Does a T-bred CPU work in a MSI K7T266 Pro? Answer = NO

[Choralone]

I'm looking to see if anyone has used or has heard anyone using a Athlon XP T-bred core CPU in an MSI K7T266 Pro. According to the board info page on their website LINK! (look at CPU Support) all of the T-breds don't work in this board. But my guess is they never tested any of them with this board since it's pretty old and they're just saying NO to all of them to be on the safe side. You might also notice they say the Palomino 2100+ doesn't work, but all of the rest do.

I'd love to just purchase a new Nforce 2 board and get a Barton 2500+, but if I could I'd rather just drop a T-bred 2400+ in this board and not have to reload XP and such.

So has anyone used a 266FSB T-bred CPU in this board or a KT266 or KT266A chipset board before?

Edit:

Unfortunately a T-bred doesn't work with this board.

 

[merlion]

Check here for CPU support.

Pretty much looks like a no-go. Palomino 2000+ is the max.

 

[Choralone]

I saw that link before, but I don't really believe it. I've run into plenty of situations in the past, mainly on Intel BX chipset boards, where a particular CPU was "not supported" or shouldn't work but works just fine.

I recently gave my father a machine based around my old Abit BH6 that had the famous Celeron 300A chip O/C'd to 450 running for 4 1/2 years. I threw a Celeron 1ghz in a slotket converter in that board and it's been happily running at 1120mhz since June. My wife currently has an ASUS P3V4X (Via 133A) that has a Celeron 1ghz in a slotket that's been OC'd to 1240mhz for the past 6 months. At work I recently upgraded an old Transcend BX board from a P2 350 to a Celeron 1gig and have had no problems. Heck, my sister currently is using an ASUS P2-99B with a Celeron 566 running at 850mhz in slotket adapter. It's an Intel ZX chipset baby AT board and even that works just fine, which surprised the hell out of me.

Unfortunately I don't have the cash to risk toasting a 2400+ or my board if it doesn't work out. But I haven't seen anything definate that tells me why it wouldn't work.

 

[KF]

> Supports Athlon? XP 1500+ ~ 2000+ Processors
from the page you linked. Tbreds are not electrically different than other XPs. So I say the 2400+ should work electrically. It won't burn out or burn up.

One problem is that the 2400+ is 2000 MHz = 15x 133. 15 is over 12.5, so it is a higher multiplier. Older (and a lot of newer) mobos do not have the circuitry to change the 5th bridge that selects multipliers over 12.5 vs those up to 12.5. That means unless your mobo has a mode to boot the "default" multplier, it may not boot, and you may have trouble getting it to boot by setting resetting the CMOS. But motherboards generally can boot the default multiplier.

If you need to change or set the multiplier, you will have to do some translation. What multiplier is 15? Set it to 7 in the BIOS or by jumper.

ratio, BIOS map
none 11
19 11.5
none 12
20 12above or 12.5
13 5
13.5 5.5
14 6
21 6.5

******
15 7 <---
22 7.5
16 8
16.5 8.5
17 9
18 9.5
23 10
24 10.5

Notice if you set the multiplier to 6.5(=21) or 7.5(=22) rather than 7(=15) you get a multipler that probably is too high to boot. over 2800MHz.

And there is another possible problem. Some motherboards improperly overide something callled FID when they set the multiplier, and the CPU locks up for settings in the table before the boundary at the stars. All these pitfalls lead people to believe TbredBs don't work on their particular motherboard. And no wonder the manufacturers decline to support XPs.

BTW, I have had a TBB running OCed on a ABIT KT7 for many months at 20x 100 =2000MHz, and it only supports 100MHz FSB, and ABIT says no XPs.

 

[Choralone]

Thanks for the info KF! I totally forgot about manipulating the multipliers like that. I think the highest selectable mutiplier in the BIOS on this board is 12.5, hence the supposed 2000+ limit. But I'll try setting the mult. to 7 or 8 when I manage to purchase a 2400+, is should work but may require a little fiddling. But I'm willing to try.

I can adjust the mult. in the BIOS, but it either doesn't have any effect or causes a no boot situation on my 1800+. I never bothered to unlock it back when I won it in Oct of 2001.

 

[Choralone]

Sorry to dig up an otherwise dead thread, but I confirmed that a T-bred CPU DOES NOT work in this board. I had a couple of T-bred CPU's come in at work and tried a couple of them out in my box. None of them booted in this board, but worked fine in something newer. So it looks like I'm SOL on this one.

 

[KF]

Sorry to hear that.

In some ways it is a fluke that Tbreds work in the ABIT KT7. When I have to reset the CMOS, my motherboard does not reset the multiplier to the default. It sets it to what amounts to 20x. (20x 100 = 2000MHz) It is kind of hard, and pretty boring, to explain why it comes out that way. It would be the default for a Tbird. Anyway... This CPU (1700+ or 1467MHz) barely boots at that speed at the default voltage, and will crash before loading Windows gets very far. But I can get into the BIOS, put the voltage up, and OC from there. The other way to do this, and the original way I did it, is to set the multiplier to a working multiplier while the old CPU is in. Then the Tbred is OK and doesn't have to try to boot at 2000MHz and default voltage. As long as you don't push it too far and have to reset the CMOS you are OK. I discovered the 20x oddity when I had to reset the CMOS.

There have been other people that have tried Tbreds on MSI motherboards, but very few people get back with the results, so it is good that you did.