At7 = Big Disappointment

Well I got my AT7 and guess what - the onboard Nic is absolute JUNK!

The thing doesn't know how to keep a connection going via my router or directly into my cable modem. I sometimes get system crashes when the Nic is being used and sometimes it just hangs and the orange Nic light just keeps on flashing realy, really fast........

One way to prove the Onboard Nic does not work correctly is to hit the refresh button in IE repeatedly about 5 or 6 times - this causes the Nic to loose it's net connection. The only way to get it back to to remove the onboard nic via device manager and then re-install it - and hey presto it works.... for a few seconds

There is absolutely no problems using my PCI Nic in the board - but that's not the point - that means I've only got two pci slots to use now -

Is this a device conflict due to all the on-board stuff??? This heap of junk is going back to overclockers.co.uk

p.s. Im running WinXP Pro, the cable modem is a nice 3Com unit and the Router/4 port switch is a linksys (which I've never had any trouble with).... oh the the bios the the latest available.

thingi

Hi Thingi,
I'm really sorry for the Probs that you're experiencing with the Nic on Board, but I suppose that is something related to the BIOS considering Abit's quality. Personally I would wait for a while till a new Bios will be available, or better wait for the newest Abit KX7-333R released in these days that seems to have all the Pro, but not the Cons of the AT7

Adriano.

Too bad all your getting are headaches but try & hang on to it for a while & you just might get some updates that'll make you want to keep it. I got a question about that MoBo. How high are the available adjustments for the VCore & VMem?

Well I've sort of got the problem fixed - when I disable the firewire ports in the bios all the problems with the lan port go away.........

Also the board is more stable at fsb's >133 - at 140 the problem (even with the firewire ports on) seem to be less of a problem, this leads me to believe there is something wrong with design of the board - i.e. some kind of wierd signal crosstalk is occuring at 133Mhz fsb.

thingi

the max vcore is 1.85, I have not checked the ram v yet - but I would assume that it's the same as all other Abot boards.

My Corsair 2700 doesn't need any extra juice to get me to high fsb's though

Which brings me onto my next point - I checked out the memory speed with Sandra and even with the memory set to 166Mhz when I overclock the fsb to 150 this is how fast sandra reports the memory speed (2x150Mhz)....

Q. Does Sandra Pro need an update to report the correct memory speed or does the memory in the AT7 not function at 166Mhz when the fsb is not at 133Mhz????

thingi

Thingi said:

Which brings me onto my next point - I checked out the memory speed with Sandra and even with the memory set to 166Mhz when I overclock the fsb to 150 this is how fast sandra reports the memory speed (2x150Mhz)....

Click to expand...

I don't understand You have the Memory at 166MHz while everything else is at 150Mhz so it's running asychronously?????

Well I'm sort of running A-Sync, but I was expecting Sandra to report the memory running at 187Mhz (5x37.5).

When the fsb is set to 133Mhz and Ram set to 166Mhz......
133 + (133 / 4) = 166Mhz (PCI bus at 33Mhz)

So when the fsb is overclocked to 150 and Ram is Set to 166Mhz......
150 + (150/4) = 183Mhz (PCI bus at 37.5)


regards

thingi

Gotcha! I think. LOL!

Thingi said:

When the fsb is set to 133Mhz and Ram set to 166Mhz......
133 + (133 / 4) = 166Mhz (PCI bus at 33Mhz)

So when the fsb is overclocked to 150 and Ram is Set to 166Mhz......
150 + (150/4) = 183Mhz (PCI bus at 37.5)


regards

thingi

Click to expand...

Yea I found the same problem with sandra, along with the fact that it reports the chipset as kt266. I can't get this mobo to run the memory at 166 period, even though bios says its at 166 its really not. Where the hell is the 333 support?

Along with the fact that I can't get the nic working at all, I may have to return it back to newegg. I can't even get this mobo overclocking as well as my old soltek kt266a purple ray.

I'm wondering if I need to reload winxp from scratch? It didn't find new system devices (with my hard drive from the old kt266 mobo) like it normally does when upgrading a mobo.

A clean install will probably allways be best. But I've been having pretty good luck running repair installs when swapping a drive from one set up to another. So far when I've done this, I haven't had any problems afterwards. This applies to 2K/XP, which I have on my spare drive that I'm forever swapping from one junk rig I've pieced together to another.

radadman said:

Yea I found the same problem with sandra, along with the fact that it reports the chipset as kt266. I can't get this mobo to run the memory at 166 period, even though bios says its at 166 its really not. Where the hell is the 333 support?

Along with the fact that I can't get the nic working at all, I may have to return it back to newegg. I can't even get this mobo overclocking as well as my old soltek kt266a purple ray.

I'm wondering if I need to reload winxp from scratch? It didn't find new system devices (with my hard drive from the old kt266 mobo) like it normally does when upgrading a mobo.

Click to expand...

Sandra has issues which the kt333 chip it picks it up as the kt266/a and reports false speeds. Use WUPCID to get proper readings. Sandra will be fixed for the next version.

I dont get why you all are having problems. Im using every onboard feature on this board except for the sound and it works flawlessly. My board is running an xp at 1.75ghz 10.167 @Cas2 ultra fast timings. This board OC's like no other.

the good & the bad

The con's
on board lan don't work period.
unlocked xp2000 won't even post at any multiplier except 12.5, I'll have to give my unlocked xp1700 a spin in the at7 this week.

The pro's
totally stable at 143*12.5 with the fastest bios/memory settings
on board sound is actually good
excellent board layout
lots-o-ide's

I was really hoping to get at least 10.5*175fsb=1837MHz, pci=35 with the 1/5 divider and a unlocked xp2000, but its looking like that was just a dream.

I'm kind of new to the amd overclock camp, is my mobo bad or am I overlooking something?

Re: the good & the bad

radadman said:

The con's
on board lan don't work period.
unlocked xp2000 won't even post at any multiplier except 12.5, I'll have to give my unlocked xp1700 a spin in the at7 this week.

The pro's
totally stable at 143*12.5 with the fastest bios/memory settings
on board sound is actually good
excellent board layout
lots-o-ide's

I was really hoping to get at least 10.5*175fsb=1837MHz, pci=35 with the 1/5 divider and a unlocked xp2000, but its looking like that was just a dream.

I'm kind of new to the amd overclock camp, is my mobo bad or am I overlooking something?

Click to expand...

You must be doing something wrong. My board works perfect without a hitch.

Mine is working great at 166fsb- and the on board nic works great w/ my Linksys router-
Spyder

RMAed

This my 5th abit mobo and first return. The other unlocked cpu would not post either. I'm sure I got a bad mobo this time. Newegg is great man, this is the first bad anything I ever got from them. I did the online rma bit and got a rma number via e-mail in a couple minutes and also they are not going to charge me the 15% restock fee. For less than half the price I think I'll go for the kr7a since I really didn't need the usb2 or ieee stuff.