GA-7VRX rev2.0

[Jimbothh]

hi, i'm thinking about getting myself a 2100+ (B core) to replace my palamino 1700+, but i want to make sure if my motherboard will be able to support the new cpu and will be able to overclock as well as the rest of the ppl are doing.

[Hood]

Your VRX will support the 2100 no probs. You should manage 13x 166 no probs if it an AIUHB stepping. Also remember the DDR will have to be 333 to get that and more.
Enjoy.
Hood

[Jimbothh]

sweet!! yeah, i have the samsung ddr333 memory right now, so that should be no prob. i tried to overclock my palamino 1700+ but can't get passed the 150mhz line, that's why i want to replace my cpu. thanks for the input.

[Hood]

Remember that to get the 166MHz FSB you will have to go through the routine. If you dont know what that is do a search here and you will find out . If you still cant find it post back and I will explain.
Hood

[BomberBear]

there should be a sticky on the 7VRX/P problem because I have seen many many questions relating to it.

[Hood]

Yep save me typing LOL, mind you its good practice and I am getting faster:rolleyes: Just wish I had a £1 for every time I typed it , I would be able to afford another 2100 AIUHB.
Hood

[Jimbothh]

Originally posted by Hood
Remember that to get the 166MHz FSB you will have to go through the routine. If you dont know what that is do a search here and you will find out . If you still cant find it post back and I will explain.
Hood


routine?? eh?? i'm not sure what you meant by that?

[Hood]

OK here goes. With the VRX/P when you want to get the FSB up to and past 166 you have to do the following. Go into BIOS and set DDR to Normal and 266 (actually means 2xFSB so at 166FSB will be 333) then set the FSB to between 148 and 153 save and exit bios then go straight back in and set FSB to 166. You now save ,exit and boot into windows. Do some bench's to make sure its stable and then if it is set the FSB a bit higher and test again, keep going until you find your max.
Unfortunately there are 2 probs with this mobo and OCing to run high FSB. First is that when you do a cold boot you will have to go through the routine again (although someone on AMDMB has reported no probs with F12) The second prob is that with high FSB you can get data corruption, the usual way to stop this happening is put the HDD on the promise, but as you have a VRX you cant do that. 166 should be OK though as the 1/5 divider will have kicked in and all should be back in spec, but how much further you can go is just luck.
Hood

BTW if you get a 2100 AIUHB you should manage at 13x 166 with possibly only a slight increase in the VCore. If you are trying it with the 1700you will have to have it unlocked and you will need 10.5x multi or possibly you may need to go down to 10x.

[Jimbothh]

i checked my bios, i was able to change the bus speed to way pass 166mhz.

[Jimbothh]

one more thing, which 2100+ should i get to have the best result? 0250 one?

[Hood]

I have a 0250 but think 0303 or 0302 are better, stilll 2525MHz is ok for a £70 CPU
Hood

[Jimbothh]

hey HOOD, i got my 2100+ (0301) today, but i just can't reach 166 at all, the comp wont even let me boot up, so i'm running at 150 right now. any suggestion on wat i should do? (the bio is F7, memory is samsung ddr333 @cas2.5)

[Hood]

ARRGGGHHHHHH, I have seen reports of the 0301 being the worst of the AIUHB, but saying that you should still get 13x 166.
Did you go through the routine exactly as above? Another thing to try is using a higher VCore, as the week code isnt so good it might need more.
Hood

[Jimbothh]

i tried to raise my voltage, but i'll only get up to 1.75 i think caz it goes up by 5%, 7.5%, and 10% instead of numbers. should i burn in?

[Gremlin255]

Your mainboard doesnt officially support cpu with 166 fsb. It only default with a 1/4 divider for the PCI bus. U need to do that boot up routine for it to have a 1/5 to kick in, otherwise your computer will not boot up. I have tried that bootup routine on my old VRX, but never got it to work.

[Hood]

Jimbothh
To see if you are going to be able to get the 1/5 divider working I would suggest that you "range change" your 2100. You can do this by either painting accross the 5th L3 bridge or by putting a U shaped piece of wire in the socket as shown here http://mywebpages.comcast.net/daverios/socket.JPG. Once you have done that you can lower the multi to say 11x and try to hit 166, if you can then you can try higher and higher multis, up to a max of 12.5x. If you manage up to that then you know it is probably the voltage that is a problem. To overcome this you can join 2nd and 4th of the L11 bridges and your default voltage will be 1.85 and you would then get a further 10% on that.
Hood

Gremlin255
Just curious, was your VRXP a Rev 1.0?
Hood

[Jimbothh]

hey guys, thanks for all the input, i found out my prob. i forgot to change the ram speed in bios to 266 so that when i overclock to fsb166, the ram will run at 333 instead of way over it.. now i'm running happily at 13*166 @ default voltage. YEAH!! (thank you Hood)

[Hood]

Big grins all round!!!!!!!
Hood

[Jimbothh]

hey guys, now i encounter another prob, i can run at fsb166successfully now with no prob, however, my burner will burn any more cd if i overclock it now, i dont know if it is because my 1/5 divider is not working? is there anyway to find this out or another solution to this weird prob? i have a plextor1210ts scsi burner.

[Deadphishy]

hello, to put my HD on the promise chip all i have to do it turn the bois option that says promise, to ATA. instead if disable or Raid.
i have a 7vrxp, and i had to reinstall windows because of harddive corruption

[Hood]

Jimbothh
THE ONLY THING i CAN SUGGEST IS THAT YOU REMOVE THE HARDWARE FROM DEVICE MANAGER AND THEN REBOOT AND ALLOW WINDOWS TO FIND IT AGAIN. ITS WORTH A TRY BUT NOT HOPEFULL.
Hood
BTW sorry for the caps, my caps key is going haywire again.

[Jimbothh]

tried it, still the same thing happening. is there anyway i can determine if my bus is @ 33mhz or not?

[Hood]

Only by hardware im afraid(unless anyone knows different) You will either need an osciliscope or somthing like the RD2Geiger.
Hood

[Jimbothh]

this is so weird, everything works fine except the burning part when i overclock, i just dont understand why???

[Hood]

Have you tried a different cable on the drive, and also have you checked to see it burns ok when back at stock speeds.
Hood

[Jimbothh]

yes i did, i even tried swapping with another scsi card that i have on the other computer, no success, this only happens when i overclock, once it's returned to normal, burning works!

[Hood]

Grasping at straws here, have you tried in another PCI slot.
Hood

[Jimbothh]

yap, swap the pci slots, even leave only the videocard and scsi card inside when bootin, same result.

[Hood]

Do you have any probs with it if you Up the FSB from 133 to 136 or so. Could be that the Burner is really sensitive to PCI change and that even with the 1/5 you are not getting exactly 33.
This has got me stumped :-(
Hood

[Jimbothh]

yeah, this is really weird, i remembered i used to overclock back in celeron days and it worked fine, but i guess i'll give it a try to see how it goes..