I took a look at this and decided to write this because there’s no need to rely on an older “Overclocker’s BIOS” when you can make the changes made by that BIOS to any BIOS using WPCREDIT, too.
Why would I want to do this?
The BIOS on your motherboard may not “let” you choose the fastest settings for your computer. Often, you’ll see something in the BIOS like “Load Optimized Defaults,” but their idea of optimized BIOS settings might not be your idea of optimized BIOS settings.
The MSI K7TPro2A has a rather unique approach to at least the memory settings (as I mentioned
here). If you have PC133 CAS2 memory, and choose your memory settings by SPD, you don’t have to worry about this, because MSI will do all that for you.
You’re only in trouble when your memory doesn’t officially meet the specifications; then the mobo won’t let you set anything more than the memory speed manually.
This will let you change any memory setting you like, even if your mobo company doesn’t want you to (and keep in mind, that’s all it is. A company like Abit just makes it easy for you to tweak; the same BIOS capabilities are there in other motherboards).
If you are unfamiliar with WPCREDIT, first take a look at this, starting with “What Programs Do I Need,” and take heed of the difference between WPCREDIT and WPCRSET. You make no persistent changes with WPCREDIT, you do with WPCRSET. Don’t use WPCRSET until you are absolutely sure your system is stable with these settings. Any problems you have is your responsibility.
If you don’t have the programs, go here and download wpcre12a.exe, kx133.zip, and wpcrs120.exe.
Unzip, install, and when you open up WPCREDIT, you should get something like this:
Now open up another copy of WPCREDIT, and this time, click File|PCR Open. The file you want to open is 11060391.pcr. This is the file that should have come out of kx133.zip.
It should look like this:
You may get a warning that this is for a different motherboard. Yes, it is, but the KT133 is a socket A version of the KX133, and insofar as memory settings are concerned, they’re the same, so don’t worry about it.
You can always tell the difference between the WPCREDIT screen with your BIOS and the one with the KX133 BIOS because yours will never have any explanations on what these things are on the right hand of the screen.
If you look at the pictures above, you’ll see that Offset 54 gives you a number of items to tinker with. Haven’t tried these yet, but you may want to experiment yourself.
Let’s look at another set of pictures, first, from my BIOS (as set by the mobo when I chose SPD settings with PC133 CAS2 Crucial RAM), the second from the KX133’s:
Offsets 64-67 control most of the memory settings for the first, second, third and fourth banks of RAM. You will want to change the positions for wherever you have RAM.
Both my BIOS and the KX133 shows the most aggressive settings. These settings effectively set “Turbo” speed. It also sets CAS and memory interweaving. The ideal setting is the one shown in both pictures. The precharges are set to 2T and 5T respectively. CAS is set to 2. Active . . . to CMD is also set to 2T, and bank interleave is set to 4-way.
What’s nice about WPCREDIT is that if you do too much, and your machine blows up, just reboot. It doesn’t make any changes that don’t go away when the machine is turned off.
So put in the settings you’d like for each of the memory banks, see if the machine ups and dies, and if it doesn’t, test using Sandra and see if it helps.
Offset 68 has a few more possibilities you might wish to experiment with.
Offset 69 lets you set memory speed. If you want to run your memory at 133Mhz while your FSB is at 100, this is where you do it, along with some other documented tweaks. Again, both my BIOS and the KX133s show the optimal settings.
Once you get done with a stable setup, save the PCR file, and use it the next few times you use your computer. If you don’t have problems, then save it with WPCRSET.
I’ve used a K7TPro2A as an example (and it actually handled it all by itself), but this should be just as applicable to any KT133 board. If you come up with some changes that help further, tell me.
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