Abit KT7 for an MSI K7T Pro2!

[jsbush]

Should I exchange my abit kt7 for an msi k7t pro2? Would it be worth the trouble?

 

[Technonut]

Why? is there something the matter with your KT7? I personally think that the KT7 is a fantastic board for overclocking and performance tweaking. Mine has been nothing but stable, and I have had no complaints from the 5 customer's that I have built systems for with the KT7 non-RAID. I think many people that are trading in their KT7's just because of all of this K7T Pro2A hype, that are not having trouble with their KT7 to begin with, are not going to be happy in comparison. I do not use ABIT boards in the majority of my Socket A system builds, since my customer's are not interested in overclocking. I use the TYAN Trinity KT for it's excellent stability, and 3 year warranty.

Myself, I love to have as much control over my performance settings as possible, and chose the ABIT KT7. I like MSI boards, I have used many Slot A K7 Pro's and MSI P3 mobos.

Just to see for myself, and do a comparison, I ordered a K7T Pro2A from John. I am going to put it to the test, and run Winstone Content Creation, Sandra 2001 Pro, and all other "full tilt boogie" benchmarks compared to my KT7. I enjoy combination multiplier/FSB overclocking, and running my RAM at 144-150MHz. I will see if the MSI can do that. Right now, I am Prime95 Torture test stable at 112/37 + 1 = 113FSB with my RAM at 150MHz CAS2 Turbo, and have been for 4 days.

I will be the first to admit if the K7T Pro2A is a better performer than my KT7, and will install it in my box if it is. I just do not think it will be. I will post the full results of my "real world" comparison testing in a couple of weeks.

If there is nothing wrong with your KT7, there is no reason at all to trade it for another board IMHO.

 

[jsbush]

The only reson was cus everyone on this board seems to say the MSI is the better board. I have no problems with the KT7 it's really fast and extremly stable. The only thing I don't like about its the fact that I can't boot from the floppy but that does really bother me.

 

[Technonut]

Why can't you boot from the floppy? I do it all of the time to run Ghost, and DocMemory. BTW, There was another post today by someone that received a K7T Pro2A that had pins missing from the floppy controller. It may be a fluke thing, but it happened.

 

[jsbush]

Yeah it seems to be a defualt in some KT7's. Some of them don't boot from the floppy, three of use with the same problem have contacted abit and never got a response.

Check it out for your self.

 

[Technonut]

Try increasing your I/O voltage to 3.50 to see if it helps. What kind of boot disk are you using, and how did you make it?

 

[jsbush]

It's a win98se boot disk. Made it by windows. I've also tried other boot disk that work in other systems.

 

[Technonut]

Alright, I just booted from a floppy 4 times to see if it would not function. It worked every time. Either there is an issue with some of the boards, or something is not configured properly. None of the people that I have sold the other KT7 systems to have complained to me about a floppy problem yet either.

Here are some of my BIOS settings:

Standard CMOS Features

Drive A....... 1.44M, 3.5 in.
Drive B....... None
Floppy3 mode support.... Disabled

Advanced BIOS Features

Virus Warning.....Disabled
Quick Power On Self Test...Enabled
First Boot Device.... SCSI (Promise Card)
Second Boot Device....Floppy
Third Boot Device.....CDROM
Boot Other Device.....Enabled
Swap Floppy Drive.....Disabled
Bootup Floppy Seek....Disabled

Intergrated Peripherals

Onboard IDE-1 Controller....Enabled
Master Drive PIO Mode......Auto
Slave Drive PIO Mode.......Auto
Master Drive Ultra DMA.....Auto
Slave Drive Ultra DMA......Auto
OnBoard IDE2 Controller....Enabled
All set to Auto
IDE Prefetch Mode ......Enabled
Init Display First...AGP
USB Controller....Enabled
IDE HDD Block Mode...Enabled
OnBoard FDD Controller...Enabled
Serial 1....Auto
Serial 2....Auto

PnP/PCI Config

PnP OS Installed....Yes
Reset Config Data....Disabled
PCI/VGA Palette Snoop...Disabled
Assign IRQ for VGA...Enabled
Assign IRQ For USB...Enabled
PIRQ_0 through 3.....Auto.

 

[compuwiz1]

Actually there are people who have used both boards and gotten higher overclocked speeds on the MSI. I don't remember specifically who they were, but maybe they will be along.

 

[jsbush]

Technonut: I have tried puting the IO voltage to 3.5 and it did the same thing, and it wouldn't boot windows.

I put my bois settings the same as yours (they where different) and still does the same thing.

 

[Technonut]

Also, try putting a floppy in while in Windows, format it using "full format", and check the "copy system files" box. See if it will boot to the floppy that way.

 

[jsbush]

Did a full format of a floppy disk, copied the system files, and it still does the same thing.

It doesn't seem to have time to even read the floppy. You hear it for like half a second then the sound stops and the light goes off.

Oh and it doesn't say Disk I/O error if my hard drive is detected in the bois and I have a bootable os on it.

 

[Technonut]

compuwiz1, I can run a 115 FSB stable if I lower my multiplier. I had to drop from 982MHz to 962MHz (multiplier @ 850, FSB 112/37 + 1 = 113) to get the RAM at 150MHz CAS2 Turbo. It is very stable as I stated, and I think the RAM at 150MHz is worth the 20MHz processor speed decrease. What do you think?

EDIT: I also have a green core 800 that boots Windows at a Gig, but is not stable. If The MSI will run it Prime95 Stable at a gig, with a multiplier/FSB overclock, it will be a keeper

 

[jsbush]

20mhz speed difference doesn't seem much at all. But 5mhz more in ram speed seems to make a big difference.

 

[Technonut]

jsbush, I am out of suggestions on the floppy issue. Perhaps you could head over to the AMD Zone Forums to see if anyone there has a solution. There are many KT7 users there.

Sorry, I could not be of more assistance.

 

[jsbush]

Thanks for trying.

 

[sciencewhiz]

Here is your answer:

<< First Boot Device.... SCSI (Promise Card)
Second Boot Device....Floppy
Third Boot Device.....CDROM >>



Based on those settings, your computer will always boot from whatever is on your promise card (your hard-drive). Only if the hard-drive isn't presesnt will it check to see if there is something to boot from in the floppy drive.

I always run my systems with the first boot device being floppy, second cdrom, and then the hard-drive (in your case the SCSI).

 

[Technonut]

sciencewhiz You are correct, I forgot to mention that I use System Commander for a boot manager. It goes from the Promise card detection, to the System Commander boot screen, which allows me the option to choose &quot;boot from floppy drive A&quot; or my other OS's. Nonetheless, before I had System Commander installed, and on the other KT7 systems I built, I had them set as 1st boot device Floppy, 2nd boot device Hard Drive, 3rd boot device CDROM, and still had no problem booting from a floppy drive. Thanks for pointing that out.

EDIT: I do see the value of setting it up the way you stated if you run a good bit of bootable CD's.

 

[rempe]

jsbush its the board been there. rma it for another one