MSI KT3 Ultra2 Question.

Question, I have an MSI KT3 Ultra 2 and it says that is hat a 2200+ cap. I was wondering if it was possible to clock chips higher than that on it with a bios update or something. I want to upgrade my comp by getting the 1700+ and OCing. I don't currently have the money to buy a new mobo and I was wondering how I can break the 2200+ cap. Because if I can I'd rather get a new vid card.

I just recently replaced my KT3 Ultra 2, but I distinctly remember updating the bios to get Barton support.

Install the MSI Flash utility and use it, worked like a charm for me. It'll format a floppy disk for you, copy everything it needs, then flash the bios.

Well, I read in someone's sig on another forum they had the same mobo and like a 2500+ or something. So.....I'll push my 1800+ up to 2300+ speeds to test it out.

Btw, your memory might be good for it, but I wouldn't plan on pushing that board much past 180mhz FSB. There's no 1/6th divider, and anything past that will likely result in instability or corrupted hard drives, pci related lockups, etc.

Other than that, I was really happy with mine, and I fully plan to use it in a secondary box soon.

What is the divisor on the board. I've been meaning to find out, but haven't......yet.

I overclock my KT3-Ultra with an 1800+ to 2400+. SHould be no problem.

'divider' refers to how the board arrives at the pci/agp speed.

For example, at an FSB of 133mhz, the board would divide that by 4 to arrive at a pci speed of 33mhz, and multiply THAT times 2 to get an AGP frequency of 66mhz. (therefore, a lot of motherboards refer to that particular divisor as 4:2:1)

The KT3 can only divide by up to 5, which results in a pci speed of 33mhz at a bus speed of 166mhz. Any increase over 166FSB results in a pci and agp frequency faster than spec, meaning potential problems.

If you go too far, you'll experience instability and possible hard drive corruption.

Thanks. How far do you think I'd be able to push a 1700+ on the board do you think? Just wondering if I need to buy a new mobo. (which I don't want to do right now)

Like I said, anything past 180mhz is likely to be too far, but individual cases can vary, and you could get lucky.

mine did 200fsb, if i took out my tv tuner card. i only did it to test my memory capabilitys, but it runs 13x180 for 2340 all day long. you would be limited to 12.5 x 180 for 2250 if you didnt mod the bridges on your 1700 though. it doesnt have the full range of 6-22x multis, there was a bios for barton and i think 2800+ support though, so the board will recognize higher multis if you hard code them by the bridges on the chip

I'd actually just be happy at 2250 for a while until prolly next year.

InThrees said:

'divider' refers to how the board arrives at the pci/agp speed.

For example, at an FSB of 133mhz, the board would divide that by 4 to arrive at a pci speed of 33mhz, and multiply THAT times 2 to get an AGP frequency of 66mhz. (therefore, a lot of motherboards refer to that particular divisor as 4:2:1)

The KT3 can only divide by up to 5, which results in a pci speed of 33mhz at a bus speed of 166mhz. Any increase over 166FSB results in a pci and agp frequency faster than spec, meaning potential problems.

If you go too far, you'll experience instability and possible hard drive corruption.

Click to expand...

As soon as you start to increase the FSB then you are running the risk of potential problems.

I've known several people to have the KT3 running FSB's in excess of 200FSB.

The divide on the board does help with keeping everything more stable. As with all things to do with overclocking you should not be worried about going over the 180FSB mark due to the the divide on the board. I've had a board with only a 4th divide on it that did 180fsb.

An Increase in AGP/PCI speed can have positive effects aswell. Increase bus speed will increase the speed in which the card's communicates with the rest of the system.

I tend to push the FSB as hard as I can, but as with all overclocking make sure that I have good backups before trying any thing, and Keep and eye on the temps.