**OFFICIAL** Abit BG7 (i845G) Thread

[mpeg4v2]

Can anyone get the surround sound to work with the add-on card? I've plugged in my front speakers to line-out, my rear to the one marked Rear on the CA-20 (I believe that is what the audio card is called), and I've got my Sigma Realmagic Hollywood Plus audio plugged into the line-in. With the Sound Mixer thing for the audio, when I do 4-speakers, it changed the line-in to Rear-out I believe, but when I do speaker test, it does the proper sound out of each speaker, however, Winamp, and other audio things (like games) won't have ANY sound out of the rear speakers. It's REALLY pissing me off, as the board advertised 5.1 support, and it won't even freaking do 4 correctly, and I've got no money to spend now on a sound card.

 

[MeCalvin]

I have my rig BG7, 1.6A and Corsair XMS PC2700 running fine at 2.13 at stock voltage.

Then I tried to run America's Army Op Recon and it crashed right after the splash screen.

I tried up the CPU voltage to +5% and the RAM voltage to 2.7V. Those did not work.

The game will only run after I wounded down to 2.0.

Only thing left is to put some AS3 onto the northbridge. You pros think that would help ?

Would be curious to have someone out there with a stable OC rig to try America's Army game.

The game rocks and it's free. And now I guess it would be a good indication of your rig's staibility.

Best to download from NVidia.

 

[5150Joker]

Originally posted by: MeCalvin
I have my rig BG7, 1.6A and Corsair XMS PC2700 running fine at 2.13 at stock voltage.

Then I tried to run America's Army Op Recon and it crashed right after the splash screen.

I tried up the CPU voltage to +5% and the RAM voltage to 2.7V. Those did not work.

The game will only run after I wounded down to 2.0.

Only thing left is to put some AS3 onto the northbridge. You pros think that would help ?

Would be curious to have someone out there with a stable OC rig to try America's Army game.

The game rocks and it's free. And now I guess it would be a good indication of your rig's staibility.

Best to download from NVidia.

I've been playing america's army for a few days at 2.5 ghz and it's rock solid. It could be that you just ended up with a bum cpu or ram Also, check your 12v/5v lines and make sure they are ok.

 

[5150Joker]

Originally posted by: 5150Joker

Originally posted by: MeCalvin
I have my rig BG7, 1.6A and Corsair XMS PC2700 running fine at 2.13 at stock voltage.

Then I tried to run America's Army Op Recon and it crashed right after the splash screen.

I tried up the CPU voltage to +5% and the RAM voltage to 2.7V. Those did not work.

The game will only run after I wounded down to 2.0.

Only thing left is to put some AS3 onto the northbridge. You pros think that would help ?

Would be curious to have someone out there with a stable OC rig to try America's Army game.

The game rocks and it's free. And now I guess it would be a good indication of your rig's staibility.

Best to download from NVidia.

I've been playing america's army for a few days at 2.5 ghz and it's rock solid. It could be that you just ended up with a bum cpu or ram Also, check your 12v/3v lines and make sure they are ok.

 

[crapito]

MeCalvin: was your setup "Prime95 Torture Test" stable when running @ 2.13 w/stock voltage? IMHO, getting a setup Prime95 Torture Test stable for 12+ hours is really the only way I'd call a system "stable". throw in some 3DMark2001 loops too, just to be sure...

 

[easystreet]

MC...try more voltage to CPU and memory.
What mem ratio?

 

[MeCalvin]

You guys are top.....
Thanks for trying to help so quickly....

Anyway, I guess my +12V line and +5V should be above their rated values right ?
Well did check in Winbond and my Enermax is delivering (by recollection, not in front of the rig right now) 12.05 and 5.06.
But certainly over their rated values.

So will try to bump voltage to +10% and RAM to 2.7V or 2.8V tonight.

Bum though because I pretty much have the same rig as everybody, just different RAM, being Corsair and not Samsung.

Will try Prime95 as stability test tonight. What temp is OK for CPU while running Prime95 ?

Thanks

 

[MeCalvin]

Mem ratio 3:4.

