NF7-S hitting a wall at 227Mhz FSB!?!?!?

This is regarding the Abit NF7-S rev. 2.0 motherboard.

I can "only" hit 227Mhz FSB tops. Sync'ed mem, ASync'ed mem. CPU Interface enabled/disabled. Mem timings from 2-2-2-5, to 3-3-3-8. Increased voltages, decreased voltages, applied AS3 to NB, etc. I've tried over 100 combinations of everything I can think of, and I still hit this 227Mhz "wall".

It's just extremely weird that everything works perfectly at the most agressive settings at 227Mhz and below, regardless of other BIOS settings, but as soon as I try 228Mhz with relaxed timings and underclocked settings, the motherboard won't even boot up.

Again - I'm perfectly stable at 227Mhz FSB. Running prime95 for 24hours, 3dmark loops for 12 hours, ut2k3, memtest30, etc...

But as soon as I go to 228Mhz, or above, the board won't even post!!!

The only thing I've not done is to lap my Northbridge, and Southbridge chips (the northbridge chip is very concave), but I don't think these symptoms are related to heat/stability issues.

Do you guys think this is some weird limitation of the board I received?

Again - it's just freakin' weird that everything should just stop working at 228Mhz. Because of this, I'm lead to believe that it might be a bios issue, and not a voltage or heat related issue.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated!

All my other components are top quality, and should not be limiting the motherboard.


______________________
Abit NF7-S Rev. 2.0 (Bios 14)
XP1700+ @ 2497mhz (11x227 @ 1.75v)
Custom Water Cooling System
512mb Corsair XMS3500
ATI AIW 9700 pro
WD SE 200GB
Lite-On CD/RW
HP DVD+RW
Custom Acrylic Case
Antec TrueBlue 480 watt PSU
WinXP SP1

mine does it too. all you can do is get better cooling, volt mod, etc. 227 is just about exactly where mine does it too. not bad though eh?

Jeff7477 said:

mine does it too. all you can do is get better cooling, volt mod, etc. 227 is just about exactly where mine does it too. not bad though eh?

Click to expand...

Oh, I'm not complaining one bit! I LOVE this board! However, I just find it strange that no matter what I do, it won't nudge past 227Mhz. Can a difference of only 1Mhz/227Mhz be enough to cause it to not even boot up? I would think that at the very least it would boot up unstable.

Do you think it's realistic for me to believe that I can get a higher FSB if I lap the NB, do a volt mod to 1.8-2.0v, and ... maybe, as a last measure, use a peltier on the NB? I just assumed that the symptoms I was getting were more a limitation of the quality of the motherboard, and that no amount of 'modding' would allow me to get a higher FSB on my particular mobo.

Cheers!

oh im sure if it had some better cooling and some voltage you could push it a bit farther. still using the stock abit NB cooler im guessing?

better cooling won't help, you'll have to volt mod it. It doesn't receive enough more voltage to go any higher, just like a cpu, you'll get to a point with your cpu where you won't be able to go any higher w/o higher voltage. mine hits a wall at 227 for stability. I can boot at 227 - 230. but anythign higher than 227 i can't run a single program.

u dun't need much of extra vdd voltage to run high FSBs DC.


Cooling is required. no cooling, no deal.



for the rev2.0s that is....

227 must be a magic #. That is where I can complete 3DMark. After that it fails somewhere along the line. I can run at 330 5222 dual sync for a while but I am not sure if it is my cpu too hot or whatever and had to lower back to 227. I do have vdd set up to 1.95 and sinks on the voltage regulator and mofets which get really very hot to the touch. Also just a crystal Orb on the NB and pssive sink on the SM.

http://www.amdforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=233035

Go see that thread. My reply on the 3rd page has what I did and there are a few other good posts there that my help you out