A7V133 problems w/ 133 FSB

[acardoso]

Hi there...

I wonder if there are some tweaks (or a website with info), that would allow me to boot up my Asus AV7133 and Tbird 900 at 133 FSB.

With Bios Rev. 1004 I had problems overclocking the motherboard in Jumper Free Mode and Jumper Mode at 133 MHz FSB. At 100 Mhz, I could overclock it and have it post at 950 and 1000 (9.5 x 100 and 10 x 100), but only 950 was semi stable.

Two days ago, I noticed Asus did not have any longer Bios Rev. 1004 listed on their site ... they only had Bios Rev. 1003 and 1003a. I thought they may have discovered something wrong with the 1004 bios, so I flashed the A7V133 with 1003a bios. With this bios, I'm able to overclock with great stability in Jumper Mode to 1000 (10 x 100) at default core voltage (1.7 V), but I still can't seem to get the motherboard to boot up at 133 MHz FSB. I have even underclocked to 865 (133 x 6.5) and had no luck.

Yesterday, I noticed Asus put Bios Rev 1004 back on their website along with 1003a. I wonder if I should flash it back to 1004.

I would love to find out if there is some sort of jumper or setting that allows 133 MHz FSB.

I would appreciate any suggestions...

 

[Dulanic]

1004 is a good BIOS... Ive seen very very few problems with it.

One thing to try is to first try is 7x100 to make sure that the 7X multiplier is working correctly, then if that works set your memory to Cas3... basically turn everything down... then try 7x133. If that doesnt work try 6.5... but always try it at 100 first to make sure that multiplier is even working. I did the same thing before, and it ended up my bridges were wrong.... I could do 7x, 7.5x and 8x but 6.5 wouldnt do a damned thing.

 

[acardoso]

Thanks for the help ....

I did check all the significant multiplier settings and discovered that the ones I needed (7x, 7.5x, 8x and 8.5x) to overclock the 900 Tbird at 133 FSB within its working range (up to 1050 MHz), did not work. The multipliers work for 6x, 6.5x, 9x, 9.5x, 10x and 10.5 ... I have a feeling it has to do with connecting of the L1 bridges and consequent clean up. I used the Radio Shack Circuit Writer silver conductive paste and then used nail polish remover a couple of times to remove thick traces, which worked pretty well. I will try to retrace the bridges on the Tbird 900.

I have a Duron 800 working with the A7V133 at 1 GHz (7.5 x 133) and it works fine in Jumper Mode. In Jumper Free Mode, it worked fine, but everytime I rebooted, the system hang.
The weird thing is that SiSoft Sandra reports AGP Bus running at 88 MHz and PCI Bus at 44 MHz. Right now I'm using an NVidia Vanta video card, since the Leadtek GeForce2 GTS was causing some blue vertical lines and symetrical dots in DOS, Windows and even the Bios Program and it was hanging in Windows98SE. I wonder if that was related,.. but then again it seemed to me like an IRQ conflict of some sort.

Again thanks a lot for the suggestion.

 

[Dulanic]

<< The weird thing is that SiSoft Sandra reports AGP Bus running at 88 MHz and PCI Bus at 44 MHz. >>



Thats a bug in Sandra.

I had the same problem... only 7-8.5 worked... redo the bridges, worked for me.

 

[acardoso]

Thanks again ....

I redid the L1 bridges with silver conductive paste and checked the multipliers at 100 Mhz FSB and I was pleased to find out they all worked. Then I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best at 133 Mhz FSB. Well,... it worked fine at 1 cool Giga (7.5 x 1330, and was all I was aiming for with this Tbird 900.

The only problem I found was in Jumper Free Mode. Once the Bios was set properly, it booted fine to win98. The problem happened when rebooting from win98, at which point it hang. Even though I would've prefered to have the bios in Jumper Free Mode, so far everything is working very stable in Jumper Mode. I have been rebooting from win98 and I have been running Sisoft Sandra Burnin program and so far so good.

 

[Dulanic]

<< The only problem I found was in Jumper Free Mode. Once the Bios was set properly, it booted fine to win98. The problem happened when rebooting from win98, at which point it hang. Even though I would've prefered to have the bios in Jumper Free Mode, so far everything is working very stable in Jumper Mode. I have been rebooting from win98 and I have been running Sisoft Sandra Burnin program and so far so good. >>



What you can do for this is still use jumperless mode.... but set the VCore with the jumpers, you can still do everything thing else jumperless... but the Vcore jumpers will override any Vcore jumperless settings in the BIOS. This should help fix that.