Athlon 900 and Abit KT7A

[creative123]

Help:

I have an Abit KT7A motherboard which was running an overlocked Duron 750 at 904 fine. I have now just upgraded to an Athlon 900 and cant find any info on how to overclock it and what speeds i can expect. I want to run it at a safe speed and not push it to its highest limit.

Any info or direction would be great - yes i need pics as well ! on how to unlock (is it the same way as the Duron ?) and what the best settings in my motherboard will be like extra fsb etc.

[Sonny]

Welcome to The Forums. How about making a signature(look below) of your system with the complete(as much as possible) specs for us to be able to better answer your questions. Just link all the L1 Bridges you will have unlocked the multiplier. As always find the highest & most stable FSB after you change the multiplier to something lower. Maybe as much as +25% just make sure you have proper cooling.

Check the front page of this site & you will probably find most of the answers to your questions.

[Rapha]

<<
what the best settings in my motherboard will be like extra fsb
>>
Optimized default BIOS values are good.
Soft Menu :
Fast CPU command decode can be set to Fast.
Enhance chip performance can be set to Enabled.
Chip Features :
Fast R-W Turn Around can be enabled.
Fast Write supported can be set to Supported (if AGP Card like it).
2/4 ways interleave, CAS2 and turbo-timings will result in good memory bandwidth if you have good memory sticks.

Currently running my TBird-850 at 6.5*148 and increasing step by step my FSB. Absolutely no PCI problem at this speed.

[creative123]

Can anyone tell me what speed I an get from my Athlon 900 and also what to set it at in the bios (voltages, 9x100, fsb etc.)

Thanks

[damn1]

Which GlobalWin are you using? If it's a good one, with silver, copper and delta, then 1.85 Volts is a must. 1.91 is what the mobo monitor will show.
You can expect 1080 MHz out of that CPU. (1.91/1.75)^2 * 900MHz.

If you do a core voltage mod, then you'll be able to hit more (depends on a model). But be careful, you will need watercooling if you go beyond 2.05Volts.

[Sonny]

Like I said "Maybe 25% - 30%" with a good cooler. You really can't expect anyone to tell you what your chip will do 'cause there are way too many variables involved & NO 2 CHIPS ARE THE SAME. No if & buts about that. The only way to find out is when you go & try. So what you waitin' for?

[Rapha]

<<
Can anyone tell me what speed I an get from my Athlon 900 and also what to set it at in the bios (voltages, 9x100, fsb etc.)
>>
Start with 7x133, because you have PC-133 and then increase FSB step by step. You can have 4~5Mhz step at the begining. When your RAM can't go higher, increase multiplier and slow down FSB and restart increasing FSB step by step. At the end, you will choose the fastest combination. (the more Mhz is not necessary the fastest so you must benchmark your system each time).

Don't forget to check AGP stability when FSB > 140Mhz and backup your data before having HD corruption.

Add voltage if needed for stability. A lot of people use the max voltage setting in the BIOS : 1.85v without problem but you do it at your own risk. It's normally safe but not garanteed.

FSB overclocking will give you the best performance.

145*7 or 145*7.5 should be a good result if you are not looking for Hard-overclocking.
1100 Mhz will be hard to break.

[damn1]

Right on, Rapha. (i ought to try 133/133 on one of the newer boxes here with a duron 750)
One more thing: to test top FSB speed, and stability, remove 'all' pci cards (can't remove the TNT2, but it doesn't really care about high FSB). Also disable all extra southbridge devices, like USB and under Integrated Peripherals (Ser, Par, extra IDE, etc.). See if you can use CAS2 - it will give you a good boost in mem performance.