Abit KV7 owners, overclocking Athlon:Help me!

Mats · Post by **Mats** » Mon Jun 21, 2004 8:59 am

I'm about to buy a new motherboard and I will probably buy an Abit KV7. I know that NF7-S and AN7 have more features but they cost more, and I'm more into underclocking and undervolting. Since my 2500+ goes up to 2442 MHz @ 1.64 V with my old Asus A7V600-X, I'm quite happy with that. Unfortunately ,undervolting is impossible with my old card (of couse, it's an Asus).

Questions:

1. Abit KV7 owners, what do you thik about this card? Give me your opinion!

2. My CPU is a newer multiplier-locked one. As I have understand it, there's no way to change the multiplier with an nforce card such as the NF7-S and AN7, only the FSB. Am I right?

3. When overclocking the Athlon XP, I can get 11x222 @ 1.64 V, but with 11x223 I need 1.9 V!!? I think that the voltage is too much for 11 MHz rise. What do you say about this? What is the max FSB you can reach stable with standad 1.65 V and air cooling?

Thanks!

trodas · Post by **trodas** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 7:27 am

1. - did not have, can't comment. From the older Abit mobos, I got a good experience with Abit KD7-G

5-bit multipler change, worked like charm for 166x15 (2500!) with my mobile Barton 2500+ at 1.850Vcore. Nice one, tought oldie and the VIA chipset, well, errr, ehmmm... No power expectations, please.

2. - yes, taht is true. Go for mobile Barton, for free multiplicator.

3. - every CPUs have their limits. As you getting more and more close to the "thin red line", you need more and more voltage and the voltage rise in the last steps are pretty exponential one

You simply observed normal thing, the nature of overclocking

I think the 11Mhz is not worth the heavy overvolting and you should consider yourself lucky, mine mobile Barton 2500+ need 1.850Vcore to get to 2560Mhz, so...

(of course the congratulations are valid only if yours can run prime95 for more that 2 hours at the 1.64V and 2442Mhz

)

For me, it looked this way for 2560Mhz:
1.800Vcore - booting to win, prime95 crashiing kinda soon
1.825Vcore - prime95 not crashing, but sum errors at end of each step
1.850Vcore - prime95 priming stable

Kalel83 · Post by **Kalel83** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 11:45 pm

don't buy this board. read the fourm for abit on this motherboard, so many problems. they have realy trouble with memory timing on this board.. if you don't have the perfect memory, parts, psu, it won't work. mine's been a bitch to set up, i had to set my 400mhz memory to 266 or else all mp3/divx will instantly crash my computer,. ohh yea alot of people also say they have problems with 2500+ as well, but not the 2600+,
my two cents, i'd buy something with nforce2, pay the extra 30-40 bucks for something world-renowned... or i'll trade ya, you can have mine

as for after the drama, the board is very stable. i leave it on for weeks at a time with emule cluggin away. go through the reviews, i've heard good sucsess with overclocking

they say there will be a KV7-2 soon, perhaps that's is your ticket (just get something with nvidias chipset and save the trouble).

Mats · Post by **Mats** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 5:50 am

Thanks for your replies!

trodas wrote:You simply observed normal thing, the nature of overclocking :P I think the 11Mhz is not worth the heavy overvolting and you should consider yourself lucky, mine mobile Barton 2500+ need 1.850Vcore to get to 2560Mhz, so... :wink:

Yes, I know. But I think that the needed voltage increase for those 11 MHz is strange. Going from 1.64 V to 1.90 V for just 1 MHz FSB step? I really hope it's because of my motherboard.
Shouldn't it be more like:

FSB 222 @ 1.64 V
FSB 224 @ 1.80 V
FSB 226 @ 1.90 V

I hope you get my point.

trodas wrote:(of course the congratulations are valid only if yours can run prime95 for more that 2 hours at the 1.64V and 2442Mhz :!: )

Thanks, I've done it for several hours, no problems at all.

Kalel83 wrote:don't buy this board. read the fourm for abit on this motherboard, so many problems. they have realy trouble with memory timing on this board.. if you don't have the perfect memory, parts, psu, it won't work. mine's been a bitch to set up, i had to set my 400mhz memory to 266 or else all mp3/divx will instantly crash my computer,. ohh yea alot of people also say they have problems with 2500+ as well, but not the 2600+,
my two cents, i'd buy something with nforce2, pay the extra 30-40 bucks for something world-renowned... or i'll trade ya, you can have mine

as for after the drama, the board is very stable. i leave it on for weeks at a time with emule cluggin away. go through the reviews, i've heard good sucsess with overclocking

they say there will be a KV7-2 soon, perhaps that's is your ticket (just get something with nvidias chipset and save the trouble).

The reviews I've seen looked promising. I got really worried when I read your reply, and started searching the Abit forums. At first, it didn't look good at all. People have had problems, but they still like the card, just like you.
So I checked the supported components for KV7. YES! My Twinmos memory is listed (identical model number), The 300 W Aopen/Fortron/Whatever is there too, and I got the 350 W model.
So what about the CPU? As far as I know, the 2500+ problem only happens with certain older BIOS.

The first signs of the KV7-II came around last christmas, with pics and all. But then nothing, six months has passed. VIA is probably the reason, haven't seen any of these chipsets at all. I think it will take at least two months before I can get a KV7-II in Sweden.

Right now it's between KV7 and AN7. The AN7 got a lot of things I don't need, and the price difference here is $40.

I just keep on searching for more info.....

Mats · Post by **Mats** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 6:06 am

Kalel83

Questions:

1. Which BIOS are you running?

2. What is the lowest voltage you can choose in BIOS?

3. What do you say about the integrated sound? I'm wondering if you get interfering noises when moving the pointer or a window. You can only hear them when amplifying the signal quite much. I know that integrated sound is not the best when it comes to quality, but I'm sure that there are better motherboards than my Asus A7V600-X. It makes a lot of strange noises when moving the mouse, sounds like a mosquito. So I'm not talking about the sound quality, I'm talking about disturbing noises.

Thanks for your help!

Kalel83 · Post by **Kalel83** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 8:48 pm

For lowest voltage, i'm not sure. Never tried.

I'm running bios 14, others had sucess with 15,but mine started crashing again when i upgraded the bios, and yes i cleared cmos, took out the battery and let it chill for a few minutes, then went back in and loaded fail safe, then optomized (i read somehwere in that fourm that this was the proper way to do it, after you flash your bios) keep in mind i have memory they don't support,, i think that's why bios 15 started crashing. they changed memory timings in it..

As for onboard sound, it was really good, i used the digital out and it was perfect. i went back to my audigy becuase i wanted hardware eax, also the motherboard only has one cd audio in, and i have two cdrom drives (wanted digital for dvd). as for moving the mouse and hearing noise, i didn't experience anything like that. just make sure you use updated drivers for everything, the ones on the cd they provide are all outdated. if you don't have a sound card the onboard will perform just dandy.