KT7 RAID - only pc100?

[EddieGee]

Hi

I bought a KT7RAID and 1gig tbird just before new year, together with 128mb of pc133 memory and 30.7 IBM HD 100 ATA and 7200.

I note that the Bios has configured the FSB/PCI Clock at 100/33 and yet the manual indicates the mboard can handle 133 speed. However note here that there is now a KT7A RAID with Via 133a, the review claims that this is the only true way to get 133 with an Athon gig and that you are stuck with 100 on the KT7. That doesn't fit with the manual and hopefully is not true can anyone help?

Whilst on the subject I have put the 30.7 drive on Ide3 and an old Quantum fireball 10gi ATA66 speed 5400 on IDE 4. I have not set up an array as the disks are completely different specs.

Note the boot devices have been changed to relect RAID in the BIOS. However can't see anywhere whether the IBM drive is using the 100 ATA. Have I got this wrong? Do I need to stripe? Grateful for any help that can assist me with this set up. Note when I used the IDE0 and 1 for these drives I could defintiely see the IBM was set for ATA66 - hence I moved to the RAID slots.

Eddie Gulliver

England

 

[Pederv]

The memory on the KT7 has the ability to run at 100 or 133 but the processor fsb is 100MHz. You won't see an ATA66/ATA100 designation if you are running your hard drives off of the RAID controller, you shouldn't see a DMA designation either. The reason is the drives are coming off of the controller(which windows sees as a scsi controller), and the drivers don't tell windows to show this information. To see what mode your hard drive is running you need to go into the RAID bios.

 

[Octoberblue]

Also, most Athlon oriented manuals and ads say "200Mhz frontside bus", which if you weren't aware is the bus running at 100Mhz and the processor internally doing "DDR" Double Data Rate, so the processor reads data on both the rising and falling "edges" of the clock cycle.

The 133A boards claim "266Mhz frontside bus", which is of course the 133Mhz bus once again "double-pumped". I found this confusing at first when VIA first released their early Intel based boards that supported 133Mhz RAM but only 100Mhz frontside bus.

Maybe I was behind the curve, but the idea of running the frontside bus and the memory bus "asynchronously" had never occurred to me before that. It just seemed like you were openning up one bottle neck but leaving another closed so what's the point? But actually opeing up the memory bus increased performance significantly even on the Intel chipsets. And in the case of the Athlons you really don't have a bottleneck on the frontside bus anyway because the processor itself doubles the effective bandwidth to beyond what the 133 memory is even running at.

Don't worry, you got a good spec'd board. No matter what you do with an upgrade something slightly better is always going to come out before you finish opening the box.

 

[EddieGee]

Thanks for the help - if I understand you correctly you are saying that the Athlon is able to utilise the 133 memory..... reason I am looking for confirmation is that I have some old PC100 memory which I could stick in to make 256mb - however if the Athlon is using 133 correctly then it's better to buy another 133 stick - am I right?

Assume that the 200mhz bus means that this will still outperform a 133 Pentium - correct or not?

Equally - the mboard refers to tweaks of the processor and FSB - is this worth doing with a gig processor or should I leave well alone....

Eddie

 

[Pederv]

Yes it is better to run the memory at 133MHz than at 100 MHz, This increases the bandwidth, thus the data moved to and from the memory. Yes the 200MHz DDR bus of the Athlon can move data faster than the 133MHz Pentium bus.
Generally an overclocker will take the multiplier as high as it will go while keeping the system stable. Then increase the CPU FSB 1 or 2 MHz at a time, until just before the system becomes unstable. This not only speeds the CPU up a little bit but also increases the bandwidth throughout the motherboard. An example if you can get your CPU FSB to run at 106MHz (rare but possible) then your PCI devices are running on a 35MHz bus instead of a 33MHZ bus, your AGP card is running at 70MHz instead of 66MHz and your memory will be running at 141MHz instead of 133MHz.
Good Luck

 

[EddieGee]

Thanks once agin- sorry to be a pain with this - but really am feeling my way here with the Athlon. Bought it to get a massive performance boost from the 400 2 Pentium and thus far think it is better but not fantastically so.

The KT7RAID seems good - bu the main point to it seems the overclocking. You mention tweaking it - would you only recommend the FSB tweak or also try the multiplier. Also - do I need to check the gold dots on the processor first? are these easy to join up?

