BD7raid experiences, boot & new standby problem, part2

Just would like to share my personal experience of my BD7raid and 1.6a northwood. First off, owning the BD7raid is like in a love-hate relationship or playing russian roulette. Just the other day, I absolutely love it when it booted up on the very first try (especially enlightening after getting back from a long day work).
Apparently there's another issue with my BD7raid besides the boot problems. In WinME, it can't resume from a standby state..the monitor remain blank however I might jerk/press the mouse or tap on the keyboard. Haven't tried it on XP or 2K. Anyone else have this issue?
I'm currently using the beta bios(dated 1/11/2002) with HPT 2.31 bios. Although it didn't solve the #@^%$@* boot problems, I did notice marginal improvement while cold booting(or it might be me just hallucinating). Also memory settings seem to be better: now at 2,6,3,3 @ 158FSB, 1:1 configuration on my Kingmax DDR333 @ 2.6volt. Yep that's right,...CAS 2 @ 158 bus..
Allow me to share my experience/ordeal on how I've hit 2536MHz ROCK STABLE with the 1.6a woodie:

I'd actually purchased the CPU(week 51/Malaysia) three weeks earlier than the rest of the components; BD7raid, 2x 256MB Kingmax DDR333, AVC Sunflower, Arctic Silver3, generic casing + 350Watt generic P4 PSU. The rest of the parts are transfered from my old setup; SBLive, MSI Geforce2MX, Aopen DVDROM 16/48x, Teac CDRW12-10-32, 46GB Maxtor ATA100. The long wait to setup the entire system was due to the lack of decent HSF sold here in Malaysia for the P4. Even as I write this, there's no Thermaltake Volcano 7+, Swiftech, Alpha P4 solutions available here yet

The joy when I laid my hands on the Sunflower....it's time to kick into 5th gear and see what's there. But the highest I could get was a disappointing 138FSB equivalent to 2208MHz(ram settings at 2,5,2,2 : 1:1ratio). Vcore is at max 1.625 at that time. This setup is by far the WORST in cold/reset reboots. Then after scouring various forums trying to solve this I've finally decided to do the vpin mod trick on the CPU. Instead of tying the wire on the 1.6a, I'd inserted the wire on the socket itself(much easier). Voila, 1.7v...actual 1.62-.1.66v, but it didn't solve the boot problems even at then 138FSB. Frustrated and !@#$ed off, I went straight for 150-170FSB range. Amazingly it even POST at 2720 @ 170FSB but crashed almost instantly. Then I went for 2600 @ 162FSB, it went to windows and was pretty stable...the only test that it failed was PRIME95(I also found that running PRIME95 solely increases the CPU temp by another 3-5C). Last I settled for 2536 @ 158FSB. All this are at 2.5,6,3,3 ram settings.

The detail Softmenu3 settings are:

FSB = 158
FIXPCI = 33

vcore = 1.70 (default after vpin mod)
ram = 2.6

Standard BIOS setting:

Halt on = No errors (usual is All but keyboard)

Advanced Chipset setting:

RAM = 2, 6, 3, 3 (manual)

Mainboard temp = 42-43C, CPU temp = 60-64C @ Max. load PRIME95 torture test

General assumption/experience:
After vpin mod at pin 3 & 4 which makes the default at 1.7v, it's better to leave the the settings as it is, ie..1.70v. Any values higher does not seem to improve the woodie overclockability. Lower settings is a definite NO-NO...boot problems!!

The beta BIOS seem to improve the mem timings and cold boot issue?

Constant burn-in seems to improve the cold boot issue?

Still waiting for the day if ever ABIT will solve the boot problems..

Well. Alot of ppl have been having some boot problems and such with this board to which I can also claim to have. But things are better than before. I got hold of the 7br bios that's been floating around and been tinkering on the inside of it and have gotten my system to run more stable. I've added a 2.8 vdimm voltage along with some memory timings. System run cleaner and cooler at lower vcore voltages now even tho it's running faster. Also added the latest revision of the Highpoint Raid bios. So far all is doing pretty good. With locked AGP/PCI I get 40K+ Sandra unbuffered bench for the Raid and with buffered I get 90K+. Memory benches are better also. Will be doing a little 3D later on to see how it does with the new settings.

the beta bios did not work for me, i sold the board.

Can't blame you for selling that board!
Wished I could sell mine for enough to replace it with something decent....

Cheers,
Mike

If you guys haven't seen it yet then take a look at this thread. I posted there earlier and I may have figured out where alot of the problems are coming from.

HELP! bd7 booting

Please keep us posted.
I know I don't have any ideas, but I'd like to fix this problem.
Hate to say it, but Abit isn't the company they used to be.

Cheers,
Mike Lamb

This is absolutely infuriating. Just found out another quirk with the BD7r....at times after a cold boot, my PS2 keyboard failed to respond. I take back whatever 'nice' things I've said earlier, just recently it took me 13 times before my system booted up...I've been following this forum and any threads regarding the !$!@$%^@(@ BD7, and many thanks and kudos to all who share their ideas and grieve, especially Mike360000 and Mr Natural.

Mr Natural, I hope to get your attention in this thread....seems like you are the best person able to get ahold of ABIT's attention. I've almost given up on their support here in Malaysia. Question : Does ABIT acknowledge this boot problem at all and if it can be solve with a BIOS update? Recently I noticed another post regarding GIGABYTE posting a bios update for their 845d mobo, apparently solving this boot issue....if this is so why CAN'T ABIT do the same..

Honestly, I totally agree with Mike360000.....ABIT just ain't the company they used to be. Probably the earlier 'rumour' regarding the BD7 recall was true after all, posted by a disgruntled engineer in ABIT, and just plain sick of ABIT's attitude.

teosteven said:

This is absolutely infuriating. Just found out another quirk with the BD7r....at times after a cold boot, my PS2 keyboard failed to respond. I take back whatever 'nice' things I've said earlier, just recently it took me 13 times before my system booted up...I've been following this forum and any threads regarding the !$!@$%^@(@ BD7, and many thanks and kudos to all who share their ideas and grieve, especially Mike360000 and Mr Natural.

Mr Natural, I hope to get your attention in this thread....seems like you are the best person able to get ahold of ABIT's attention. I've almost given up on their support here in Malaysia. Question : Does ABIT acknowledge this boot problem at all and if it can be solve with a BIOS update? Recently I noticed another post regarding GIGABYTE posting a bios update for their 845d mobo, apparently solving this boot issue....if this is so why CAN'T ABIT do the same..

Honestly, I totally agree with Mike360000.....ABIT just ain't the company they used to be. Probably the earlier 'rumour' regarding the BD7 recall was true after all, posted by a disgruntled engineer in ABIT, and just plain sick of ABIT's attitude.

Click to expand...

I have E-Mailed them a couple of time about it which the last a very strongly stated E about the sevarity of this issue not only on this board (BD7) but also the TH7II-Raid and the BW and BL7 series. this is a long standing problem that needs to be addressed. I also had to school the tech guys in my last E on the workings of the ratio setting for the FSB/Mem in the bios. The seemed to thing that setting the ratio to 3:4 and running at 133mhz FSB would set the mem speed to 166/333mhz. This of course is false and needed to be corrected. If running at 133mhz FSB with a 3:4 ratio setting then your memory is really running at 177/354mhz and not 166/333mhz. Course I have yet to hear back from them on this E but I'm sure they aren't to happy with my lecturing them on what they should already know about their own hardware.