>>> ANNOUNCE<<< MSI K7T Pro FAQ

[OD3]

It is about time we have a consolidated source of information regarding these MSI K7T Pro, Pro2, and Pro2-A boards. I am volunteering to launch and mainatin such a site at the OrangeDelta. I will try to have a beta layout up by Sunday night and would welcome any and all feedback. I envision the site focusing on setup issues, general FAQ, BIOS updates, tips and tricks, reviews of the boards and associated equipment, etc.

If anyone, in all the spare time that we seem to share these days, wants to contribute information, by all means contact me.

 

[gmccall]

Good idea!

 

[JimmyZ]

Well, for all of you who were hoping on using the Blorb on the K7T Pro2...well.....the holes don't line up :-( But, the good news is, the orb comes with a big piece of thermal tape. Plus, with the cool pins they give you, you can put them in the holes in the orb as if you were mounting it, and it give it a clean cut appearience. (IE, no empty holes in the blorb.)

I have tested it for performance...it(the pro2 northbridge) was running about 41c with the orange heatsink (i/ov @ 3.45) and with the blorb and thermal tape, I am at 32c. So a 9 degree improvement....plus it looks badass. If the holes would have lined up, I would have used Artic Silver and i'll bet I could have hit 28c.

Oh well,

Jimmy

 

[OD3]

Hey, that's not too shabby! I am definitly going to order mine then and stick on that on KT133 chipset.

Thanks JimmyZ!

 

[stonythug]

anyone buy one of those pretested cpus from a place where they liked the customer service, could you give me a heads up? I would love to buy one but I just don't know. There was some debate about the ocz store and it sounds like some people have been burned by them so I'm hesitant. w9design you wanna share your place?

 

[stonythug]

Oh yeah, thought it would be a good idea to let new people know that this thread is a continuation from this one which had a lot of good stuff in it if you're thinking about this board. Hopefully all the good parts will be added to OD3's site once it's up but until then it's worth looking through if you have or are gonna get this board.

 

[Syn]

Just ordered my K7T Pro2A from ccusaonline via 2nd day air so maybe i'll see it next week..lol.Hopefully my OEM 800 T-bird will get here next week as well.I was just over at 2cooltek window shopping for a HS/F setup and saw the SORB(super orb).Will that thing fit on the Pro2A?Do you AMD guys suggest another HS/F over the Orbs?I had GORB on my P3 650e@820 and it did a pretty good job but not as cool as I would have liked.

 

[OD3]

Syn...The SORB will fit fine. I have been using the CORBs myself on Durons, but wouldn't suggest those for the infernal Tbirds. Alot of success with the Alphas and Hedgehogs (@ www.plycon.com) has been reported from numerous sites. Check Anand's cooler roundup from a few days back.

HTH

 

[BlakeB]

Jimmy, did the installation of the blorb have any effect on performance?

 

[w9design]

Stonythug: I've already shared ... www.ccusaonline.com

Everyone:

I'm trying to get my Promise Ultra66 controller to work since I have 5 IDE devices; but my Sandra score is ~15000 with integrated IDE but 9000 with the Ultra66 controller. It's a ATA/66 hard drive so ATA/100 isn't the reason. Maybe an IRQ conflict? All my PCI devices are on IRQ 5, including the integrated audio, which makes a high-pitched whine when I boot from my Ultra66 contoller.

UPDATE: Now I'm scoring 12710 by switching the PCI slot. Any particular reason it would still perform lower than the onboard controller, or am I still conflicting with something?

Speaking of which, what's wrong with using the onboard audio? I can't tell a quality difference between it and my SBLive and it only seems to take about 1-2 percent of my CPU time. Everyone avoids onboard audio like the plague, but why? Is it lack of 4 channel audio?

 

[stonythug]

sorry w9design, I must have passed over it in reading those 100 posts. Thanks for entertaining my blindness by posting it again rather than just telling me that you already posted it. I hate it when people do that.

[Edit] Sorry w9, but did you say that you bought a pretested overclocked cpu from there? I couldn't find them on their website, once again plz forgive me because I am blind if they're right there in front of me.

 

[w9design]

no prob, stonythug.
I didn't get the chip from CCUSA; I actually won it from a contest sponsored by AZZO (www.azzo.com). The chip was pretested to 1.1GHz but I've only made it to 1.05ish. But beggars can't be choosers .

I can vouch for ccusa; they are trustworthy, and if they aren't I can drive over there and beat them until they make good.

 

[stonythug]

Oh ok, cool. I was wondering if anyone has had a good experience with a company that sells the pretested overclocked cpus. If I decide just to get a regular one I'll probably go with www.ccusaonline.com since you recommend them so highly. How about AZZO, any experiences with them besides winning the chip. They sell the pretested chips which is what I might want to get. Decisions, decisions.

