Abit kt7a and Athlon XP/Bartons

[austin86]

Hay guys. I been looking at getting a kt7a to put into my retro gaming PC. I was going to use it briefly to bench older AGP v1 3.3v cards I have then swap the board out.

I been doing some reading and I'm finding hit or miss info on its support for Athlon XPs and Bartons. From what I found the rev 1.3v of the board supports both Bartons and other XPs, but I'm seeing hit or miss info on v1~1.2 boards.

Does anyone know is rev 1 through 1.2 supports and XPs or Bartons?

Thanks !

EDIT:

What about the kt7e too?

[Mr.Scott]

Motherboard: Abit KT7A
I chose the Abit KT7A for its one ISA slot. It was updated to the latest BIOS (no longer available on abit.ws but still mirrored in a number of places). The VIA 686B is supposed to have a bug with PCI latency but I haven't felt it so far, presumably because I don't use a PCI sound card. Also I suppose the latest BIOS has a workaround, as well as Windows XP SP3 (on the other hand, Windows 98 SE needs the VIA 4in1 4.43 driver to get the fix).

There's a lot of people who want to know whether a 1.3 revision KT7A is required for Barton. No, it is not, as long as you do the following: 1) modify the BIOS to accommodate them, 2) solder the pins on the bottom for the multiplier and FSB (I used 16x133 = 2133Mhz), 3) Find a CPU with an unlocked multiplier (datecode <0338 or so). I am using a 1.1 revision, and it's perfectly fine.

after recapping, the KT7A-RAID is back to working with up to 512 MB of memory without issues. More than 512 MB memory leads to errors in memtest86. This is a problem specific to this motherboard as another one will work without issues with 1.5 GB under XP or Linux. I also recapped a third, badly damaged KT7A but did not regain full usability - see /viewtopic.php?p=818073#p818073

I also re-capped my board, I do not have these issues.

CPU: Athlon XP-M "Barton" 2500+ (AXMH2500FQQ4C) […]
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Here's what I have to say about the AXMH Bartons... I started off with an unlocked AXDA2800DKV4D (ordinary Barton), and that variant is supposed to run at 2083MHZ (12.5 x 166). Now that would have been nice and fine if this was an AXDA2800DKV4C, which runs at 16x133 by default, but that particular model is rare and expensive. The problem is that the more commonly available (and not to mention affordable) D variants run at a 166Mhz FSB, which requires a DDR-based Athlon XP board (read: no ISA slot), because for one, I don't know that the KT133A does 166Mhz (it probably does), but more importantly, you would need SDRAM that also ran at that speed . So unless you use an unlocked D variant (and mod the pins on the board), your only other options are to somehow find a rare C variant, or underclock your locked D variant, which in the case of the AXDA2800DKV4D would result in a 1667Mhz clock. So I I ran it at 16x133 (2133Mhz), and that is a slight 50Mhz or so overclock (the AXDA2800DKV4D runs at 12.5x166 which as was stated gives 2083Mhz) and that slight overclock required a 100 millivolt boost (1.75V as opposed to the default 1.65V).

So that's why I acquired an AXMH2400, and it is stable at 2133 (16x133), albeit at 1.55V... So that's only 100 millivolts less than what the AXDA2800KV4D runs at at the default clock (or 200mv less if you mod the board to run the AXDA2800KV4D at 2133Mhz). So don't break the bank trying to find one of these mobile chips. It's not worth it. If you're going to use a Barton chip, get the desktop model and mod your socket pins, but unless you plan on significantly underclocking it, use a substantial heatsink. Running Prime95 version 28, even my mobile Barton reaches 45C and more at 2.1Ghz.

Regarding whether the speed is necessary - I think it is. There are situations where a memory bottleneck will not always bottleneck the CPU.

