Help!! Abit KT7/Athlon problem

[TopGun]

I just bought a new Abit KT7 motherboard and am trying to install it with a T-bird 800mhz. I'm going crazy I can't figure out what is wrong, I've stripped the system down to video card, hard drive, and RAM. It seems every time I reboot I have to pull out the video card and reseat it in the AGP slot to get any video. Also whenever I go into the BIOS to make a change and I save/exit it never comes back, I have to pull the plug and hit the on switch again.

I have gotten it to the last step in win98 setup where it finalizes settings and it gives me BSOD every time. I've tried everything I can, different RAM, different HD, different slot for the RAM, different OS, the only thing I don't have on hand is an extra CPU which I'll be trying tomorrow at work. I've tried underclocking the CPU lowering voltage everything I know how to do. One thing I noticed that seemed a bit strange was at defualt setting the motherboard would supply 1.85v to the CPU, from what I've read the voltage on an 800mhz T-Bird should be 1.7v.

Any have any ideas? Could it just be a dead mobo?


System specs:

128mb PC-100 RAM
Abit KT7 no RAID
T-Bird 800mhz
Voodoo3 3k
IBM 20.5GB 7200RPM

 

[glp1del]

One of the things you can try is flashing the bios maybe you have an older version board. The other thing is I have heard some say the abit board does not like cheap memory, but I don't know the quality of yours. Also make sure the board is not getting shorted out by touching the metal part of the case. But I am betting a bios flash will be the cure.

Hope this helps

Glp1

 

[bigshooter]

Make sure that you have teh hard drive plugged into the regular ide ports, not the ultra 66 ports. Windows will seem to work fine with it, but without proper drivers you will run into problems at the end.

 

[TopGun]

I'm kinda nervous to flash the BIOS as it seems to lock up on me even in DOS, but I don't have much else to try I guess. There are only 2 IDE channels on this mobo both ATA-66 no RAID.

 

[AbRASiON]

Topgun: how did it go, .... any comment son the abit board

any patches / drivers you needed to get yourself up and runnign well?

 

[Modeps]

You dont have to yank the video card out and reseat it to fix the problem... just pull the power cord out while the computer is still running. Its a stupid problem really, I had the same thing happen. Go into SoftmenuIII in the bios and make sure that the cpu speed is set correctly without using userdefined options, just select whatever your speed is. if not, You'll get this problem. I thought my CPU speed was set properly because during the POST, it reported the correct speed, yet in the bios is was incorrectly set.

also, what type of ram you using? that could be your BSOD problem.

 

[TopGun]

I'm still not up and running on the new system, I've tried new RAM server grade PC-100 so I don't think that's the problem anymore. I got win98 to finish loading but while trying to load drivers I still get BSOD.

Any ideas as far as the voltage settings? I don't understand why it's defualting to 1.85v it's only an 800mhz and I was pretty sure the voltage on those is supposed to be 1.7v. Also I have a sparkle 300w PS so that shouldn't be a problem either.

 

[Adul]

Is it overheating?

 

[CTweak]

Try disabling the 'quick boot up' option in the BIOS - this has solved this problem for many others ...

 

[TopGun]

I doubt it's overheating I have an Alpha heatsink/fan on it and I'm not overclocking yet.

I'll try the quick boot option. What problem has this fixed for others? the unstability or the voltage?

 

[TopGun]

Anyone have any Idea why the voltage defualt for the 800mhz is so high?

 

[AbRASiON]

Isnt it meant to be 1.65 / 3.3
?

 

[TopGun]

Is it possible to remark the T-Bird with the new clock locking AMD has put on these chips? I just tried a different T-Bird 800mhz and it gives the proper voltage of 1.7v. If it is possible I must have recieved a remarked or defective CPU.

 

[TopGun]

Well I feel like a compleate idiot, it was overheating the Alpha PAL-6035 doesn't sit right, grr.

 

[AbRASiON]

So is it now working?

 

[TopGun]

It is working now. It still defualts the voltage to 1.75v and with a different 800mhz it goes to 1.7v so I dunno why it does that but it seems to be working ok.