The following is how my friend Aceman and I were able to solve our high FSB problem on his NF7-S. As I posted earlier, we have not had the time to test this with multiple boards or chips, and were going to wait until we had done that before jumping to conclusions. We can not be sure this will solve everyones' problem, but feel that it should work. If you break anything, it is your fault . We can not do the testing I wanted to until the day after Christmas, but since everyone wanted to hear what we had come up with, I am posting our results and how we arrived at them. I apologize for the length. As I had posted earlier, my friend Aceman and I had been able to easily run high FSB speeds (220+ MHz) with his XP2200 in his NF7-S. When trying to run my XP2700 we were getting the exact same problems I saw many people here posting: corruption messages and errors when attempting any FSB even remotely high. Among others, two thoughts we had were:
1: The two different cores had different tolerances for high FSB, or
2: When lowering the multiplier on my 2700 when testing high FSB, the board was not correctly handling the multipliers.
The theory that my 2700 did not like high FSB was not coinciding with the fact that I have had the chip running in other boards at 200 MHz FSB before with no problems. I also noted that many people have stated this exact same scenario. We started trying to change the multiplier with the 5th L3 bridge unlocking trick, but that did not help. Next I tried manually connecting certain bridges to achieve a specific multiplier, which also failed. Still thinking about the possibility of differences in the cores affecting the FSB the chip could run in this board, we tried running an XP1900+ of mine in the NF7-S and it ran perfectly fine at the same FSB speeds as Aceman's 2200. Knowing that my 2700 could run higher FSB speeds in other boards, we started to think that maybe the NF7-S in particular has some problem handling my XP2700. I noticed too, that most people having this problem were also running the new family of chips (2600, 2700, etc...). We then started to look at the differences between the two chips and how they would be seen by the NF7-S. We attempted to find any differences in the "bridge" layout and settings between our older chips which seemed to run fine in the board, and the new chips, which seemed to be having trouble. For any differences we saw, we tried to trace down exactly what the bridges did. The best ones we found were the L12 bridges. On the 2200 and below, the 4 bridges ran cut-connected-cut-connected. On my 2700 and other new chips, they ran cut-connected-connected-connected. These bridges set the default FSB, with the former being 133, and the latter being 166. To test whether this affected the chip being able to run a high FSB in this board, I connected the third L12 bridge (one away from the "L12") on Aceman's 2200 - This would in effect make it look like a new XP2800 (166x13.5). We began testing and the chip was defaulting to a 166 FSB. We then procedded to make small increases in FSB in BIOS. We were hoping we would run into the problems that my 2700 was having. Sure enough, his chip could no longer run high FSB speeds. It started producing the exact same error screens and messages that my 2700 was, and at nearly identical FSB speeds. To further test, we pulled the 2200 out, and I broke the connection I had made on the third L12 bridge. We then immediately put the chip back in without changing anything else. The chip was instantly able to run 220+ FSB speeds again just like before. This really seemed like conclusive evidence that these bridges affected if a chip could run high FSB in this board. I then took a model knife (x-acto knife) and cut the third L12 bridge on my 2700. This made it match the factory setup of Aceman's 2200, and when we booted up, the chip did indeed default to a 133 MHz FSB. We started increasing the FSB with our fingers crossed, and I was amazed to see the chip booting perfectly fine as we started running all the way into the 200's! We tested what we could in the limited time we had, and the chip breezed through 3DMark at 220 MHz FSB. We did not have time to accomplish any in depth testing, but running Prime and Sandra at high FSB speeds was perfectly fine. It seems that by simply cutting the third L12 bridge, all of our problems were solved. We also noticed that we could run many different multipliers in his board with just the L12 bridge cut and no other modifications to the chip, but we did not have time to test every one. We were using one 512MB stick of XMS3500 for all of our FSB testing. Every single onboard device was enabled, including an IDE HDD and the SATA with two drives in RAID 0, which XP's swap file was stored on. I really wish we had had time to do more testing, but we hope this method will work on any of the new chips that have the L12 bridges set to default to 166 MHz FSB. If anyone tries this method, I would be interested in hearing the results. If I left anything out, I apologize - I have not slept since Sunday. Here is a picture of the bridge to cut, for clarification:
I just posted a thread about an hour before this thread where if you took a TBred-B chip and and closed the L12 bridge you can make it into a 166 processor. Here . That's funny I never thought anyone would want to go the other way with it. Are performances better with the 133 setting?
And AFAIK the 133 xp2600's have the same problem, no doubting what your saying just somewhat sceptical since the only difference between a 133 and a 166 chip is the mulit and the default fsb.
Ill watch and wait and see.
