Preparing for first time benching on K7 platform

Well, in light of this Team Cup that's going on I thought I'd pull my board and a CPU or two out of retirement. Don't know if I'll make a submission yet, but figured I'd at least see what kind of performance I can get out of this old hardware.

The somewhat ironic thing is I almost sold this board a while back, but then the buyer returned it complaining of it not working. Got it back and it's worked fine for me ever since though. Weird stuff.

So, anyway back on topic, I went about installing the board into a case, installing the CPU and installing the heat sink, putting in some memory and hooking everything up. Ran into a problem fairly quickly though, the GPU was overheating (it is passively cooled with just a heat sink), the chipset was running rather hot (also passively cooled), and the CPU heatsink seemed somewhat hot. I just can't get enough airflow through this case fast enough with the 90mm max rear exhaust size. I've got an Antec 120mm Tri-Cool in the front for intake and some random 90mm fan I had lying around in the back for exhaust.

No problem. I zip-tied a 90mm case fan onto the GPU, replaced the stock chipset heat sink with a SilenX IXN-40C (nice big heat sink by the way), and swapped out the original stock heat sink for a larger heavier one.

The setup is an Asus A7V400-MX motherboard, AMD Athlon XP 2600+ cpu (roughly 2GHz), and memory is a set of Corsair XL Pro (Samsung TCCD), don't own any BH-5 or else I'd use that. Unfortunately though bios offers no overclocking options on the memory side and so it maxes out at 166MHz (DDR333), kind of a shame considering this memory can go to DDR500+ easily.







Still working on loading the OS, drivers, and programs now.

If benching only, why put it in a case?
You can just set it on a mobo box or something like that, point fans where you want to cool.

xsuperbgx said:

If benching only, why put it in a case?
You can just set it on a mobo box or something like that, point fans where you want to cool.

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This.

Hey, I think it's time to go upstairs and grab my Barton, and give it a little bit of hell. :3 Doing that right now. 2:30AM, yea, fine, tomorrow is Saturday. :3

I highly recommend a couple of these for air benching: http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-VA450DC...247987?pt=COMP_EN_Servers&hash=item460063c033

They could be somewhat quieter, but it's hard to argue with 232CFM of air and well over an inch of pressure.
PWM control, too.

Cases do make convenient objects to tape fans/chopsticksWithFansOnThem to.

xsuperbgx said:

If benching only, why put it in a case?
You can just set it on a mobo box or something like that, point fans where you want to cool.

Click to expand...

I've found I run into problems when I run case-less with the board just sitting on a box.

Last time I tried it I ran into issues with the system not posting due to the video card not being supported and causing it to lean and not make full contact in the video card slot which resulted in the system failing to POST. I've also run into issues with the system running hot when I ran it that way.

Also I like cases for their portability so that I can just take one case, move it, then put another in it's place, makes swapping systems easier from my perspective.

Also, I don't own an actual open test-bench style setup, if I did I might try that.

do programs like setfsb work on these older amd's?

xsuperbgx said:

do programs like setfsb work on these older amd's?

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I was wondering the same thing.

Anyone know of any programs that can be used to increase the FSB and/or voltage for the K7 platform? Also, can anyone suggest a good program to monitor temperatures on K7 CPU's?

Normal programs like HWMonitor will monitor temps.

Here's a small update on this little project.

I swapped out the Martech DF0922512SELN 92x25mm rear exhaust fan I was using for a Vantec Tornado 92x38mm fan that I've hard-wired to run off on 5V instead of the normal 12V. So, instead of spinning at 5100-5200rpm it spins at around 2100-2200rpm as opposed to the other which spins at 2000-2100rpm. Still gives plenty of airflow at 5v though, I'd estimate I'm getting at least 25-40% more airflow with this fan than the other I was using because with it I could barely feel any airflow at the back of my case and now there is a breeze back there.

Just wish it weren't so darn loud, there is this annoying hum that happens whenever this thing is turned on whether at 5v, 7v, or 12v the hum remains. I can turn off every other fan in my PC except for this one and it's definitely the loudest in my case because just turning this one off causes the computer to be almost totally silent by comparison.

BeepBeep2 said:

Normal programs like HWMonitor will monitor temps.

Click to expand...

That's what I normally use, but it isn't showing any CPU temperatures.

All I'm getting for temperature readings are TMPIN0 at 29-32°C (which I'm guessing is either the system temp or the chipset temp), and THRM and TMPIN1 at 48-57°C (which I'm guessing might be the CPU, but I'm not really sure...).

Check the BIOS to confirm.

K7 runs pretty hot, I'd say TMPIN1 is correct.

BeepBeep2 said:

Check the BIOS to confirm.

K7 runs pretty hot, I'd say TMPIN1 is correct.

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Looks like we were both right.

Here's what I'm seeing at idle in HWMonitor (ambient temp around 22°C).



This is what Hardware Monitor in my BIOS shows.

Tech Tweaker said:

I was wondering the same thing.

Anyone know of any programs that can be used to increase the FSB and/or voltage for the K7 platform? Also, can anyone suggest a good program to monitor temperatures on K7 CPU's?

Click to expand...

If I'm not mistaken that board uses a VIA chipset which does not bode well for you when it comes to overclocking K7 due to you not being able to lock the PCI/AGP bus. ClockGen works dandy on NF2 but not so well on VIA... IF your serious about K7 a DFI NFII Ultra-B/Ultra Infinity, AN7, NF7-S, NF7 are a must.