One more thing - read on another board that the memeory can cause problems. Bought some cheap memory that seems to work ok but crahsed the system when trying to change the speed from 8-10ns to Normal or fast. Is that ok or should I have invested in the AMD approved memory?

Eddie

 

[Pederv]

If you want to use the multiplier overclock you will need to connect the L1 bridges on the top of the cpu chip. If you look with a magnifying glass you will be able to see where they were cut with a laser, these are what need to be re-joined. How easy they are to join depends on how good your eyes are and how steady your hands. Some people use mechanical pencils some use conductive pens, the conductive pens have become the more reliable method. Overclocking with the multiplier will probably give you the biggest increase in cpu speed, but the FSB overclock doesn't require the L1 bridges to be joined increases performance of the whole system but can only be taken so far. FSB overclocking is used to supliment the multiplier overclock.
The memory you have will work, you'll just have to slow it down (change CAS to 3, run at 8/10 ns, etc.) when speeding up the rest of your system starts to cause problems. If you had better quality memory you could have pushed the system harder, thus getting better performance.

 

[Pers]

ok...i am a little confused. You guys keep saying that you have to overclock the FSB, but then say to 133 or something like that...BUT the athlon has a 200mhz fsb. Wouldnt that be an underclock? Please explain how this works, THANKS

Do you just decrease the FSB and then increase the multiplyer????

 

[Pederv]

The actual frequency of the Athlon/Duron FSB is 100MHz(until the official release of the newer cpu's). The cpu uses both the rising and falling edges of the clock to trigger data transfer, thus doubling the clock to 200MHz (DDR means Double Data Rate). So the new boards coming out have a 133MHz base frequency, then use DDR to double that to 266MHz.

 

[Pers]

whoa....learned something new...Thanks Pederv

 

[EddieGee]

Thanns again

It sounds tricky - ie.e connecting these bridges - is it worth it to an unskilled techie? Could I trash the processor?

Memory - which brand is best here?

FSB - If the transfer is 200 then the Athlon should be light years ahead of a Pentium - mine is faster but not that much and I am comparing it to an old 400 II.

With the FSB in mind what would the KT7A give you with an old processor - nothing? Your explanation would seem to suggest that - viz you would seem to need a 266 capable Athlon?

Finally - my bloody system keeps freezing on me and going into active sektop recovery. Evemtually I get things to free up but it can take a couple of boots to do it - note it doen't happen every time.

Can I do some diagnostics to trace potential problems?

Eddie

 

[Pederv]

Take a look at this web site:
http://www.icrontic.com/faqs/kt7faq/kt7faq.htm
It's become a popular source for answers when troubleshooting KT7's and KT7A's.
Generally you can expect from 50 to 250MHz more when you overclock. Some people have gotten much more (300 to 500MHz), it's the luck of the draw and a little know-how. If you're just trying to close the gap on the L1 bridges then just remember the following:
1) Use standard ESD practices (ground yourself so you don't zap your processor with static electricity).
2) Be careful removing and replacing your Heat-Sink-Fan, so you don't crack the cpu.
3) Don't forget your thermal compound. You want enough to provide a good path for the heat but not so much where it will run everywhere when it gets warm.
If you make a mistake on the L1 bridges you can use alcohol or fingernail polish remover to clean and try again.
If you take the above precautions your risk of damaging your cpu is greatly reduced.
As for memory, I went local and cheep. I set my bios to push the memory as hard as possible and if the memory I got couldn't handle it I just took it back and got another stick. If you take a look over in the Overclocking forum you can get an idea of what most people are using and you'll be able to see that they are using the 200MHz FSB Athlons at 266MHz or even 280MHz+ FSB.
As far as comparing your new system to the old, remember an 800MHz computer isn't twice as fast as a 400MHz computer. Both systems still use the same speed hard drives, modems, video cards, monitors, etc.

Hope I helped.

 

[EddieGee]

OK thanks - you have helped - I just worry about trashing the processor!

Agree about the 400 - however note I bought a 7200 hd with 100 ata so expected to see it fly - it is better - not sure how much though!!!!

Will take a look at the processor and then come back. Note I am still not convinves totally about the FSB argument. Can the FSB handle the 200 speed pushed out by the CPU - seems like you are trying to push a Ferrari down a dirt track.... Think your point about connection to other devices (including memory) may be the key...

Eddie