]JR[
PS the bridge your directing to cut looks rather not connected also
EDIT : cutting bridges with a scapel must be nearly impossible, remember the dremel incedents when trying to unlock xp2100s.
Excellent find there Praetereo, I'm sure this thread will get alot of hits. I appreciate you sharing this with us, as I myself am wondering if it will be the same with other 333 fsb chips on other boards.... it may not but hey try it right .
I don't even own this board, but I thank you anyway.
muzz
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Yes, I imagine this will not work for every chip, but I think it will help many people. I have also seen people with the 2400 that still runs on the 133 default FSB hit the same FSB OCing problem on the NF7-S.
This is very similar to my 166MHz XP2600+ chip on an Epox 8RDA+. I can not run high FSB and will always crash entering windows with the 166FSB jumper on past 190MHz. I take the jumper off and the chip defaults to a XP2000+ and maximum stable FSB of 225MHz with ease.
I think you got something there...balsy move to go hacking on an expensive chip like that. I will try it as soon as possible and let you know if it cures my board as well. How deep a cut did you make. I have an exacto knife which should do fine, just need to know how far down to go. Thanks!
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I was attempting to make as light a cut as possible - thinking I could always cut a way a little more if it didn't work when I booted. That material is very weak - my first hack at it had severed the bridge. Look at the AMD lightsaber-style cuts - they are pretty shallow. I would say just try as lightly as possible
Heh, I was worried that I would do some damage, but it was killing me to find out if our hunch was right, and there was only one way for me to be sure
Haven't had time to try it yet. My family demanded I participate in Holiday rituals...they just don't understand priorities, lol. Plus it's in my Prommie and I have a couple of huge downloads going that will be done soon. I will post as soon as I can. I am very hopeful!
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So, I think I will try a XP2200 chip first. If it works on the mobo I have then I will attempt it with this 2700 chip, if the XP2200 chip doesn't do any better then I guess There will be no use cuting the the 2700, right??
Thanks for the info Praetereo. I'll send this thread to Abit.
That approach is basically what I did to justify hacking into my XP2700
We also tried a 1900 and it performed at the same high FSB speeds as the 2200, and the 2700 after its surgery
Abit should be able to fix this with a BIOS release. I have a newer NF7-S than Aceman's (only visible difference is in ZIF Socket Arm, though), and I will be testing my 2700 out in this board as well to make sure it works fine in that one as well. Hopefully we will have some nice 3DMark benches before the weekend. The system hauls when running 225MHz Sync. FSB. Too bad we only have air-cooling right now
By chance do you think this could also be causing the problems with the kt400 chipset as well as some of the newer Kt333 chipsets? IE the KD7-E. Supposedly the KD7-E is basically a KX7 board with higher voltage settings available. I wonder if using a 333FSB processor on the KX7 would effect the 210+ FSB speeds that were so easily obtainable while using a 266 FSB processor?
Glad to see you here Aceman!
Hopefully we will have some luck benching these next few days
Nohto, about the KT400 chipset - Aceman still has an AT7-MAX2, I think, so maybe if we have extra time we could test it out. I do not know that it will help though...
Hmmm, I'm wondering if this fix would work for 'other' mobo's such as the Asus A7N8X too, maybe it is a chipset issue...
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ranker
Did you just get hit in the head with a heavy object? Because obviously you're failing at reading comprehension.
Great find guys...Well, I told my brother about this and how I wanted to try it out, but he didn't like that idea because he doesnt overclock...dont ask me why, i fail to see the need for a 2600+ ( 333 fsb ) and an NF7-2 when you dont overclock. Well, once he was at work I tested it all out and sure enough, his computer wouldnt run at over 201 without having horrible stability issues. I cut the bridge and tried it..sure enough it posted as a 133 mhz fsb. I restarted and bumped up the fsb to 210 ( didnt have much time and i wanted to have enough time to benchmark ) and all worked fine. did 3DMark with no problems. well restarted once more and tried 220 and it worked. Great find guys! I have to go and set his computer back to normal before he gets home, but i told my girlfriend i cant go out anymore tonight, so while he is gone im hooking up the vapochill to see what this will do....
-Makatee-
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Possible Solution for Running High FSB on NF7-S
. We can not do the testing I wanted to until the day after Christmas, but since everyone wanted to hear what we had come up with, I am posting our results and how we arrived at them. I apologize for the length. As I had posted earlier, my friend Aceman and I had been able to easily run high FSB speeds (220+ MHz) with his XP2200 in his NF7-S. When trying to run my XP2700 we were getting the exact same problems I saw many people here posting: corruption messages and errors when attempting any FSB even remotely high. Among others, two thoughts we had were:
![]JR['s Avatar](image.php?u=1188&dateline=1055596662)
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I smell a STICKY
I will post as soon as I can.
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