Iwill KK266R Questions...

[Ariel]

Hi everyone.. I recently purchased an Iwill KK266R board and have Thunderbird 1.33ghz cpu coming in soon. I have a few questions about the board in the meantime.

While I am waiting for the 1.33ghz to arrive I put in the old 1.1 ghz in the board so I could toy around with it and get used to the KK266. My old board was the A7V. I noticed a few differences right off the bat..

First let me give you the system specs as it is now while waiting for the 1.33ghz 266 bus thunderbird...

1.1ghz 200 bus thunderbird o/c to 1216mhz 11.5X multiplier and 105mhz bus
Cpu was unlocked with pencil trick
FOP 38 HSF
Memory running HST clk + 33 or 142mhz
Iwill KK266 R with 4/26 bios (currently at the most aggressive mem settings and 4way interleaving)
512 mb of Crucial Cas 2 PC 133 ram (two 256mb sticks)
SBLive Soundcard
Nvidia Geforce2 GTS card (32meg)
Enlight Case with 300w power supply
Windows XP beta 2 build 2462


The bad...

[1] Only the 11X and the 11.5X multiplier works for the 1.1ghz on the KK266.. Any other muiltiplier (12x gives me the default 11X and 12.5 gives me 11.5X) less than that will not allow a warm boot and hard reboot always sets me back to the default 11X multiplier. On the A7V I could choose pretty much whatever multiplier I wanted, so I know the pencil job to unlock the mulitplier is functional..

[2] If I set the 133mhz fsb jumper I always get a bios error and it asks for a floppy with the flash program and bios on it.. Setting the fsb back to 100 removes that error.

The good

[1] The cpu and MB appear to run cooler than the A7V.. not sure how accurate it is.. but the CPU is about 5-6c cooler and the MB about 3c cooler

[2] I can run higher fsb's than the A7V.. The A7V was really only stable at 103mhz.. the KK266 is comfortable at 105mhz.. can run higher than that but I get some latency in the hard drives and sound card but 3d will work up until about 107mhz..

My questions are..

[1] Should I be concerned with the lack of useable multipliers on the KK266 or is that just because I am using 200mhz bus chip? Will I run into the same problems with the 1.33ghz 266 bus chip as well?

[2] Will the bios error I get when I set the 133 mhz fsb jumper go away when I install the 1.33ghz 266bus cpu because it was designed for that speed or is that something that I should be concerned with as well?

Any suggestions and/or solutions would be very welcome.. though I don't relish the prospect of constantly removing and installing that FPO38 hsf.. and I really want to get the KK266 running as good as possible before the 1.33 ghz thunderbird arrives..

Thanks.
Ariel...

 

[Da Whip]

Ariel, I have the same MOBO and it is very stable.Make sure you have the latest bios drivers and 4 in 1, get the offical ones from Iwill's site; www.iwillusa.com

Here is the FAQ site for the board;

http://fullon3d.com/kk266faq/kk266faq.shtml

Hope this helps

 

[quadcity]

The faq as mentioned should be where you start. Also the IWILL forum at amdmb.com.

It is possible the pencil has worn off. But do not worry about it. You should be able to get the thing to boot using 133. This is the "issue" from anandtech. Go read it, but IWILL sum it up. You have to make the chip survive a few cycle until the bios can take over. I do not know what your default chip is, but I suspect it is an older tbird. therefore the multi is low, but you just need to connect the L7's to make the bios see 1.85 V at default. The error you report will go away with a 266 chip. That error is a sign of OC'ing too far. You are lowering the multi right? The faq can help...

Welcome to the Club..

 

[bruce]

That sound blaster card is just askin for trouble, but if it works, go with it. Also, what revision(version) motherboard do you have? It is known that version 1.2KK266 has multiplier issues(missing/wrong resistor), you might want to check with Iwill about that(Iwill FAQ). I have a version 1.2, not sure if it has a multiiplier issue though, but mine is up and running stable, yea!

 

[Ariel]

quadcity (May 09, 2001 04:03 p.m.):
The faq as mentioned should be where you start. Also the IWILL forum at amdmb.com.

It is possible the pencil has worn off. But do not worry about it. You should be able to get the thing to boot using 133. This is the "issue" from anandtech. Go read it, but IWILL sum it up. You have to make the chip survive a few cycle until the bios can take over. I do not know what your default chip is, but I suspect it is an older tbird. therefore the multi is low, but you just need to connect the L7's to make the bios see 1.85 V at default. The error you report will go away with a 266 chip. That error is a sign of OC'ing too far. You are lowering the multi right? The faq can help...

