][*]I'm using the SPDIF (optical) out with a toslink cable which goes to an optical-coax convertor and then to my Boston BA5700G's. It works fine, but when I do things such as, open my computer, click the back or forward button on IE, click on a link, press play in Winamp etc. the speakers make a loud CRACKLE sound. This sound also happens when Windows loads. The volume of the crackle is independent of the volume of the speakers.

This doesn't appear to be a hardware issue.
I've tested headphones/speakers plugged into the analog outputs and it doesn't happen.

The reason I say it doesn't appear to be a hardware issue is that it doesn't happen *as* bad with some drivers as it does with others.

It is SHOCKING with the drivers available for download on ABit's webpage. Bad enough to make me turn off my speakers whenever I'm not playing games - According to device manager driver version is 5.10.0.4010
These drivers seem to have a lot of extra "stuff" (or "crap") which the pure VIA drivers dont have (see below) so perhaps this is where the problem lies.

The problem is considerably better with the drivers found on VIA Arena (http://downloads.viaarena.com/driver...io_a1u320b.zip) - According to device manager driver version is 5.12.01.3820
The crackle is not nearly as loud with these but it's still there.
[*]Using the same sound setup as above, when the "main" volume slider is adjusted in the windows "volume control", the volume of the sound doesn't change.
Only the "Wave" volume slider affects the volume of the sound.
This means that whenever I want to adjust the volume of the sound I have to double click on the speaker icon to change the wave slider, rather than just using the one which pops up.
[*]Finally. And this is a HUGE beef which I am *very* cross at ABit for
I'm using an Alpha 8045 heatsink, which uses the four mounting holes around the socket.
To my dismay, when I went to install the heatsink, I realised (thank god!) that ABit had thoughtfully placed components right up close (and I mean close!) to the mounting holes, in one case - a surface mount resistor or capacitor is sitting less than 1 or 2mm away from the hole.
This means that the mounting bolts and washers which sit in these holes would crush these components if I had not realised and found a solution to this problem.

In the end I had to make custom nylon washers (by filing normal washers with a nail file) which would lift the mounting bolts clear of these components.

This of course meant that the heatsink was a few mm higher than it should of been, and wasn't making contact with the core of the CPU!
This then meant that I had to take to the bolts with a file, and take a few mm off the top to compensate for the added height of the washers in order to make the HSF make contact with the CPU.

What a nightmare.

If they are going to put these holes in, they can at least go to the effort of ensuring that they are usable!!
I can't believe how such a thing could have been overlooked.
I don't see why they couldn't leave at least a few mm around these holes, and even put a nice metal washer type coating like they do with the rest of the mounting holes on the board.

Similarily, on the back side of the board there is not a gap for the nuts, there are tracks running right up next to the holes.
This means that when the nuts are tightened on the back of the bolts, they end up scraping the tracks, coming *dangerously* close to destroying the board. I have no bloody idea how this motherboard survived the installation of this HSF :/
[*]As other people have noted, I too have 12v rail undervoltage. Never been higher than 11.80 and goes as low as 11.63.[/list=1]

That's about it.
I'm not going to get into speed and what not because that's not nessisarily ABits fault, I thought I'd focus on things which are up to ABit etc.

[Hardass]

Randi, With my TTGI 520w +5 is 5.27 +12 is 11.86. The sensor problem is another thing, in my Q Pwr with pelts Sensor 1 is reading 57c while the chip is reading 32c.

[RaD]

The 166/200 mem settings in the BIOS are bullöööö. I emailed Abit and their response was -

Re: Abit KD7 KT400

Im yet to establish any memory bus speeds this board is ¡¦capable¡¦ of running (333,400) in windows besides 266mhz? I can only get 266mhz speeds with any memory bus setting (133:166:200). Performance in SiSoft Sandra memory test is also only 266mhz equivalent as well (2000/1950 default speed 133fsb:200mem).

Even though the bios states the memory is running at 200mhz in the settings, and the POST screen states DDR400, no where inside Windows will it agree. I have used the following programs to help verify this -

Wcpuid v3.1
Cpu_Z 1.14
SiSoft Sandra Professional 2002 SP1

If you could let me know which modes these higher memory speed dividers are enabled I''d be extremely happy. Also could you provide me with a way to verify inside windows that the memory is actually running at the selected BIOS frequency (333/400).

Faithfully
Brad Johnson

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your mail.

We deemed this is limited on chipset, this board high performance status is on 166(FSB 133MHz)/166(DDR 333), we just provided users can use DDR400 on this board, but KT400 datasheet don''t support DDR400.

Best regards,


If you need further assistance, please reply with history to this email.

ABIT FAE, Taiwan
ABIT Computer Co ., LTD

They wouldnt even provide a program that I could verify the memory speed with at 166. Every program so far says the same thing on any setting (133/166/200) - 266mhz.