GPU: 3dfx Voodoo 3 2000 PCI
GPU: GeForce4 Ti 4200 AGP

That's something that's unique to each individual. A Ti 4200 is nice, so is a Voodoo3 PCI, and I might put my Banshee PCI in this system, because I don't have a Voodoo PCI and I would like something for Glide, but as for the primary GPU, I'm still debating whether something like a GeForce 2 GTS would be preferable to a Ti 4200 simply because some older games require early nVidia driver versions which don't support the Ti 4200... So that might be an excuse for perhaps yet another build that has such a GPU, and perhaps like you advise, a Ti 4200 or similar in this one.

Sound card: Sound Blaster 16 CT2290 Sound card: ESS AudioDrive ES1868F Sound card: OPL3LPT Sound card: BLASTERBOARD 2.0 […]
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I initially opted for a an SB Audigy 2 + ES1869, but changed my mind and acquired an Aureal Vortex 2. The Vortex 2 should provide a better experience, based on what I read. For Wavetable, anything should do for General MIDI to avoid relying on FM synth in DOS.

Storage: Samsung 860 EVO (250 GB) mSATA SSD + Marvell 88SA8052
Storage: SI3114 with Samsung 850 EVO (250 GB) SATA SSD

I spent a lot of time researching the best storage solution. I came to the conclusion that an Ultra 133 TX2 + JMicron Sata to IDE adapter is the ideal solution. Contrary to popular belief, Intel ICH is not fully compatible with the IDE to SATA adapters, at least not with my Intel SSD 530. I tried this with both PIIX4 and ICH2. The main symptom was weird delays during simple write operations in DOS (saving a text file or making a new directory)... Early revisions of the JMicron adapters won't do more than ATA33, so be aware. The Ultra133 TX2 cards need to be re-capped. Once you get everything set up correctly, you won't have to settle for mechanical drives anymore, and TRIM can be run with this setup from DOS on occasion.

Storage: NEC IDE DVD ND-4570A / ND-4571A

I went with the identical model... The foam on the faceplate should be removed and cleaned because it will have disintegrate by this point and turned to a gooey brown substance.

Storage: Gotek with HxC2001 and FlashFloppy

For floppies I wanted the real thing. 1 x 1.2MB, 1 x 720KB, 1 x ZIP 250, 1 x LS120...

Miscellaneous PCI card: 3Com 3C509B / NEC USB 2.0

How are you going to use the 3C509B concurrently with the SB16 with only one ISA slot? I opted for a 3C905 (PCI), and I simply removed the PLCC EEPROM with a hot air gun.

Anyways, I have a lot more work to do... I'm still waiting for parts to arrive, and this has been a long work in progress... But as long as everything works properly in the end, this system is seeming like what I'll be settling on.

[austin86]

So all I need is a unlocked Barton, a bios mod and solder the pins on the bottom for the multiplier and FSB. Seems rather straight forward !
Thanks !!!

[Mr.Scott]

Probably don't even need bios mod. It will just read as unknown cpu.

[austin86]

Question about the pin mod, do I need to remove the pin or just short them?

[Mr.Scott]

Short them.

[austin86]

Jan 25, 2024 17:28:54 GMT -5 Mr.Scott said:

Short them.

Thanks !

[cbjaust]

use thin copper wire, see here if you haven't already seen this: www.ocinside.de/workshop_en/amd_pinmod

[austin86]

Jan 29, 2024 21:59:54 GMT -5 cbjaust said:

use thin copper wire, see here if you haven't already seen this: www.ocinside.de/workshop_en/amd_pinmod

I saw that but the thin copper wire idea is great. I was going to solder the pins together but was worried about removing a pin or two in the process. The wire idea sounds like the way to go!

[cbjaust]

Yeah, fine copper wire in the socket is the way to go. I used this method to get around bios limitations on a GIGABYTE GA-7N400S-L to overclock some Socket A Thoroughbreds and Bartons.

[austin86]

wonder if I could soldier wires to the back of the cpu socket on the motherboard and wire it to set of dip switch's so I could adjust it without having to deal with wire on the cpu?   

[Macsbeach98]

That should work Ok

[austin86]

Jan 31, 2024 17:43:11 GMT -5 Macsbeach98 said:

That should work Ok

it would be like a gold finger for sk462 😅