I've got a KT7A non-RAID somewhere if that helps. Haven't done anything recently with it but it's a decent board. I don't think I ever tried it with anything above a Ti4200 and a 1.1GHz Athlon, but it took both of those without any problems. No issues with caps, at least not on this particular board. Hasn't killed anything.

The original post in this thread is about a KT7, but it has information that also covers the KT7A and E. I had a KT7A way back when that I lost to bad caps, but it was a solid performer for me. And at the tail end of this linked thread I posted my success with running a 2100+ at 2.0 GHz in a KT7e.

https://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthrea … g-at-2-3GHz-now!

KT7A caps can go bad but I don't this they're worse than most boards from that age. Otherwise it's kind of an important one, a last bastion of ISA for the latest DOS stuff in high resolution. And it can definitely take Palomino XPs, so well that it detects them as Athlon XPs instead of 'Unknown CPU's like it did with a Barton when I tried. That one worked too, but I haven't tested it thoroughly so I'm not sure about its Windows compatibility and its performance in general.

1) it is one of the better KT133 boards

2) while it is possible I am not aware of such issues with Abit. The problem is manufacturers of universal AGP cards and boards didn't adhere to the standard and you can find universal keyed 1.5V and 3.3V only boards and cards. Running a 1.5 Only card in a 3.3V only board will fry at minimum the card, possibly the board, while running a 3.3V card in a 1.5V board will kill the board and possibly the card. I am not aware of Abit boards having those issues and i believe they were properly keyed

3 Yes. Abit boards are from the capacitor plague era. Unless you know for a fact that they have been replaced before, assume they broken and in need of replacement. Remember, most capacitors fail without any visual hints.

4) not sure and a bit hard to find info on since the abit website doesn't have the compatibility list anymore. Since it is a KT133A chipset you are limited to 133Mhz FSB cpus. might need some experimentation

Koltoroc wrote:

I am not aware of Abit boards having those issues and i believe they were properly keyed

This one is universal 4x.

The KT7A/KT7A-RAID is about the best Socket 462 boards with an ISA slot.

With a modified BIOS and wire-modding the socket, you can run a Barton Mobile at about 2.4Ghz.

The caps will probably (most definitely) need to be replaced if they haven't been before.

I bought a NOS KT7A board and the first time I fired it up, multiple caps exploded.

Pretty much all makers back then were plagued by the crappy caps problem.

The only board I think is going to be better in regard to Socket 462 with an ISA slot is an AMD 760 / Via 686B based board since then you also get DDR support.
I have one but haven't had the chance to mess with it, but DDR was really the only thing I wished for in a socket 462 board with ISA.

KT7A revision 1.3 has official support for Thoroughbred. In other word anything up to 2600+ will work fine.

The only board I think is going to be better in regard to Socket 462 with an ISA slot is an AMD 760 / Via 686B

That Biostar board is not a solid overclocker and performer, compared to ABIT, ASUS, etc boards, and thus benefit of DDR memory is kinda bleak.

I have one of those motherboards (kt7-raid) that has been bios modded and the socket wired with a switch to support higher multipliers.

I have successfully run everything from an AGP 2x riva 128 all the way up to radeon 9800, x850xt, 6800gt, 7800gs, and a HD3650 in it
without problems.
I suspect most people that have said it doesn't run anything higher than a ti4200 have an older power supply with around 250w, and you need a
decent 450w or higher with a lot of amps on the +5v rail to get it working.

Imperious wrote:

I have one of those motherboards (kt7-raid) that has been bios modded and the socket wired with a switch to support higher multi […]
Show full quote

I have one of those motherboards (kt7-raid) that has been bios modded and the socket wired with a switch to support higher multipliers.

I have successfully run everything from an AGP 2x riva 128 all the way up to radeon 9800, x850xt, 6800gt, 7800gs, and a HD3650 in it
without problems.
I suspect most people that have said it doesn't run anything higher than a ti4200 have an older power supply with around 250w, and you need a
decent 450w or higher with a lot of amps on the +5v rail to get it working.

