cant reach stable 200 fsb on kd7-g

Anyone have the same probs? I'm running a barton 2500 (unknown code) plus the abit kd7. I can o/c it to a slightly unstable 2304.59 - ddr 3200 running at 368.73 - sys clock at 184.37*12.5 - vcore at 1.975. At this speed it wont complete 3dmark 2001se and bombs out of UT after a few mins. play. So now i've clocked it back to normal for a while. I have clocked it at 2.075 with standard vcore and fsb at 166*12.5 - stable.
My problem is this, if I run the ddr 3200 mem at 200 fsb and run the fsb at 200, the pc boots, windows loads then when I next restart the config\system is fried which means I have to re-install windows xp.
I'm faily sure the reason for this is the lack of a 6: divider in bios which causes the south bridge to o/c too much for the pci bus.
So....Any ideas how to get the extra divider? Or if anyone has the correct bios/voltage setup to go 200fsb cpu/ram stable, let me know !
As a thought, I've downloaded the abit at7 max 2 bios which has the 6: divider on it - same chipset, but i'd rather not fry my bios.

Thanks for reading !

could this maybe be due to you having APIC enabled in bios during your initial xp install? other than that i would think it was due to your pci bus running too out of spec... this seems to be the ceiling from what i hear on most of the kt400 boards, or near it at least. i have similar problems but it's due to my dated ram .

ta...

...for the reply, not sure about this apic switch as the manual is fairly vague in it's explanation, anyway, xp is installed and I don't really want to do it again if switching this apic off has no effect.
Seems strange the kt400 is unable to run fsb and ram at 200 in sync. I have read (on abit's site) it's not possible to run at 200 fsb/ram due to hardware limitations, but if we all stopped their we wouldn't be overclocking at all !
Anyhow, what about a modded BIOS to include the 6: divider ?
I'm sure this would sort it !
Anyone?

Welcome To The Forums!!!!!

.....and to the addiction

First I want you to take a look at THIS THREAD & notice that majority of the people here do not run their KT400 or other MoBos with the same chipset like the KD7 | - RAID | S | G | B at Synch FSB beyond 190MHz. When VIA released information on their KT400 they did not claim support for synchronous running at 200MHz/400FSB. VIA said that it is only possible with the KT400 to run at 200MHz/400FSB if the board had an extremely clean signal, basically a perfect design, for the divisor to work properly. What they did provide was the ability to run Asynch which does an AMD system no good whatsoever. It is a chipset limitation to run stable on that FSB. The 6:2:1 option was included only by a select few manufacturers believing their designs to be capable of the clean signal but remember that this was not supported by the chipset manufacturer. All of them have now since released BIOS revisions to exclude the 1/6 Divisor due to the lack of functionality. You can mod the BIOS to have this option selectable, oh yes I have tried & countless others, but to make it work is another story. End of history lesson.

The question now is can you make it work at these high PCI(not the cause of the corruption) & AGP speeds without data corruption* & run 3DMark. Yes on all counts;



3DMARK 2001SE B330

The most stable BIOS that I have had experience with running at 211MHz/422FSB is C8 which is the reason for 3DMark2001SE to see my board as a KD7E which is false because I have a KD7 - RAID.

It takes luck, the right components, the right configuration & more luck.

* I'm speculating that the corruption is caused by something else since you can run 175MHz/350FSB on the 4:2:1 ratio with the PCI BUS running at 43.75MHz.

Thanks Sonny...

Thanks for the info. It does look like most can't go over 200fsb cpu/mem (or lower sometimes). In your kd7-raid board you've flashed the bios to kd7e right? So, which bios would you recomend for mine, I understand it's mainly down to luck, as I have already got the at7 bios in case I could flash it...

Re: Thanks Sonny...

zx7r said:

Thanks for the info. It does look like most can't go over 200fsb cpu/mem (or lower sometimes). In your kd7-raid board you've flashed the bios to kd7e right? So, which bios would you recomend for mine, I understand it's mainly down to luck, as I have already got the at7 bios in case I could flash it...

Click to expand...

i wouldn't flash to a bios not meant for your series of board......just doesn't sound right .

i think you are asking for trouble with the at7 bios.

What else do you suggest?

I dont really want to rma the board but if it's incapable of running at 200 fsb I may have to.
I've downloaded a couple of other BIOS files to try including the kd7-c8 and the kd7-dn.
This could turn into an expensive trial and error excercise so I'm going to look into backing up my current bios first. Anyone know any good software/hardware to backup my bios?

Re: What else do you suggest?

zx7r said:

I dont really want to rma the board but if it's incapable of running at 200 fsb I may have to.
I've downloaded a couple of other BIOS files to try including the kd7-c8 and the kd7-dn.
This could turn into an expensive trial and error excercise so I'm going to look into backing up my current bios first. Anyone know any good software/hardware to backup my bios?

Click to expand...

why would you rma a board that doesn't do 200fsb, when it is not meant to do 200 fsb?

it is clear that with some tweaks, and the sacrafice of some performance, may lead to 200+, but that's not that common, and i don't see where it is a cause for an rma if the board won't do the near impossible.....

No I didnt flash to another boards BIOS. The C8 causes the name problem because it was the first that was released when ABIT decided to make universal BIOS updates for the KD7 series. You can backup the old BIOS with the flash utility if you dont use the Autoexec file.

You RMA a board that can't do what it doesnt claim it can? That's just plain wrong. Call the place you purchased it from & ask them if you can exchange it for a board that can run 200MHz/400FSB easy because you are unhappy with your original purchase.

Sorry all...

...I didn't mean to say I would try and rip the shop off by rma-ing the board, it's just that I thought the board was capable of running 200fsb with the ram at 400ddr but it seems it's not.
Ah well, I guess I could be happy with what i've got or take it back/sell it and get an nforce 2 board instead.
As a thought, if I flashed back to the original bios, would I have the 6: divider ? If so what wouldn't I have ? And would it be stable?

Thanks for all your help !

I'm not sure if the initial release of the KD7 - G had a BIOS that had a 6:2:1 ratio, probably not 'cause the release of the board was after the KD7 - | RAID had matured a bit.

Aren't I clever...

Just found that I've started a new thread instead of replying to this one...Ah well, it says - - - -

That's it then.
I'm going to try and take this (kd7-g) board back to where I bought it and try for an nforce 2 board. Anyone know which is the best for o/c ing? Will I need to mod my barton 2500 to unlock it or will the nforce 2 do this automatically? And yes, it must do the magic 200 fsb !
If I can't take this board back, I'll be looking to sell or swap it.

Cake AND eat it, me ?

Thanks.