First post, by KT7AGuy
- Rank
- Oldbie
Greetings, All!
I humbly request and call upon the collective experience and wisdom of VOGONS!
(This is going to be lengthy. I apologize in advance.)
I'm fond of the ABIT KT7A motherboards. In fact, I've got four of them: one v1.0 RAID model, two v1.2 non-RAID models, and one v1.3 non-RAID model. Both of the v1.2 boards are in storage and I don't have quick access to them, so I can't comment about those right now.
Up until recently, I've always just used them and appreciated them for what they are. About two years ago, I finally got around to playing with 3DMark2001SE and seeing what numbers these systems can generate. Before we go there, here are their specs:
ABIT KT7A-RAID v1.0
Windows 98SE DX v8.1
Athlon 1400 Thunderbird
512MB RAM (PC133)
NVIDIA GF4 Ti4600
Creative Voodoo 2 cards in SLI
Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold
ABIT KT7A v1.3
Windows 98SE DX v8.1
Athlon XP 2100+ Palomino
512MB RAM (PC133)
NVIDIA FX 5950 Ultra
Voodoo 5500 PCI
Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold
The v1.0 system was getting about 9,000 in 3DMark2001SE and the v1.3 was getting about 8900. I thought that was odd, considering the v1.3 has a stronger CPU and video card. At the time, I was running 768MB RAM in the v1.3, but only 512MB RAM in the v1.0 because it simply wouldn't work with more.
When running the Voodoo 5 PCI, the v1.3 got about 1500 in 3DMark2001SE. I thought that was odd, because I've got another PC running a 1ghz Coppermine with a Voodoo 3 3000 that also benches at around 1500.
Clearly, something is amiss with my KT7A v1.3 system.
Last night, I re-ran the benchmark on the v1.3 with the RAM reduced to 512MB. It is now benching at around 9500 in 3DMark2001SE. When using the Voodoo 5500 PCI, it's now getting about 1600. The Win98SE+KT7A combo doesn't seem to like more than 512MB of RAM. I've searched around and checked the 3DMark2001SE Mega-Thread to see what other folks are getting, so I think these results are still low. From what I've been reading of others' experiences, the FX5950 Ultra should be getting above 10,000 and the Voodoo 5 should be getting around 2,000-2,500.
I've tried a whole bunch of different VCACHE settings, but none of it made much of a difference. VCACHE is clearly not the problem. I also tried resetting the BIOS to both the defaults and to "optimized", also without much difference. I restored the BIOS to my custom settings and I'm currently back to square one.
What else can I try? Aside from going through the BIOS and systematically enabling/disabling things and then re-benching via trial-and-error, I don't know what else to do. I'm also considering just reinstalling a bare-bones copy of Win98SE, loading up the bare minimum for drivers, no updates, and re-benching.
Can you suggest any other ideas to try to figure out why this system is benching so low? If need be, I can post up some shots of my BIOS settings for analysis.
Thanks very much for any and all replies!