Interesting, but your board is kt7-raid (blue and white IDE connectors) that is another model? the one i saw was kt7A-raid. (blue and orange IDE connectors)
do you remember what bios did you use?
because when i search for kt7A-raid radeon9800 on google i get a lot of results not working. or geforce 6600gt not working.

i wonder if someone else here got a blue and orange IDE connector model with revision 1.3, i want to know if it works with other videocards after geforce4.

cyclone3d wrote:

The KT7A/KT7A-RAID is about the best Socket 462 boards with an ISA slot. […]
Show full quote

The KT7A/KT7A-RAID is about the best Socket 462 boards with an ISA slot.

With a modified BIOS and wire-modding the socket, you can run a Barton Mobile at about 2.4Ghz.

The caps will probably (most definitely) need to be replaced if they haven't been before.

I bought a NOS KT7A board and the first time I fired it up, multiple caps exploded.

Pretty much all makers back then were plagued by the crappy caps problem.

The only board I think is going to be better in regard to Socket 462 with an ISA slot is an AMD 760 / Via 686B based board since then you also get DDR support.
I have one but haven't had the chance to mess with it, but DDR was really the only thing I wished for in a socket 462 board with ISA.

there is about 3 barton mobiles, which one did you use?

mainstream:
Athlon XP-M 2400+ 1800 MHz 512 KB 266 MT/s 13.5x 1.45 V 45-53 W AXMH2400FQQ4C

desktop replacement
Athlon XP-M 2400+ 1800 MHz 512 KB 266 MT/s 13.5x 1.60 V 72 W AXMA2400FUT4C

low voltage
Athlon XP-M 2400+ 1800 MHz 512 KB 266 MT/s 13.5x 1.35 V 35 W AXMD2400FJQ4C

did you have problems with agp cards?

The kt7-raid uses the 686a southbridge instead of the 686b on yours, 686a only can use a 100mhz fsb.
The KT7-Raid was the first model before they updated it with the 686b chip to support 133fsb cpu's.
I modded the bios with biospatcher and modbin to work with a Barton cpu.
The KT7A-Raid bios is a not the same but can be modded using the same programs.

686a only can use a 100mhz fsb.

Nah, dividers are not dependant from the south bridge that way. For example ASUS P3V4X is using even older south bridge (596B), but has proper 1/4 PCI divider.

What is the difference between revisions?

I have a v1.0, but the chipsets are the same, no?
Any way to convert a rev 1.0 to 1.3?

thanks

Cga.8086 wrote:

Interesting, but your board is kt7-raid (blue and white IDE connectors) that is another model? the one i saw was kt7A-raid. (b […]
Show full quote

Interesting, but your board is kt7-raid (blue and white IDE connectors) that is another model? the one i saw was kt7A-raid. (blue and orange IDE connectors)
do you remember what bios did you use?
because when i search for kt7A-raid radeon9800 on google i get a lot of results not working. or geforce 6600gt not working.
i wonder if someone else here got a blue and orange IDE connector model with revision 1.3, i want to know if it works with other videocards after geforce4.

I have KT7-A v1.3 using latest official B4 BIOS and Geforce 6600 AGP and it works perfectly. Also tried Geforce FX5600 and 6600GT and both worked flawlessly. AFAIK the Raid version is the same in every regard except the Raid controller (using even the same BIOS).

Cga.8086 wrote:

there is about 3 barton mobiles, which one did you use? […]
Show full quote

cyclone3d wrote:

The KT7A/KT7A-RAID is about the best Socket 462 boards with an ISA slot. […]
Show full quote

The KT7A/KT7A-RAID is about the best Socket 462 boards with an ISA slot.

With a modified BIOS and wire-modding the socket, you can run a Barton Mobile at about 2.4Ghz.

The caps will probably (most definitely) need to be replaced if they haven't been before.

I bought a NOS KT7A board and the first time I fired it up, multiple caps exploded.

Pretty much all makers back then were plagued by the crappy caps problem.

