Athlon 1.4 Ghz and Abit KT7 - any ideas if it'll work ??

[Ian_D]

Just saw this in the notes for the 3R BIOS of the KT7 and was wondering what DISCONNECTED really means ?

5.Add new option "1200 above" for high speed Athlons with 100FSB. KT7 / KT7-RAID / KT7A / KT7A-RAID / KT7E only support 1.4G(100) Athlon with L1 bridges disconnected.
Check L1 before you buy a CPU please!

Anyone help with this please ??

TIA

Ian_D

[The Coolest]

The dissconnected L1 bridges mean that you won't be able to overclock by changing the multiplier setting. So if you want to be able to change the multiplier you should get a CPU with CONNECTED L1 Bridges.

[Rob Cork]

Sounds odd - I see Abit's problem, I think the mobos can only handle a maximum multiplier of 12 or 12.5, something like that. Possibly in order to enable a multiplier of 13 or 14 for the 1300 and 1400 '200 fsb' chips they had to come up with some hack which only works if the L1s are disconnected. By the way, I assume 'disconnected' means 'cut', that seems logical. I have no idea why they would have to be disconnected, but I guess if Abit say so it must be true. Probably if you joined the L1s it'd just boot at a lower multiplier like 12.5 - who knows? It all sounds pretty weird to me :rolleyes:

[PDL]

Originally posted by Ian_D
Just saw this in the notes for the 3R BIOS of the KT7 and was wondering what DISCONNECTED really means ?

5.Add new option "1200 above" for high speed Athlons with 100FSB. KT7 / KT7-RAID / KT7A / KT7A-RAID / KT7E only support 1.4G(100) Athlon with L1 bridges disconnected.
Check L1 before you buy a CPU please!

Anyone help with this please ??

TIA

Ian_D

Seems to me that the bios will only work with a CPU above 1200MHz if the L1s are cut and the chip is a "B" model.
If it was a "C" model(266 FSB) the multiplier may be fixed and wouldn't present a problem.
Example, a "C" model(FSB 266), L1s are cut, the multiplier is going to be the speed in MHz divided by 133 (ie 1400 / 133 = 10.5) so the bios doesn't need to go over 12.0.
Now, take this example. Model "B"(FSB 200) L1s connected and it's a 1330. (1300 / 100 = 13.0) The bios doesn't have a 13.0 so the best you could get is 1200 without raising the FSB higher than 100.

The message says it will only support a 1.4GHz "B" if the L1s are disconnected, so it will go to 1400 by way of 10.5 * 133. You can't increase the multiplier in bios if it is locked so to get there you need a higher FSB in bios.

Now I think I am confused too!!
:(
I think I understand WHAT is happening but as yet I can't figure out WHY it is happening.

If I am totally wrong on this.......someone please tell me!!