AGP apeture 128MB
Ram setting By SPD 2/3/3/6
Stock HS
AS3 on HS
LianLiPC65 case
At 2.0Ghz, 42C idle, 48C running America Army.
Any higher system boot OK, but game crashed.

Radeon 8500 64MB
Corsair XMS2700
Enermax 365VPE PSU


I will try Mem ratio 4:5 tonight, and some other setting. Will use Prime95, but if this game does not work, isn't that already
saying something about OC instability.

If only I have some Samsung to try.

 

[5150Joker]

Originally posted by: MeCalvin
Mem ratio 3:4.

AGP apeture 128MB
Ram setting By SPD 2/3/3/6
Stock HS
AS3 on HS
LianLiPC65 case
At 2.0Ghz, 42C idle, 48C running America Army.
Any higher system boot OK, but game crashed.

Radeon 8500 64MB
Corsair XMS2700
Enermax 365VPE PSU


I will try Mem ratio 4:5 tonight, and some other setting. Will use Prime95, but if this game does not work, isn't that already
saying something about OC instability.

If only I have some Samsung to try.

Change your ram timing to 2-3-3-7 and up your vcore to 15% and ram to 2.8v. From there get the highest fsb you can with h/w strap set to high and mem ratio set to spd. Run prime 95 and 3dmark for a few hours and if it holds then lower your vcore/ram settings until you achieve optimal stability.

 

[MeCalvin]

Yeah !!!!!!
some progress.

Silly me not to think of this until someone suggested it : put the H/W strap on HIGH and set the RAM ratio to 4:5.

America Army is running fine at 133 (2.13Ghz).

Stock voltages.

I read somewhere over Anandtech that 3:4 ratio upsets the AGP bus speed. Not sure if this is causing me angst.

Ran 3DMark in loops, OK so far. Cannot believe how nice the demo loops in 3DMArk look. If you have not try it, definitely should.

Will try Prime95 tonight.

Question 1: Not being able to do 3:4 ratio at 133 points to the fact that my Corsair RAM is not as good as Samsung RAM ?

Question 2: At 2.13Ghz is 45C idle and 53C running 3DMark safe temperatures ?

Question 3: What's better, faster CPU or faster memory ? P4 is suppose to be memory bandwith hungry.

Thanks again for all your help guys.

 

[snoopyb0y]

This is my setup:

2.0a Northwood (made in philippines), Abit BG7, Corsair XMS 3000 Cas 2 1stick 512mb ddr
Quantum U160 scsi 18gig HD, Adaptec 29160 scsi host adapter
onboard video/sound/NIC - all locked at 33mhz

I want to know if onboard video/sound/NIC will restrict me from overclocking.
It seems i can overclock to 127fsb = 2.55 mhz being stable in everything except when
i run 3D mark 2002 SE the screen gets all burred and funny ? Is my onboard video holding
me back?

Will some experienced overclocker please shed some wisdom and advice!

 

[MeCalvin]

SnoopyBoy,
like the pros said, check the RAM ratio. Start at the lowest RAM speed and work your way up.

 

[easystreet]

Has anyone found an overclocking advantage using a particular memory slot on the BG7?

 

[pay]

Has anyone tried overclocking with Crucial PC2100 ram? I want to buy a BG7 and a 1.6A but dont want to spend the extra money for PC2700 because I already have a bunch of 2100. Anyone?

Thanks

 

[therudyq3]

Just got my BG7 today..with my p4 1.8aand samsung pc2700 512MG from newegg....i set the following

DRAM Timing selectable By SPD

upon booting for the first time...the bios said ddr266.hhmm i thought it should be ddr333...

this is the supposedly true samsung pc2700..well i have to proceed with installation o the OS and will do more checking...

if anyone have a tip ...please let me know for i'm not an expert as some here like Joker...help!!!!!!!!!

 

[Johnnychangs]

I've had good luck using the 4:5 CPU/DRAM ratio on my BG7. The 3:4 ratio, on the other hand, gives me serious problems.

MeCalvin - I've tried a 256MB stick of Mushkin PC3200 and am currently using a 512MB stick of Corsair PC3200. With both sticks, I had the same issue with the 3:4 ratio being unstable.