RaD

[emtp563]

Don't reley on 3rd party programs. They may not be compatible with the KT400 chipset. Every program I've used to verify I am running at AGP 8X states I am running at AGP 2X- even ATI's own driver control panel. I was finally able to verify AGP 8X through H. Oda'a most recent revision of WCPUID. The revision before the latest even stated AGP 2X. Are you using the LATEST revision of WCPUID? It's v. 3.1

edit- o.k., I see you are already using 3.1 Is it a beta or final version? Check just to make sure, here is H. Oda's link: http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA002.../download.html

[RaD]

Originally posted by emtp563
Don't reley on 3rd party programs. They may not be compatible with the KT400 chipset. Every program I've used to verify I am running at AGP 8X states I am running at AGP 2X- even ATI's own driver control panel. I was finally able to verify AGP 8X through H. Oda'a most recent revision of WCPUID. The revision before the latest even stated AGP 2X. Are you using the LATEST revision of WCPUID? It's v. 3.1

edit- o.k., I see you are already using 3.1 Is it a beta or final version? Check just to make sure, here is H. Oda's link: http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA002.../download.html

to make sure I d/l'd it again, no difference. This is with 512mb XMS3500 Corsair -



but are you saying that yours displays 333mhz when your at default and engage the 166 divider?

RaD

[MrIcee]

Let me clarify this:

You are running at 12x133Mhz FSB. WCPUID shows your FSB speed, not your memory speed. Until I get my hands on this board this coming week I can't comment further. It seems something very simple is going on. Look at guys running this board such as OPPAINTER and mdzcpa, they aren't exhibiting this problem in their testing and evaluations. I'll keep youposted and try to assist you when I get the board and install it this week my friend.

Randi

[RaD]

Originally posted by MrIcee
Let me clarify this:

You are running at 12x133Mhz FSB. WCPUID shows your FSB speed, not your memory speed. Until I get my hands on this board this coming week I can't comment further. It seems something very simple is going on. Look at guys running this board such as OPPAINTER and mdzcpa, they aren't exhibiting this problem in their testing and evaluations. I'll keep youposted and try to assist you when I get the board and install it this week my friend.

Randi

Yes I understnd that bit, but on the far right hand side which shows I have the extended info displayed, the mhz of the memory is greyed out. This is either the same or just not listed in all other programs. I realise when we first got the ability of running async with the KT333 chipset we also couldnt get it displayed until the software makers revised their programs.

But my current point is this, this isnt a new chipset, but yet a revised KT333, and Im still unable to confirm it is able to be run asynchronous. True if we are overclocking then this ability is useless as it becomes synchronous at 166 fsb. Even on the Epox8K3A I believe we got a minor boost in bandwidth due to the async mode at default, where-as currently Im only recieving pc2100 speeds with ram rated beyond pc2700. In my present situation though Im waiting on a cpu that is worth overclocking (2400+ / 2600+ etc). Also the fact that I should have this feature period as it was paid for.

I appreciate everyone's help on this as Im just one of those tight-ass's that likes to get what he paid for....whther its to be used or not. If Im mislead by any of my beliefs, feel free to set me straight

RaD

[Drozdov]

Originally posted by emtp563
Randi, with my Antec PP403X, the 12v rail havered around 11.1V, and that's with the pot being tweaked. Just got a new TTGI 550W PSU, and the +12v rails is still low- +11.5V as I type this, pot untweaked.

mine reports 11.5v with my raidmax 400w blue aluminum PSU. In my epox 8k3a i got 11.89v full load...so its not my PSU.

[mbrock]

I believe everything has been mentioned. Temps, corruption, ect.... But What about adjustments for the IO voltage? My devices like around 3.6v

[Jacob Smith]

Just had to add another confirmation of the board temp readings. I get....

SYSTEM: 48-52 C
CPU SURFACE: 46-49 C
CPU CORE: 58 C (or so, haven't been keeping as close an eye on this)

Another thing I should note is that I'm using a Thermaltake Volcano 9 with the heat sensitive option, with the sensor placed right underneath the cpu core. The fan never gets near full RPM's and it is supposed to blow full haul at 55 C, which the core seems to top at idle. Another confirmation that the temps are wrong?

My system is air cooled, but cooled very well and I have spent hours configing my system and switching/adding fans to try to get these temps down but nothing works. This is even on a replacement board. I've even noticed that there is no compound on the via chipset fan... making the fan pretty much cosmetic? What's goin on over at abit labs???

These temps are all with no overclocking, and 1 Gig of Ram at DEFAULT PC 2100 speeds.

Anyway, I was directed here from another board and am just looking for any info on this board I can find. I spent 2 hours on hold to talk to an abit tech who told me "yes, those temps do seem out of my comfort range, but they are in te safe zone". Most everything works fine, I freeze up in 3dmark when I set my vid card to speediest timings... heat issue or new vid card issue, I'm not sure. Also freezes in one map in UT2k3 with max bots played very aggressivley.

Oh yea, was too lazy to include system specs in board sig but...

Athalon XP 2000+
Abit KD7
ATI Radeon 9700
Maxtor 40 & 60 Gig HD's

[Fewture]

Played with this board at a friend of mine.

