Motherboard settings (Abit KT7A) 1

[Guest_imported]

Hi. I'm a bit puzzled by the settings of my motherboard. It's a Abit KT7A and the part that's confusing is the Soft Menu III. I'm running an Athlon 1Ghz. In the Soft Menu it says:
CPU operating speed: 1000
Multiplier factor: x10
CPU FSB/PCI Clock: 100/33Mhz
CPU FSB Plus (Mhz): 0
Speed Error Hold: Disabled

The thing is that if I'm using PC133 RAM (which I am) then shouldn't the FSB/PCI Clock be set to 133/33Mhz. When I try doing this however, the system won't boot, and wont even initialise. I've tried a few combinations (I can also select the PCI clock as 44Mhz but i don't think that's the right setting) but I'm getting board of clearing the CMOS everytime.

If anyone has any answers I'd be very grateful. Oh and this is the spec in case anyone has any other tips for tweeking the BIOS to get the most out of it ) :

AMD Athlon 1000Mhz
128 PC133 RAM
15Gb Seagate ATA66 HD
Creative GeForce2 MX (32MB DDR)AGP
Abit KT7A MoBo (VIA Chipset)

Thanks in advancce for any help offered!

 

[brendanhedges]

The best place i have found for answers to this type of question is in the fourums of

http://www.overclockers.com

a very helpful and freindly forum

 

[osuman]

I have an Abit KA7-100. We therefore have many of the same settings, I'm assuming you have an award BIOS. When you change your FSB to 133 then your trying to run your processor at 1333 MHz. Obviously, this is a lot to overclock and you run into other issues. There should be a setting in the same menu that says DRAM clock. The default setting is Host CLK. The Host Clk is the 100 part of the 100/33. Change this setting to Host+PCI. This will run your RAM at 133 MHZ, as it is the Host Clk plus the PCI Clock.
As for the problem of clearing the board. If you read the manual there is a part in there about what to do if you set it to the wrong speed. You can turn the power supply switch off and on a couple of times and then eventually it will boot with the Fail Safe settings. It works too, as I've had to do it a few times myself. Justin
Feel free to email me at:
beckham@mailbox.orst.edu

 

[CitrixEngineer]

The one thing you haven't covered, osuman, is that the multiplier should be set to compensate - unless you're deliberately trying to o/c.

This is set in ABIT's SOFTMENU II/III.

Set the multiplier to 7.5, and the system will run comfortably at 997.5Mhz with a 133 FSB. You may need to reduce the core voltage slightly as well.

You should be able to use the system with no issues using a multiplier of 8 (1064Mhz CPU speed).

Good Luck!

 

[osuman]

I have an athlon 800 and the multiplier is locked. It seems Intel and AMD have been doing this for some time now. If I change it manually the bios thinks it's changed but it really hasn't. For example, my multiplier is set at 8, if i change it to 9 and boot the screen says it's running at 900. However, if i check it with any simple software it still clocks it at 800. I'm assuming the same is true for his 1000 mhz processor. I read a little bit about it online and I it seems that i read that Intel has been locking them since the PII's. Justin
Feel free to email me at:
beckham@mailbox.orst.edu

 

[CitrixEngineer]

This combination, KT7A and Athlon 1000 is one of the favourites among the o/c crew.

I didn't realise that there are locked as well as unlocked Athlons - /me must get up to speed :~/

Here are some detailed technical articles on overclocking this combination - I always like to compare, because everyone seems to get different results in different ways:

http://www.thetechzone.com/reviews/motherboards/abit/kt7-raid/index.shtml

http://www.amdworld.co.uk/eval.htm

http://www.penstarsys.com/Reviews/mobos/abit/kt7r/abit_kt7r_4.htm

http://www.dansdata.com/socketas.htm

Hope these help!

 

[Guest_imported]

Thanks everyone for your help. Very useful info. Just so you know, Osuman - I changed the Host CLK to HostCLK+PCI and now getting my PC133 actually running at 133Mhz! Yay!! . Cheers Osuman and everyone for your advice!!