Right now, I'm running my BG7 and Corsair PC3200 at 140FSB, 4:5 ratio, Dram H/W Strap at HIGH, Default Vcore and 2.6Vmem. I think my memory timings are at SPD. Sandra 2002 memory benchmark is roughly 2700/2600.

I had an Abit BD7II before this BG7. I RMA'd it because voltage readings were all wacky, even after tweaking the POTs on my Antec PSU. Although I couldn't clock it super high, I could run the 3:4 ratio on it, and it would nly be stable when the DRAM H/W Strap setting was at HIGH. I've emailed ABIT support asking them to release a BG7 Bios that has the High DRAM H/W Strap setting available for the 3:4 ratio. No word from them yet after a week or so.

If anyone is familiar with Bios Modding utilities, any work on enabling this feature would be awesome.

Again, I don't know if my board and possibly MeCalvin's board are from the same batch, which may have issues with the 3:4 ratio. I got mine from Newegg in mid June. Right now I'm happy with the settings I'm using. I can't push it much more until it starts to cool down outside, since I have no air conditioning in my apartment. On hot 90F+ days my CPU temp under heavy load is roughly 62C.

Anyway, long post...thanks to everyone contributing to this thread...keep the posts coming!

 

[MeCalvin]

JohnnyChang,
sorry to hear that you have the same problem as me.

But your temp is sure higher than mine under heavy load. My load is from running 3DMark for 9 loops, and
it hovered around 55C. It is done at night though, and I have AS3 on my HS.

Back to the RAM problem, sux hey !!!!

I am having luck at running America Army at 150FSB and 1:1 RAM ratio.
The game crashed at 4:5 regardless of RAM voltage.
The game starts OK at By SPD RAM setting but then later crash. Wonder what is the real ratio at BySPD though ?

Will try BySPD and boost up RAM voltage tonight. Read several places that my XMS2700 (DDR333) can definitely go DDR400, so what
the heck is holding it back ??????

Though come to think of it, I'm still using one game America Army to determine the stability of my system. I'll try Prime95 and
3DMark instead. The game could be picky somehow.

Great learning experience though. My first build and my first REAL OC attempt. Will never be ripped off again by unscrupulous computer builders. Do my own from now on. Yeehahhhhhh !!!!!

Questions to the pros:

1.What is better, faster CPU or faster RAM ?

2.If the system's stability changes with RAM ratios, is the RAM then the culprit, or you still have to tackle the CPU,MOBO and their settings
to find the right balance ?

Asked these questions before, nobody answers. Come on pros......plz.....

 

[zzzz]

Originally posted by: therudyq3
Just got my BG7 today..with my p4 1.8aand samsung pc2700 512MG from newegg....i set the following

DRAM Timing selectable By SPD

upon booting for the first time...the bios said ddr266.hhmm i thought it should be ddr333...

this is the supposedly true samsung pc2700..well i have to proceed with installation o the OS and will do more checking...

if anyone have a tip ...please let me know for i'm not an expert as some here like Joker...help!!!!!!!!!

The default fsb is 100 and BG7 will run the ram at 3:4 ratio to be at 133, effectively DDR266.
If you want DDR333 or more speeds you should overclock. e.g fsb at 133 and 3:4 ratio should give you DDR354.

 

[therudyq3]

zzzzzzz sorry for being such a noob.... but are you saying that my memory is fine? and that it's doing what it suppose to? I thouhgt by spd simply allows the system to read the onboard info of the memory chip and trigure ddr333 reading...


" you want DDR333 or more speeds you should overclock. e.g fsb at 133 and 3:4 ratio should give you DDR354"

so effectively i have to overclock my memory to ddr333 after having ddr33 chips? pease explain..you said the defaul fsb is 100...as in my cpu default fsb? (18 X 100) or the fsb of the memory chips?

i feel slow new to this...

 

[Rythan]

You'll have to tell the BG7 to run your memory at DDR333... when you tell it to pick the speed by SPD, it usually is conservative (though this is not necessarily the case when overclocking). It's usually best to force it to what you want.

