Abit KT7-R & KT7A-R mobo's: RAID HELP!

[brojoh2]

I'm feeling pretty frustrated with the Abit board and the RAID setup long about now . . . Things I could do with the KT7-R before I enabled the Highpoint RAID controller, with no problem at all, I can't even think about doing now without this beast starting to scream - literally. I had to RMA the KT7A-R and don't have the replacement back yet. Anywho, I'm wonderin' . . . does everybody have all these problems when they RAID these boards?

I mean I've had to set my proc. clock back down a bit, I've had to move my Soundblaster all over the place trying to find a slot that won't freeze the board and forget about not hearing the occasional scream from it and having to reboot to un-freeze, I can't even say if I have realized a performance gain from going RAID 0 because I can't stay "up" and smoothly operational long enough to evaluate (RAID 0 w/twin IBM 7200 RPM 30 GB HD).

So, are there any Abit maves out there with similar experiences w/KT7-R who DID realize great gains and problem resolution from the move to KT7A-R? Or am I hoping against hope? Chasing the ever elusive dream?

Those of you with personal experience with these boards, I would appreciate hearing from you and about your experiences, problems, and their resolutions. That is if you'd care to share them. Thanx.

 

[jgaud]

i must be the luckiest bastard alive . ive had so few problems though i live in a soundless world (no card very little cash left) the only probs i had was with teac 16x10x40 brnr i just installed a little flaky had to reistall drivers twice why? any way seems ok now, as for raid i scored 22000 in sandra tranfers 0f 159 mps not a problem in site dont get me wrong Ive had some probs had to do fresh install of 98se after getting errors seemed to clean up whatever demons she had iner. I do feel for you if you give the set up probs ill try em on my rig and see if i can make the same stuff happen other than that i must be some lucky bastard ........................J

 

[Eriksson]

I have been using both KT7-R and KT7A-R for my personal primary system for several months.

I have not had any problems using RAID-0 striping. Both Win2000 and Win 98 se run very vell in dual boot setup. I use ide 1&2 for DVD and Burner. Ide3&4 IBM 307020 RAID-0..

I use my comp for Autocad drawing both 2d and 3d, and other big engineering apps, and of course the regular web/mail/music/movie stuff too. (I am using Soundblaster Life with without problems too ??? ).

Overclocking: I have run duron 700@1100, Tbird 1000@1150 and My current is Tbird 1000@1333. The only complain I have regarding overclocking is that it can be hard to recover after too agressive fsb settings, and my current one lacks usb stability at fsb over 140Mhz, even though I runs fine at 160mhz .

Overall I am happy with my current KT7A-R board, it is fast and stable. However it needed a Bios flash when I got it, there was simply something wrong with the bios, and after several oc attempts I had a DEAD board. I had to hotflash the bios chip in another board to get it running again..

I have built few systems with the Abit KT7 series boards. I have choosen these cuz I know them inside and out. I have managed to get em up running quite well without problems. However I could not have done this without first spending countless hours tweaking and oc'ing my own Abits.

Bottom line: HP controller can work very well, but If we combine overclocking with Murphys law Abits can be hard to deal with.

 

[brojoh2]

Eriksson (May 16, 2001 08:08 a.m.):
I have been using both KT7-R and KT7A-R for my personal primary system for several months.

I have not had any problems using RAID-0 striping. Both Win2000 and Win 98 se run very vell in dual boot setup. I use ide 1&2 for DVD and Burner. Ide3&4 IBM 307020 RAID-0..

I use my comp for Autocad drawing both 2d and 3d, and other big engineering apps, and of course the regular web/mail/music/movie stuff too. (I am using Soundblaster Life with without problems too ??? ).

Overclocking: I have run duron 700@1100, Tbird 1000@1150 and My current is Tbird 1000@1333. The only complain I have regarding overclocking is that it can be hard to recover after too agressive fsb settings, and my current one lacks usb stability at fsb over 140Mhz, even though I runs fine at 160mhz .

Overall I am happy with my current KT7A-R board, it is fast and stable. However it needed a Bios flash when I got it, there was simply something wrong with the bios, and after several oc attempts I had a DEAD board. I had to hotflash the bios chip in another board to get it running again..

I have built few systems with the Abit KT7 series boards. I have choosen these cuz I know them inside and out. I have managed to get em up running quite well without problems. However I could not have done this without first spending countless hours tweaking and oc'ing my own Abits.

Bottom line: HP controller can work very well, but If we combine overclocking with Murphys law Abits can be hard to deal with.

Eriksson,
Thanx for getting back to me with good detailed info. I have never been able to oc the fsb on my KT7-R at all - zip, nada, nothing. Gave it up. Do you have any "pearls of wisdom" or any such thing as to the formula for success for oc'ing the fsb on the KT7-R? Or, any idea why perhaps my board just will not allow it? And the KT7A-R was DOA totally - I should have the replacement board tomorrow . . . I can start again with that board then.

Do you have any particular sequence you follow in bringing your boards "up?" I pretty much stick with sequence as outlined at "Paul's Unofficial Abit KT7 Motherboard FAQ" under Highpoint. It seems to cover the bases well. I'm extremely conscientious but I'm sure there are gaps in my knowledge pool. I don't pretend to know anywhere close to "it all." I'm flashing to "YH' and "1.0.3b1" as far as the BIOS versions go. I stay away from betas. I'm using the Via 4 in 1 v. 4.29a.

I spend alot of time in research at Viahardware, Pauls', Overclockers, Tom's, Anandtech, wherever the research takes me, you know how it goes . . . if you have other resources you could point me toward, that would be great. I'd appreciate it.

Looking at what you're running and what you're running them at, I see you're pretty knowledgeable. Whatever you care to pass along to a fellow Abit-er will be appreciated. Thanx.

 

[Eriksson]

The KT7-R board cannot do high fsb, typical max is 110mhz fsb, few can go a tad higher, and few cannot do anything over 100 !! , this is just the luck of the draw.

Upping the i/o voltage can help in this case, If you are running high core voltage, you need to increase the I/O voltage to maintain good stability.
I ran my KT7-R at 3.8V I/O (not recommended but worked great for me) I think 3,6 v should be considered "safe" max in this case, but I have actually no idea how high one can go safe

I don't use any special tricks when I get these up running.

I think one should never install OS at overclocked speed.
Take your time to config the HPT controller (ctrl+h) and select
the boot drive and RAID config if used..

Even tough you can see your IDE devices on the post screen, you still
need to set ide mode to AUTO in Bios to be able to use them correctly(such as boot from cd)

Always format the drives before new OS
Always do clean install, dont use clones.

VIA 4in1 in ASAP (win 98se) then vid card drivers, etc
VIA 4in1 do not matter a lot in win2k with sp1 included

Linux hates the HPT controller. duh ???

Good luck, and post if you got any questions.

 

[asmodean]

I don't know would these help you, but the newest bios is ZT and newest 4in1 is 4.31. The bios isn't listed as beta, but final at http://www.amdmb.com/files.php#kt7 and the 4in1 went final yesterday, if I remember correctly.
I have these both installed, but as to them fixing any problems, I cannot say.
My box didn't suffer from that infamous SBLive! bug. My 45G IBM is the only one on the HPT though.