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A7M266 Asus Mobo
- Thread starter Mojo
- Start date
I actually went out and bought one of these suckers yesterday to go with my axia 1 gig tbird and ddr ram. Well to cut a long story short, i crushed the core on the tbird.. then after changing cpu to a duron 800, couldnt get the bastard stable in windows last night.
I'm a newbie to this whole amd scene (previously only intel).. erm whats the deal with via 4n1 drivers? am i going to need them (or others) to use with this board?
Help! ive got (what looks like) a great system but can't get it going properly
Btw, the a7m266 i got doesn't have the dipswitches to change the multiplier - but from what i've read in forums, its a simple matter of soldering on a 5-bit dipswitch to the holes already in the board (changing resistors is not necessary).
I'm a newbie to this whole amd scene (previously only intel).. erm whats the deal with via 4n1 drivers? am i going to need them (or others) to use with this board?
Help! ive got (what looks like) a great system but can't get it going properly
Btw, the a7m266 i got doesn't have the dipswitches to change the multiplier - but from what i've read in forums, its a simple matter of soldering on a 5-bit dipswitch to the holes already in the board (changing resistors is not necessary).
Thats kinda what I thought.
Strangely enough though, on the cd that came with it, there were some 3 in 1 drivers, for use with the A7M?! confuses the hell outta me. Would you need via drivers if it uses a Via southbridge?
All I've done to this system is formatted the drive, installed Win2k, installed razer boomslang drivers, and v6.31 drivers for a GF2. There shouldn't be anything more to it right? Cuz right now I cant install sandra without crashes (application shut down or blue screens) or play any games on it..
I'm beginning to wonder if the hardware on this board I have is defective ... erm any thoughts?
Edit: this might be a stupid question, but do i need to install the via 4n1 drivers on this board?
Strangely enough though, on the cd that came with it, there were some 3 in 1 drivers, for use with the A7M?! confuses the hell outta me. Would you need via drivers if it uses a Via southbridge?
All I've done to this system is formatted the drive, installed Win2k, installed razer boomslang drivers, and v6.31 drivers for a GF2. There shouldn't be anything more to it right? Cuz right now I cant install sandra without crashes (application shut down or blue screens) or play any games on it..
I'm beginning to wonder if the hardware on this board I have is defective ... erm any thoughts?
Edit: this might be a stupid question, but do i need to install the via 4n1 drivers on this board?
I can only speak from my own experience, but I have not had any major problems with my A7M266, and I have never installed any of the drivers supplied on the motherboard CD. I had a 1200(266) T-Bird up to 1404(9X156) that I was testing for a friend, and now I have a 800 T-Bird @ 952. Both were air-cooled and full-load temps remained under 50C. I have heard rumors, I REPEAT "rumors" that Asus plans to release a Bios update which will allow changing the multiplier on unlocked processors, which would make hacking the board physically unnecessary.
- Joined
- Apr 11, 2001
- Location
- Bellingham, WA
I built a machine for a friend with this board and it ran great... Until UPS smashed it when I shipped it to him!
Now I get to build him a new one and I'm getting one for myself too, now that I think I figured out how to adjust the multiplier. Here's how I think you can do that without a soldering iron:
In Rev 1.01 of the board the switches were still on the board to allow you to change the multiplier, but they were not installed on the later revisions for some unknown reason. You can see a picture compareing the area of Rev. 1.01 and Rev. 1.03 where the switches are and the printing on the board that tells you what position to put them in here:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/mainboards/asus-a7m266.html It’s not quite half way down the page.
If you’re handy with a soldering iron you could solder some switches on. However, I’m a little nervous about taking a soldering iron to my new $180 motherboard. I think you could use a conductive pen to close the circuits that need to be closed. The only problem with that is to change the multiplier again after you’ve done this would be a pain because you’d have to clean the conductive ink off. I don’t know how hard that would be, but here’s a way around it. Put a piece of tape on the board between the circuit contacts and draw the circuits across the tape. Then if you need to change something just peel off the tape and put on another piece! I haven’t tested this yet because I haven’t ordered my board yet. I’ve been researching which board to buy and I was leaning to the A7M266 but the inability to set the multiplier was really bothering me. Now that I think I’ve solved the problem I’ll be ordering my new board and AXIA chip soon.
If anyone tries this on an A7M266 board let me know how it works! I’d like to know if I’m right.
Corax
Now I get to build him a new one and I'm getting one for myself too, now that I think I figured out how to adjust the multiplier. Here's how I think you can do that without a soldering iron:
In Rev 1.01 of the board the switches were still on the board to allow you to change the multiplier, but they were not installed on the later revisions for some unknown reason. You can see a picture compareing the area of Rev. 1.01 and Rev. 1.03 where the switches are and the printing on the board that tells you what position to put them in here:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/mainboards/asus-a7m266.html It’s not quite half way down the page.
If you’re handy with a soldering iron you could solder some switches on. However, I’m a little nervous about taking a soldering iron to my new $180 motherboard. I think you could use a conductive pen to close the circuits that need to be closed. The only problem with that is to change the multiplier again after you’ve done this would be a pain because you’d have to clean the conductive ink off. I don’t know how hard that would be, but here’s a way around it. Put a piece of tape on the board between the circuit contacts and draw the circuits across the tape. Then if you need to change something just peel off the tape and put on another piece! I haven’t tested this yet because I haven’t ordered my board yet. I’ve been researching which board to buy and I was leaning to the A7M266 but the inability to set the multiplier was really bothering me. Now that I think I’ve solved the problem I’ll be ordering my new board and AXIA chip soon.
If anyone tries this on an A7M266 board let me know how it works! I’d like to know if I’m right.
Corax