Found folowing:
- when overclocking system temp goes skyhigh (65/70 C). Capacitors near systemtemp sensor get really, REALLY hot (like burn your fingers hot)
- fsbmax=189 @ 5:2:1 (B8 bios) 190 = datacorruption
- AGP cannot be set with AGP3.0 cards (Like Radeon 9700Pro). This is said in the manual btw. So the Radeon runs @ 8x (according to Sandra)
- above 166Mhz only sychronous fsb/mem is possible
- board is not consistant. Sometimes boots @ like 170Mhz 5:2:1, sometimes does not.
- 200Mhz is out of the question and that pisses me off.

Specs:
-KD7
-Corsair PC3200 C2
-XP2400+
-Radeon 9700Pro
-Maxtor 80GB 7200rpm
-everything watercooled

KD7-E is coming. Same board but with KT333 chipset. I wonder why????

Edit:
KD7-E Link

Edit: I didn't see that OPPAINTER already posted stuff about the KD7-E

[Tiribulus]

I too would like the board temp thing addressed, agp settings in the bios etc as everyone else already said, but how bout the agp slot with a little more clearance from the first dimm slot? In a nutshell I think we're approaching the ceiling of how fast this round of AMD/Via hardware as a whole is going to take us. On another note if this helps anyone. It appears with the limited testing I've been able to do that if you set both the fsb and memory manually to 133 and move the fsb setting up after that that the memory continues to run synchronously with the bus past 166 and the divider remains at 1/5. At least the bios continues to report 1/5 and Sandra memory scores continue to increase.
Tiribulus

[Dissolved]

Well someone needs to get a kd7-e and test it. i bet Abit fixed alot of things. seems like they sell there motherboards w/o fully testing them. i wish there was a company that had gigabytes colors/layouts/support and abits features.

[^^Gord^^]

KD7-E is a KT333 like the KX7 but it has the VT8235 rather than the VT8233A. Epox has had the same setup for a while.

The only difference in the two southbridges is USB2, support for onboard sound / NIC and a 8 x V-Link (the link between the North and South bridge - which I believe makes no difference in speed at present).

[Marci]

My discoveries are as follows... note, all these figures are synchronous between CPU & RAM. The below FSB / HDD Corruption issues occur NO MATTER WHAT MULTIPLIER IS SET and NO MATTER WHAT CAS SETTINGS are set.

133FSB - OK
166FSB - OK
180FSB - OK
185FSB - HDD CORRUPT
190FSB - OK
195FSB - HDD CORRUPT
200FSB - OK
205FSB - OK
210FSB - HDD CORRUPT

Enermax 465 Whisper (431w PSU) gives me following voltages, at ALL TIMES. They are Rock Solid, other than the CPU Core which fluctuates +/- 0.07v tops.

5v = 5.29
12v = 12.19
3.3v = 3.38
Core @ 2v = 2.06v
Core @ 1.9v = 1.98v

SO, mine overvolts, rather than undervolts.

Southbridge on my board does get fairly warm to touch... not particularly excessive as other users have experienced, but still warmer than any other board I've used.

System Temps - vary from 35 deg at power on to 52 deg after 5 mins. EVERY other mobo I've owned has read these as anywhere from 19 degrees to 30 degrees. Bear in mind that the physical ambient temperature of the room is actually COLDER than when I had my previous boards, as it's now winter and I can see my breath when I'm in the basement! SO, in theory, my system temps SHOULD be in the region of 16 to 26 degrees. Read with an independant thermistor, I read my ACTUAL ambient temps to be 24 degrees. (Taken 4mm above surface of mobo between the silver caps)

The Reset after 180FSB issue is an ass pain, plain and simple.... GET RID OF IT. If I hit the reset button, I want it to reset. I DON'T want to have to leg it down to the basement to power off and power on the machine. My extension Reset switch should do the job just fine, and always did up until this board. Now my feet hurt, and it's your fault Abit... I don't need extra exercise runnin up n down stairs, so give us back our reset facility please!

Heatsink / Waterblock mounting... yup, same issue... resistors in silly places near the 4-socket mounting holes. I too had to custom-make my own washers to go on either side to prevent accidental damage to the baord. Also the big caps below the socket have had to be bent slightly to allow me to fit my Swiftech block...

Perhaps some in depth detail regarding the Memory and CPU bandwidth figures could be weedled out of em as well Randi?? Would sure be nice to know whether Opp's suspicions of Normal Decode on this board being equiv of Fast Decode on KX7 is correct... it appears to be so in bench scores...

All in all, I'm getting exactly the same performance as I got with my KX7-333... chip overclocks to exactly the same levels as I could get with the KX7, all be it the KD7 requires slightly higher voltages than the KX7 to achieve this. HOWEVER, the KX7 could succesfully boot upto 223 FSB without corrupting the HDD.

And yes, they should include some TIM on the NB as default in my opinion.

Think that's all the issues I have with the board...