 

[JimmyZ]

Blake,

Yes, the Blorb dropped the temp by 7c(North Bridge temp) and I was able to go from 103 FSB stable to 109 FSB Stable. So now what I have done, is dropped my multiplier setting by 1 and also dropped the Corevoltage to 1.775(down from 1.85). By doing this I have a little bit higher speed (935 up from 900), a faster FSB and a lower CPU temp(Because of the voltage drop.) My CPU temp Idle before was 37....it is now 32c. I am happy with the Blobs performance.....I just wish the pegs would have fit. But, I am very impressed with the slab of thermal tape they gave...just for kicks after waiting 1/2 after leaving it under 5 lbs of pressure(wanted to make sure it was really on there!)....I was able to (gently) lift the MOBO up by the blorb....talk about good quality tape!

Let me know how your blorb experience goes.

J

 

[ZoSo]

JimmyZ, what if you enlongated the holes in the blorb to fit, or is the difference between the blorb holes and the holes in the M/B to much?

 

[OD3]

Finally, my mobo arrived. It will be some time before I can hook it up though. Now if I can just get that friggin' shipping fee refunded [3-Day select to NINE days].

I have to say, the box is sweet, the manual looks good, and the mobo itself is awesome to look at. I wish I had enough time tonight to stick it in my box. UGH!

Oh well, something to look forward to...

 

[OD3]

Alright, so here is a thought. Drop a BLORB on the northbridge. Take the left over stock MSI orange heatsink, remove the ATA100 stricker from the southbridge and put the orange heatsink there. Maybe even grind the arms off to make it look professional! May not help a ton in performance, but the added stability is a thought given the purported data corruption some seem to be getting with twin ATA100 HDs on other chipsets.

 

[rb56]

Hi everyone,
My system is up and running pretty well. Thanks to the thread for the pointers. Haven't messed with OCing much yet, just thru Fuzzy Logic. I'll post results as I get them.

OD3,
The site idea sounds great.

I would really like to know how everyone is setting the bios features on there boards and why. Being new to OCing it would be a GREAT help to me.

Also I currently have a 3D ForceB32 Plus NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Model 64 Video card installed does anyone know how the Nvidia Detonator 3 drivers will work?

RB

 

[OD3]

The BIOS setup is one of the first thing I am planning on covering.

Look for it next week...

 

[JimmyZ]

Zoso,

The Blorb holes are just to far away....It wasn't made for MSI mounting posts I guess. Not a problem, the thermal tape works great and I can mow boot stablly at 119FSB! Soo cool. It's too bad my Tbird 750 is crap...I can't get it to even a gig...so a lot of good a high FSB will do me.

OD, My south bridge is not really generating much heat...I can touch it and it's fine....my thermister says 26c....so That orange Heat sink idea is good for looks atleast...need to jazz up that south side yaknow....expecally with that shiny blue orn on the north side. BUT every little bit helps.

RB, When OD gets a skeleton site up, I will email him my bios settings and system configuration. If we get enough of them, it will help us optimize our systems. There are a bunch of things in the bios that I want to figure out...like what the hell the driving force should be set at and such.

OD....Good luck on the trip...I'd take an extra suitcase with the system in it for something to do at the hotel at night

Jimmy

Edit: Grammar

 

[OD3]

Just in case anyone missed it, Anand named the K7T Pro2/Pro2/A the best KT133 Duron/Tbird board! It beat out the A7V and the Abit models.

Shwing!

 

[BlakeB]

Jimmy,
If you didn't have that 750 T-bird now, what would you replace it with?

 

[JimmyZ]

Blake.

For a little less money I should have gotten the Duron 800. It will OC with ease to 1 or 1.1gig. I was very concerned with the cache size though, so I got a tbird. If the chip fairy came to visit tonight and I left my Tbird 750 under the pillow, I would hope she would leave a shiny new 900 Tbird. They are doing very well in the OC world. I have seen several that have hit 1.15 and a couple to hit 1.2 with just an alpha.

But at the time I bought the tbird750 (late august) a 900 mhz chip was a pipe dream(even with AMD's prices)
So to answer...I wish I would have bought a Duron 800 in August...but today, I would go tbird 900 and get the full cache.

Jimmy

 

[BlakeB]

Jimmy,
Thanks you, and all others in this thread for all the info you have shared. I am new to overclocking and fast machines in general and have lived with a Pentium Pro 200 for several years. So, now I'm trying to get a grip on whats new and cool.

I have been wondering whether there is any difference in temperature between a 800 mgz T-bird overclocked to 1000 mgz and a stock 1000 mgz T-bird. I quess what I question is the idea of quality difference within the chips. Anybody got any insights along these lines?

Blake...

 

[JimmyZ]

Blake,

I'm not sure on this one....the highest I have owned is that 750. But I would think that the more voltage you gave a processor, the hotter it would get. So, you need to find out if the non-OC'ed 1000mhz chips run at 1.75v or are they at 1.85v like all of us who are over clocking the 750/800 chips. My guess is that the 1000 runs at 1.75v default and will run cooler than a OC'ed chip....but Since it is running at 1000, I'll also bet that it will generate more heat at it's default settings than a stock 800.

Jimmy