what board besides this ka7? Suggestions please?

[filmore crashcart]

I'm throwing in the towel with this ka7 (had for 2 months).... have tried all the current bios with the latest ry installed. I'm fed up trying to get reasonable performance out of my ram (tried first 1 stick of Mushkin 256 "athlon tested" pc 133 -the ones with the winbond chips, and now using (2) 128 meg chips of Mushkin revision 2 hp 133) and cannot get Sissoft benches out of the upper 300's for both numbers - that is with everything tricked to the max. The winbond chips ran faster than the Rev. 2 stuff. Neither ram will run at cas 2 with Fsb+Host. I've re-installed Win98 at least 15 times because of registry corruption when trying to run at cas 2. On top of all this is the Via drivers that will not install properly and the boot problem with the Geforce ll gts. I've tried all fixes and configuration - and yes - I can get the board to run stable but only with mediocre performance.
I'm tired of trying.... What is a good - STABLE - NON VIA, athlon board to go to that is a good performer with some future to it (upgrade wise) that will run:
K7 700 with afterburner
750a Supermicro case with 300w sparkle supply
20.5 gig WD ata66 7.5
(2) pc 133 Mushkin HP Rev. 2
Encore Dxr3 Decoder and DVD
SB Live Value
Hercules GeForce ll GTS 32 meg
Creative IDE cdrw
external usb dsl modem
I want to hear of your personal experience with a good board. Thanks

 

[AL77]

Unfortunately, the only non-Via based motherboards out there right now are based on the dated AMD 750 chipset, which in many cases has poorer performance than the Via KX133 chipset your motherboard employs. The best solution is just another Via based board. Give one of the newer Via KT133 boards a try (e.g. the Asus A7V, Asus boards consistently get good reviews).

Edit: the KT133 has support for the AMD Duron/Thunderbird chips, so this gives you future upgradability.

 

[dakost]

Weren't all the KT133 boars supposed to be socket A boards ?

 

[filmore crashcart]

Your of course right. I imagine the smart thing for me to do is to hold back and leave this board alone while it is running stable and reasonably fast..... I mean it's not like I'm not getting low bench marks for Q3 at high resolutions..... and hold off on buying anything for a few months to see how all this pans out. I just have to stay away from Sissoft Sandra and stop worrying about memory scores and HD benchmarks. I know alot of people have been very happy with this board but, for me, from day one I had nothing but problems everytime I set foot in the bios. I will wait for the KT 133's to stay out on the market for awhile and see how people are responding to them. If nothing else, I can start looking seriously at Intel again.

 

[Technonut]

What exactly are your Soft Menu, and memory settings? The only Via drivers that are necessary to install with Win98SE are the AGP. I have setup many Via chipset boards, and all are very stable just with the AGP driver. If you want a hand in getting your KA7 straightened out, post all of your Soft Menu settings, and complete memory settings. My Sandra memory scores are 444/505 at CAS3, and hard drive benchmarks are over 15000. You should be able to get similar performance.

 

[filmore crashcart]

Technonut-
Here are the specs using k7 700 @ 750 with afterburner (will get do 800 but leads to errors, did 800 with no problems in my old MSI 6167)and (2) 128 megs of Mushkin HP Rev.2 and 300w sparkle PS with win98 first edition.
Bios are the ry - most stable by far.
In Softmenu:
CPU = user define - x7.5
Cpu FSB Plus (mHz) - 0 (if a value given here - will not post and corrupt the registry leading to re-format) Didn't do this with one stick of 256 mushkin pc 133 winbond chip.)
CPU Power: Core 1.65
I/O 3.30 (will not post if raised)
Fast CPU Command Decode: Normal
All other CPU settings are at default
Dram Clock: HCLK+PCICLK
Auto Detect Dimm/PCI CLK: Enabled
Spread Spectrum Modulated: Disabled

In Advance Chipset
Bank 0/1 Dram Timing: Turbo
Dram Bank Interleave: 4-way
Delay Dram Read Latch: No Delay
MD Driving Strength: Hi
Sdram Cycle Length: 3
Memory Hole: Disabled
P2C/C2P Concurrency: Disabled
Fast R-W Turn Around: Enabled
AGP Texture: 256
AGP - 4x mode Enabled
Fast Write Supported: Supported
K7 CLK_ctl Select: Optimal

Sissoft Sandra 2000 Memory benchmarks:
CPU/Memory Bandwidth: 353 MB/S
FPU/Memory Bandwidth: 410 MB/S

If you can spot any problems with my settings - please let me know as I am at my wit's end with this!
Thanks for your attention.

Oh, forgot to mention... I only installed the via agp 4.03 and irq routing. I had problems with instability when I tried to install the 4.22 BM drivers. They would never install anyway. I tried to install the USB patch 1.08 and found that it was another "no install" wonder patch from VIA.

