This Abit Kt7a-raid is the biggest piece of crud!! Please help me

[toomnymods]

Well This will be a long post as I will list all the steps that took place from format all the way to present..
This mobo has the Via north & south bridges (686b) this is half my problem I think. Well after 3 formats and 3 installs I finally got the damn Win 2k to stick right with no data corruption, no lost files etc.. Soon as I got windows loaded I imediatly installed service pack 2, I know this fixes a lot of the Via garbage screwups.. Then I installed the latest via 4-1 drivers 4.32v, then the amd miniport driver for win 2k, then all the other misc. drivers for sound, video,etc. Has been working alright for about month and a half, on the 100fsb setting (didn't have the money to buy the pc133 ram right away) Soon as I installed the 512mb of pc133 Crucial micron, and set the memory settings to fast, cas 2, and 4 way memory interleave it locks up repeatedly, By the way I bumped up the fsb to 140 and temps are fine, nuthing wrong there (122f cpu temp running seti) Well It won't crunch seti more than 2 min before locking up and freezing, I know I'm not pushing this chip or the fsb too hard, so why is it locking up? Could it be the bios? I havent flashed the bios yet, I still have the one that came with the board the ww one..Anyone have any suggestions?? I've tried every memory setting imaginable and I can only get it to work on the slowest memory settings with cas 3, but I'll destroy this board before I use those setting didnt pay 160 bucks for this mobo to have this thing perform like a damn pentium 266.. Can someone that has a stable system post thier memory settings with thier bios that they are currently using..
Thanks

 

[toomnymods]

BUMP,PUNT,ETC..

 

[YahooDave]

122F seems kind of high to me. What are you using for cooling? What are your case temps? I think I would concentrate on getting your temps down first. You could try a different BIOS. Check some of the other posts about the BIOS for this board. There are some new ones out.

 

[Sketch]

Your problem is the FAST setting for your memory timing. The ww bios is a great bios, but that part is wrong. The timings for FAST and and Turbo are bogus and cause massive stability problems. Set them to NORMAL and you should see your problem go away, and you will be surprised by how well your memory will run at this setting. After talking to Abit about this problem myself, they told me they had made a mistake on the memory timings and that they had been solved on newer bios, but IMHO the ww bios is the best overclocker. They told me the NORMAL setting is the same as the FAST timing in newer bios. So try that, my runs like a champ. Good luck.

PS-- What cpu and cooler are you using? And what FSB and Multiplier settings are you using, as this could be part of you problem also. But I can run my system at 140X10 with no problems, but I'm water cooled. Just making sure that your watching those temp. They can kill ya. Literly!!!!

 

[Colin]

Sketch - Very interesting. I have run Turbo settings with the WW BIOS with no problems. I have to agree, WW is my favorite BIOS.

 

[WillysNut]

Man...I really hate it when people dis the boards that they're using when they haven't properly diagnosed the problem. If you loaded new memory, then why not try to start with your memory settings in the BIOS...or, from scratch, Select "Load Optimized Defaults" in your BIOS and start tweaking from there....one setting at a time....I know sometimes no one wants to change just one setting but if your having a problem with lock-ups then that immediately warrants slowing down and taking your time. Be deliberate, record the change you make if your memory isn't so hot, your bound to narrow down the problem to a certain setting.

I've been running my first and probably not last KT7A-Raid for about 3 months now. I had to go through a few steps to get a Duron 750 stable at a Gig...Had to disable a few setting's that I didn't want to...but in the end...it's stable. Good luck. Keep troubleshooting...don't give up on that board...it really is a nice piece of hardware.

 

[Sketch]

Colin (Jul 20, 2001 01:22 p.m.):
Sketch - Very interesting. I have run Turbo settings with the WW BIOS with no problems. I have to agree, WW is my favorite BIOS.

I can run turbo also, but I seem to get better memory benchmarks with Sandra on Normal. Abit support says it is the fastest and stablest timing on the WW bios. I don't know, but it sure runs nice.

 

[UnseenMenace]

Colin (Jul 20, 2001 01:22 p.m.):
Sketch - Very interesting. I have run Turbo settings with the WW BIOS with no problems. I have to agree, WW is my favorite BIOS.

Same here I run my Duron 800 @ 1050 (140 x 7.5) on WW bios with 512mb PC133 Crucial on the turbo memory settings and have no problems at all.

 

[Tacoman667]

Have you made sure to take out the PC100 memory before running at 133fsb CAS2?

 

[JEFF]

did you check sandra for timing to be sure they r what u think they are? i had no problems running all fast settings with pc 133 cas 3 @CAS 2.the 133 setting seemed to be as high as fsb would go so i got crucial cas 2 133 and it didn't help 133x 6.5 is the most stable oc i can get but that aint bad for a no code 750 t-bird.remember running 140 fsb no matter how u do it oc's everything(even thuogh the manual says different).did you try all the multipliers at 133/33?it could still be your cpu limiting your oc.

 

[wildone]

Disable acpi in the bios and see what it does , it may install your drivers again and add a few but I was haveing that problem and it cleared up my lockups , you can always undo it.
wildone

 

[toomnymods]

I found out what the problem was... I increased the core voltage was1.8 now is 1.825 and the 3.30voltage to 3.45 and now is rock stable.. Kinda funny the whole problem could be due to voltages.. My other asus motherboards run fine at default voltages up to 145fsb all day long...
Weird Also flashed to the newest bios (non-beta) Kt73r..
memory scores in sisoft sandra increased about 65 points for both alu and fpu
Thanks for the suggestions..

 

[WillysNut]

Yes....Add another solid KT7AR to the list. Congrats on finding the problem.