Welcome to the Club..

Thanks for the info.. I do not believe the pencil has worn off.. but it is a possibility.. I understand the bios error issue now and I know for sure that the 1.1 ghz cpu will not be able to initialise at 1463 mhz.. the cpu is only good up to about 1260 for booting purposes and about 1240 for running stably.. at least according to when I was running it with the A7V motherboard.

But what has me troubled is my inability to change the multiplier to anything less than the default..

Right now with this 1.1 ghz tbird and the KK266R I can only use 11X (which is the default) and 11.5X as multipliers... With the A7V I was able to go up to 13X multiplier and down to 6X or 7x multiplier. The faq doesn't really mention that at all.. there was a slight mention of the older kk266 being stuck at an 8.5X multiplier but that is not the case with my board and it is a revision 1.2 but stuck at 11X and 11.5X..

I could try the bridge cutting technique.. but I am selling this cpu to someone else once the 1.33ghz comes in so I don't want to damage the chip at all or make any modifications other than the penciling I did earlier..

Thanks for the info.. much appreciated! ;-)

Ariel...

 

[Ariel]

bruce (May 09, 2001 05:12 p.m.):
That sound blaster card is just askin for trouble, but if it works, go with it. Also, what revision(version) motherboard do you have? It is known that version 1.2KK266 has multiplier issues(missing/wrong resistor), you might want to check with Iwill about that(Iwill FAQ). I have a version 1.2, not sure if it has a multiiplier issue though, but mine is up and running stable, yea!

Unfortunately, I do have the 1.2 version.. but I thought it was the earlier models but will check it out.. the IWILL faq is pretty blurry (the picture) and not very informative..

Thanks,
Ariel...

 

[Ariel]

Da Whip (May 09, 2001 03:34 p.m.):
Ariel, I have the same MOBO and it is very stable.Make sure you have the latest bios drivers and 4 in 1, get the offical ones from Iwill's site; www.iwillusa.com

Here is the FAQ site for the board;

http://fullon3d.com/kk266faq/kk266faq.shtml

Hope this helps

Thanks! That faq has a LOT of good info.. but it still didn't really address my lack of available multipliers.. the boot up problem at 133mhz I understand.. my cpu is not capable at starting at 1463 mhz and I don't want to cut any bridges on it since I am selling it once the 1.33 ghz chip comes in. But the lack of useable multipliers worries me since the A7v I was able to go from 6X to 13X.. but KK266 only lets me use 11X and 11.5X.. weird..

Thanks again..
Ariel...

 

[Kriegster]

try repenciling the bridges.. as i'm sure you know pencil doesn't stick very good to metal so you should unlock with something more permanent. You should do fine when your new factory unlocked cpu arrives. The recalled kk266 supposedly was limited to 8.0 or 8.5 multiplier so hopefully yours is ok. I hear alot of people complaining about using a sb live with the iwill board, but I have 1 and mine works perfect. Perhaps it's because I don't have 2 eide drives setup as masters. You may also want to upgrade your northbridge cooling if your memory can handle 160+ mhz fsb speeds Good luck

 

[Ariel]

Kriegster (May 09, 2001 07:09 p.m.):
try repenciling the bridges.. as i'm sure you know pencil doesn't stick very good to metal so you should unlock with something more permanent. You should do fine when your new factory unlocked cpu arrives. The recalled kk266 supposedly was limited to 8.0 or 8.5 multiplier so hopefully yours is ok. I hear alot of people complaining about using a sb live with the iwill board, but I have 1 and mine works perfect. Perhaps it's because I don't have 2 eide drives setup as masters. You may also want to upgrade your northbridge cooling if your memory can handle 160+ mhz fsb speeds Good luck

Yeah.. I was thinking that a more permanent bridge job would be best as different motherboards can handle weaker currents better than others and I guess the A7V I had worked fine with the pencil job but maybe the Iwill needs something a bit better like the conductive pen.. I will wait to do that after I get the new cpu as I don't want to remove the heatsink and then put it on again.. these cpu's aren't the most durable and the pressure required to install the heatsink is not trivial..

Thanks!
Ariel...