The only board I think is going to be better in regard to Socket 462 with an ISA slot is an AMD 760 / Via 686B based board since then you also get DDR support.
I have one but haven't had the chance to mess with it, but DDR was really the only thing I wished for in a socket 462 board with ISA.

there is about 3 barton mobiles, which one did you use?

mainstream:
Athlon XP-M 2400+ 1800 MHz 512 KB 266 MT/s 13.5x 1.45 V 45-53 W AXMH2400FQQ4C

desktop replacement
Athlon XP-M 2400+ 1800 MHz 512 KB 266 MT/s 13.5x 1.60 V 72 W AXMA2400FUT4C

low voltage
Athlon XP-M 2400+ 1800 MHz 512 KB 266 MT/s 13.5x 1.35 V 35 W AXMD2400FJQ4C

did you have problems with agp cards?

I'm using a 2800+
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K7/AMD-Mobile%2 … A2800FKT4C.html

There is also a 2500+ that was popular to use back in the day.

I was using this system for my Voodoo 5-5500 build. Never really tried other video cards.

Falcosoft wrote:

Cga.8086 wrote:

Interesting, but your board is kt7-raid (blue and white IDE connectors) that is another model? the one i saw was kt7A-raid. (b […]
Show full quote

Interesting, but your board is kt7-raid (blue and white IDE connectors) that is another model? the one i saw was kt7A-raid. (blue and orange IDE connectors)
do you remember what bios did you use?
because when i search for kt7A-raid radeon9800 on google i get a lot of results not working. or geforce 6600gt not working.
i wonder if someone else here got a blue and orange IDE connector model with revision 1.3, i want to know if it works with other videocards after geforce4.

I have KT7-A v1.3 using latest official B4 BIOS and Geforce 6600 AGP and it works perfectly. Also tried Geforce FX5600 and 6600GT and both worked flawlessly. AFAIK the Raid version is the same in every regard except the Raid controller (using even the same BIOS).

awesome. ! good to know it works!

cyclone3d wrote:

I'm using a 2800+ http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K7/AMD-Mobile%2 … A2800FKT4C.html […]
Show full quote

I'm using a 2800+
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K7/AMD-Mobile%2 … A2800FKT4C.html

There is also a 2500+ that was popular to use back in the day.

I was using this system for my Voodoo 5-5500 build. Never really tried other video cards.

that is nice. and it should work with one of the last radeon models that were agp, lime an HD3850

and the pin mod is to connect one cable on the back and thats all or you must flash also a modded bios?

Cga.8086 wrote:

cyclone3d wrote:

I'm using a 2800+ http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K7/AMD-Mobile%2 … A2800FKT4C.html […]
Show full quote

I'm using a 2800+
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K7/AMD-Mobile%2 … A2800FKT4C.html

There is also a 2500+ that was popular to use back in the day.

I was using this system for my Voodoo 5-5500 build. Never really tried other video cards.

that is nice. and it should work with one of the last radeon models that were agp, lime an HD3850

and the pin mod is to connect one cable on the back and thats all or you must flash also a modded bios?

I didn't solder anything. I use a single strand of wire for each location I need to jumper in the socket. Completely reversible and super easy to change.

Edit: It is just to set the multiplier as the board doesn't natively support the higher multipliers. /Edit

The modded bios is to recognize the Barton core. Pretty sure you don't get the extra instructions the Barton has if you don't flash the modded BIOS.

Here is where you can get the modded BIOS
http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley/8850/

There are a few different ones depending on the version of board you have.

cyclone3d wrote:

[
The modded bios is to recognize the Barton core. Pretty sure you don't get the extra instructions the Barton has if you don't flash the modded BIOS.

Just a little correction: On one hand the Barton core does not have any new instructions compared to earlier Athlon XP cores (Palomino/ThoroughBred) it only has bigger L2 caches (512 vs. 256). On the other hand BIOS does not even enable SSE since it requires operating system support to preserve XMM register states (that's why SEE does not work by default under DOS/Win95 but requires Win98+). BIOS support is only needed for proper detection/identification of CPU.