 

[Technonut]

Well, your memory scores are not bad for not having the FSB bumped up. If you raise the voltage to 1.70-1.85, starting at 1.70 and bumping it up a notch at a time, you should be able to increase the FSB. I have a Few Athlons, from 500's to 700's, and have been able to.

Your BIOS settings look good, The only thing that I could suggest if you want better memory performance, is to try to raise the voltage and FSB. You should be able to hit 800MHz without dropping the cache to 2/5 if you raise the voltage. You may want to look into getting a copy of Partition Magic and Ghost, and making a Ghost image of your C drive, and putting it on another partition in case you need to restore it. Try these BIOS settings:

CPU = user define - x7.5
Cpu FSB/PCI clock - 103
CPU FSB+ - 2
CPU Power: Core 1.75
I/O 3.30
Fast CPU Command Decode: Normal
CPU L2 Cache ID try it at 1/2 cache, drop to 2/5 if you have problems.
CPU Pull up strength AUTO
CPU Drive Strength AUTO
Dram Clock: HCLK+PCICLK
Auto Detect Dimm/PCI CLK: Disabled
Spread Spectrum Modulated: Disabled

In Advance Chipset
All Bank Timing Turbo
Dram Bank Interleave: 4-way
Delay Dram Read Latch: AUTO
MD Driving Strength: Hi
Sdram Cycle Length: 3
Memory Hole: Disabled
P2C/C2P Concurrency: Disabled
Fast R-W Turn Around: Enabled
AGP Texture: 256
AGP - 4x mode Enabled
Fast Write Supported: Supported
K7 CLK_ctl Select: Optimal

EDIT: I have 256MB of RAM, and have my AGP Aperture set at 128M. I tried 256, but 128 is the standard setting of 1/2 the amount of RAM that you have, and worked better with my DDR GeForce.

I usually run either a Maximizer or a Afterburner (The Afterburner at the moment) I think the key is balance between the FSB and FSB+ settings, along with the voltage. Find a way to backup and be able to restore Windows, and give it a try. My settings are split to 105/35MHz, and CPU FSB+ at 6. The voltage is at 1.75.

 

[filmore crashcart]

Thanks for your reply Technonut... I think your advice about mirroring the C: drive is the best I've gotten so far. I do have windows on a 1.5 gig partition now and everything else on D:/.
I think your probably right about the balance between FSB, FSB +, and voltage. That could be alot of my problem when I try to raise the stakes any further than I have now. I went through 2 days of hell with this board when I first got it because I didn't realize that you had to go into the bios and raise the vcore to 1.8 before you could attach the afterburner or it wouldn't boot.
I do find it interesting that, even though it is better ram, going from one stick of 256 pc133 to two sticks of 128 pc133 caused me more instability problems.
I will try your suggestions out and see what happens. Thanks!

 

[Insane3D]

Yeah, something is wrong...bad board maybe? I am using Generic
PC-100 at Cas2/Turbo/4-way/No Delay and I get like 383/415 in Sandra. I have the KA7-100, but it is the same board, it just has the Highpoint chip and two more IDE headers. I am only running at host clk though...

 

[filmore crashcart]

Insane3D-
yeah, I wondering that myself.... unless I got bad memory from Muskin which seems highly unlikey.
Sisoft lists the 2 ram sticks as being 128MB 16x(8Mx8)SDRAM CL3 PCI 133U-333-542... does that sound right? Isn't the last number what indicates its cas value?

 

[Insane3D]

Actually the "CL3" means it is Cas latency "3". If you have the Mosel Rev2 memory, that does not sound right. You may have received a stick of the "budget" ram by mistake. The Mosel Rev2 is Cas 2 rated and should handle a FSB of up to 150mhz...I would call Mushkin and read the numbers off your stick to them and see if it is the right stuff. They may have put the wrong label on that stick or something...

 

[filmore crashcart]

I pulled a stick out and copied down the numbers on the chip. Mushkin answered their phone right away and, after reading the numbers to the rep at the other end, she verified that they were indeed Mosel Rev. 2.
She then suggested I try each stick seperately to see if one, and not the other, would run at Cas 2. She also said that they would be identified by any program as Cas 3 because that is what their rated at.
Very helpful people, I can't imagine getting memory from anyone else. She told me that if I had any problem with any of the chips to call back and they would send a replacement.
I'm pretty much convinced that this board has a problem with running 2 dimm slots instead of one. I had problems with it from day one in maintaining stability when I try to push it some. It would run the Winbond chip (single 256) to 140 mHz if I kept the speed at medium. Even so, the Winbond chip would give much higher memory scores than the current (2) sticks of 128 set at turbo.
Beats me.

 

[Insane3D]

I am interested to see how it turns out as I am planning on geting some of that same memory soon. Let me know...