Abit AN7... Your Experiences welcomed

Just build a complete system for a friend, with the abit an7, however, this board brought nothing but quirks with it.
Specs on system:
2x256mb Mushkin LvL 2 mem PC3200
xp2500 PQZFA 0349 UPMW y908914L30095
120GB Maxtor 8mb cache, MSI DVD-RW 8x
MSI 9600XT vidcard
XP Pro w/SP1 updates.

problem #1, board would not run @200FSB even though proc burned in for 24hrs @2.0vcore. Even worst, anything speed above 185FSB, would cause the board to reboot into a black screen with no bios reading @Post. wierd to say the least.

Bad proc? maybe not. brought in the ASUS (oh god) A7N8X-Deluxe, reset everything back up again, and bamm!
proc boots into windows @200FSB 11x200.

if you have been successful or have had problems with this board, post it on here.

I still have the board and awaiting the delivery of 2 m-2400 bartons on tuesday to see if there's any chance with board.

Also post if you've updated the bios to the latest or not and any other bios tweaks that you may have found that works for you. Thanks in advance.

What was the RAM voltage when you were trying to hit 200 FSB? Give it 2.8 if you haven't already tried, and go for 200 FSB. I think the lowest voltage mine is stable at stock speed is 2.7 vdimm. Also you may want to try a bios update. Most likely that board came with an old bios with a lot of bugs.

Well, maybe someone with default 200FSB CPU could confirm if it's working ok with this FSB or not.

There is a quick and painless mod that you can do to force it to boot properly @ 200 if you want me to walk ya thru it.

Just let me know

---> BTW its not the chip (most likely)....Abit boards tend to be a little ****y @ high FSB

Thank you very mucho Sentential... any help would be appreciated

I did up the volts, but to no avail... I still have the board, and awaiting delivery of my two xp-m2400 from ewiz on tuesday. I'm not sure if the mushkin ram or maybe the 2500 barton gave this mobo the hiccups, however I currently have matched pair of Corsairs Extreeme LL pc3200 2-2-2-6 @200FSB. I've runned up to 2-3-3-8 @230FSB without much headache on my nf7-s.

well if its any help, I had to RMA my board back to Newegg for a refund. I couldn't even get the board to recognize IDE drives, and kept getting fatal memory management errors

That also occurred when I was in the midst of installing winxp pro. Some how after finishing the tweaks on lan config (where it asks you to set up your connections) this mobo would go into the memory dump an cycle through several reboots. Mind you that install of OS was @stock'd speed and 133FSB.

yep mine too, not sure if its a design flaw or not. Was really dissapointed. To bad my first experience with an Abit was a bad one. Decided to go back to a trusty Asus