In any case, DDR333 isn't officially supported, so like zzzz said, yes, you'll have to overclock your CPU if you want to get to DDR333 speeds. To get to exactly DDR333, you need to run the FSB at 133, and have the memory ratio at 4:5, giving you a memory clock of 166 = DDR333. This of course assumes your CPU can go that fast.

I believe the SIS chipsets let you use a 4:6 ratio to get to DDR333 with an FSB of 100.

 

[therudyq3]

thanks for replying...i got problems .. my previous MB was the asus P4S533...i was able to run this p4 1.8a up to 2.7 on spd... at 1.65V
but it had problems so I rma the board and got this BG7.

WELL RIHGT NOW I'M HAVING PROBLEM RUNNING 1800 WITH RADEON8500

what sequence of installion of drivers should I be running and where are the files? currently i can't finish 1 cycle of 3dmark2001..it froze...my setup is
p4 1.8a
BG7
pc2700 samsung original 512 MB
radeon 8500 64MB
win XP pro
radeon driver 6-13-10-6094-efg should be the catalyst driver

I read a post here from Johnnychangs and downloaded all those drivers for win XP...here's what i did and the sequence:

installed intel ICH4 chipset
intel application accelerator
USB 2.0 driver
UB 2.0 support multi lang QFE
radeon win xp display driver

3dmark2001 at this point won't finish 1 cycle...
so i tried to install the VGA driver from the CD and it won't install...I assume this is not an AGP drivre like that on the asus p4s533 MB

please tell me what to do ...what to install and what sequence..i'm frustrating here....lol

help help help...thx

 

[snoopyb0y]

guys help!!

I am having serious overclocking problems with this BG7 board. I have tried to overclock my 2.0A and a 1.8A but can't seem to get anywhere past stock fsb !!?? I have Corsair XMS 3000 Cas 2 1 stick of 512MB. I am wondering if its because of the bios version on the board? I have not updated my bios and haven't installed the USB 2.0 driver since Abit hasn't put it up on their site yet. What bios ver are you BG7 overclockers running ? Also what is the higest stable speed you 1.8A and 2.0A guys have reached ?

snoopyb0y
ICQ:18489867

 

[therudyq3]

i can't run 3dmark2001 even at stock speed. it freezes after the first test....

what BIOS do i need and where can i get it?

i saw on abit website the test pages they did...for radeon 8500 something like ....they used bios 7004 and driver 6043...

i have the 6043 driver ...but not thebios 7004

will mr. natural bios here hepl my problem? and where can i get it for BG7

thanks

 

[tyoung88]

Weird that so many of the new people who got BG-7's are having such a hard OC Time...

I have posted for about 2 weeks regarding this board so I wanted to give an update.

Apparently there may be some sort of "burn in" period because when I first setup my rig @ 2.4ghz and 376mhz DDR with the following settings

FSB: 150mhz
Memory: HIGH, 4:5

At first 2 weeks ago I could only run Prime for an hour and then it would always fail. Well I decided to try again today and it's been runing for almost 5 hours now. So I guess I can consider my rig fully stable now???

Still can't come even close to 400DDR tho. I have Samsung DLT so I guess the word is that it may not be possible, also I'm hearing that a lot of people are having problems with the 3:4 setting at 150mhz fsb.

For those of you new guys with this board. I'm using an older ATI Radeon AIW with the Catalyst Drivers from June 13. Installed the newest Intel INF and everything seems to be fine. As far as I know there is no bios update for the BG-7 so far.

 

[therudyq3]

TYoung88 and Joker or any OC pro here...perhaps you all can tell us EXACTLY what setting in your BIOS ....so that we NEWBIES can replicate and have some sort of success...i mean down to detail..

My problems with my Radeon may be due to drive issues...i'm not sure

My experience with the aus P4s533 was not very good because of the secondary ide issues...but i found that the asus BIOS interface was much simpler to tweak and easy to OC...I was able to OC my current cpu to 2.7 at 1.65V..here on the abit BIOS..how do u specificly specify a certain voltage for the cpu?

The new P4B533-V from asus also has pci/agp lock and AGP voltage control.....hmmm i should have gon for that MB instead...

Thanks for all your help