The KT133 nightmare

[Nuno]

It´s the last time I will ever buy anything from VIA.

I did a 900 Mhz T-bird upgrade and I got nothing but headaches in the past 3 weeks. I tried 4 KT133 boards, two generic OEM (Lucky-star and Matsonic), an Abit KT7 Raid and finally an Asus A7V.

I couldn´t install win2k properly with the Lucky-star. Couldn´t get AGP and performance sucked. Returned it. Tried the Matsonic. Stability issues. Ok, the damn thing didn´t even have a heatsink in the northbridge.

The KT7-raid disapointed me deeply. SoftmenuIII is very nice, sure, but I couldn´t get my usb scanner to work. Memory performance was poor, and I couldn´t use the turbo setting - stability problems. Not good. IRQ management was a laugh, Win2k ACPI install defaults all ACPI devices to IRQ3!!!

This is the second Abit I tried, my BX6 burned and got my celery 450 with it, and now this. I´m starting to believe all rumors on the net about abit.

Now I got a A7V. Very nice board. All works as it should, until now no stability/compatibility issue either in WinMe or Win2k. Memory performance is great even at default settings. Got bios 1004c, is the latest official bios, heard too much rumors about 1005x bios to try it.

Last but not the least, my 6.4 fujitsu udma33 (my second hdd) wasn´t properly recognised in any of the boards. All said that LBA reported a 9700 Mb hdd (I wish) and of course it didn´t worked. It is recognised without a glitch in BX boards, AMD750 boards, Highpoint 370 and Promise udma 100 controllers. Go figure.

Really it was not nice. Had plenty of things to do with the PC, and not much time to spare troubleshooting it...

[paulcs]

Nuno, I think the 1004x BIOS's had a worse reputation than the 1005x's. A lot of people returned to 1003. (I don't use the board. I've just been following its progress.)

As far as I know, the really bad 1005x BIOS was 1005 itself. I've heard good things about 1005A and C, although experiences tend to vary widely with the A7V.

The latest version, 1005C, is official and final. Don't let Asus's websites fool you. They take forever to update them, and the German FTP site is much more current.

Memory performance on the Abit board is dreadful at the default settings. There are about five or six settings that have to be tweaked for optimal performance. Of course, if the board doesn't like your RAM, for whatever reason, then I suspect you're stuck.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[SCompRacer]

Oh yeah to those BIOS settings on the Abit KT7, paulcs!

I had ALU/FPU of 237/283 with Crucial 7E PC/133 at default BIOS. Was really disappointed. Following your advice and getting into BIOS, 467/559.

I was in that BX mode, by SPD default thinking.

[DentyCracker]

I suppose you mean you couldn't use turbo when running the memory at 133 MHz, I can't either so I run at 100, 2-2-2, 4-way interleave , yada yada, get 4xx/5xx in Sandra

[Helevitia]

Nuno, I'm running BIOS 1005b with no probs. I'd recommend that over that 1004x BIOS. If you do upgrade use 1005c. It is very strange that your HDD is not recognized properly. I have not heard os such a thing wiht this board. I've installed several HDD's without any probs. Is it on the promise controller or UDMA/66? If on the promise, have you upgraded to the latest drivers? Have you tried the other contoller?

Dave

[Novdid]

My friend has a A7V and asusprobe also shows a voltage that is slightly above the readings in bios. I would trust the biosreadings if I were you.

[Nuno]

Yes, Dentycracker, I couldn´t get the turbo setting at 133.

Hi Helevitia

Thanks for showing up as I have some few questions about 1005c

About the hdd, the problem lies on Via 686A soutbridge. All the 4 KT133 boards were unable to recognise that particular hdd in the bios. I have it as master in secodary promise ATA100 and it works just fine, as it did with KT7 HP370 controler, with AMD 756 southbridge and with a BX board.

As the hdd is working perfectly fine, I assume its a VIA problem.

About the 1005c, I flashed it (got to love Asus windows update utility) and I really really didn´t notice any diference. What I noticed was that if I go further than 103 fsb, the bios default the performance setting to "normal" instead of
"optimal". That sucks because I had it at 105 fsb with no trouble at all.

Another thing is the cpu voltage. It is correct in the bios hardware monitor, but in asus pc probe, mb monitor, and other monitoring software, the voltage is reported 0.7v higher. Wich one to trust? I am trying 1 Gig with dipswitch settings and I still find it a little unstable with 1.8v. I would try 1.85v, but the monitoring software already reports 1.87v with voltage set at 1.80 in the bios, and I´m afraid to overvolt the cpu...

How about the TB 900 overclockability? Any experience?

Oh, one more ting. Strangely enough I´m unable to get 9.5x multiplier with the dip switches.Configuring it acording the manual still gives me 10x...

[This message has been edited by Nuno (edited 13 January 2001).]

[Helevitia]

Hey Nuno,

1005c and 1005b are pretty much the same except for a few minor changes. Some people say they have better luck with the latest 1004x BIOS. As far as the temp is concerned, it has always been off like that since day one. As far as worrying if you will fry your CPU, I can honestly say that I have upped the voltage to 1.85 many times with a mediocre fan and heatsink without any probs at all. They say the CPU can handle up to 140f but that's a little too hot for my taste. Currently my temp is at 115f with no probs(not including some probs that ME is giving me). Also, this might sound weird but I am OC my CPU from 700 to 850 and for some weird reason, I can leave the voltage settings in BIOS on auto and the CPU works great at 1.7volts. The weird thing is if I manually set it to 1.7v it doesn't work. Go figure?

Dave

[Nuno]

Hi Helevitia

Could you clear that up? I am unable to oc my TB 900 whithout getting into trouble. It´s very stable at 900 Mhz, I still haven´t got one suspicous crash at all.

But if I try to increase the multiplier or the fsb it will crash if I loop 3dmark2000 or benchmark MDK2. Even at 927Mhz (103 fsb) I can´t get it stable, whatever voltage I use.

I am blaming the PSU, it´s only a 250W, but it always has served me well and it has already powered 3 Athlon classic systems (500,600,700). I´ll try a 300W next week, But I find strange that it works fine @ 900.

PS: I unlocked the cpu using a pencil to close L1 bridges.