makechu wrote on 2022-11-06, 22:02:

So, I went and bough a non-raid KT7A with not much thinking. Just to confirm, the revision number is in the sticker next to the […]
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So, I went and bough a non-raid KT7A with not much thinking.
Just to confirm, the revision number is in the sticker next to the BIOS ROM? At least on my board, there was a random bunch of numbers there, with V1.3 at the end of it, so I assume this is version 1.3 board. At the bottom of the ISA-connector, there was just a sticker with text "KT7A-TIK005412", a round sticker with a "D" on it, and sticker with stamps on it, presumably related to quality assurance.

Next thing that caught my eye here is that it is mentioned that the version 1.3 KT7A uses a different firmware from earlier boards, but if I look at http://abit.ws/page/en/motherboard/motherboar … &pPRODINFO=BIOS , there is no mention of different BIOSes for different board versions, and the kt7a9.exe seems to be the newest BIOS update file. So, is this actually compatible with the 1.3 board?
If not, does somebody have the latest original unmodified bios image somewhere? At least I could not find it here on the forums after some amount of searching...
I'll try to patch the KT7A (non-RAID) BIOS file myself with the CPU microcode patches, and for enabling software CPU multiplier switching, if I just first know for sure which is actually the latest official BIOS file for the non-RAID V1.3 board.

I was a bit surprised that there may be some slowdowns / other issues caused by using more than 512 MB of RAM on the KT7A. I have had zero issues with using 1 GB on QDI Kinetiz 7E, which is also KT133A based, and I have all the timings set the tightest the BIOS menu allows. However, I have not done benchmark testing against using just 512 MB. Based on the 3DMark01 & 03 scores I looked up in Google, performance was pretty close what to expect from equivalent RAM, GPU & CPU combo.
Additionally, I am using 2 TB IDE hard drives (note, using a drive that emulates 4096 byte physical sectors as 512 for maximum compatibility) with Windows 98 SE on Kinetiz 7E, whereas it is said here that the ABIT-KT7A only supports LBA 28, which may limit the max. size to 137 GB. I've previously also used Quadro4 750 XGL (closely equivalent to Geforce 4 Ti 4400, but with twice the ROPs and slightly slower memory clock) with zero issues on Kinetiz 7E, but here I see that some Geforce 4 Ti models may have some issues with KT7A, which also does not sound very good to me... Currently, I have the Kinetiz 7E paired with a 256 MB Geforce 6800.
Considering these things, now I think that if I patched the BIOS on Kinetiz 7E with the CPU microcode updates and for enabling software CPU multiplier switching, I actually think the Kinetiz 7E clearly beats the KT7A for my use cases, as I have zero interest in overclocking any old hardware (although I am using a slightly overclocked mobile Barton 2600+ @ 2266 MHz on the Kinetiz 7E 😀. But, I will still do a full recap on the KT7A and see what it can do with a mobile Barton 2500+, that I have waiting on the shelf.
At least for me, stability is number one when it comes to using these things for reminiscing the good old times. And also, I mean, why keep beating up good old horses with some crazy overclocking during their retirement years while they are not dead yet :p

Finally, THROTTLE.EXE with ACPI works pretty great in DOS with the Kinetiz 7E, although I need to remember to always disable it if before turning off the computer or it hangs with a black screen. As a side note; compared to the two K6-3+ setups I also have, I find the KT133A setup to be much better with way less issues, even for DOS gaming, than either of the K6-3 platforms with VIA MVP3 (Epox MVP3C2) or Ali AladdinV (Asus P5A-B rev. 1.04) chipsets.

I run 1.5 gigs with my KT7A-raid and the performance is spot on in XP Pro. You could have a issue with your ram settings in the bios or possibly a weird ram stick.

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2022-11-06, 22:12:

I run 1.5 gigs with my KT7A-raid and the performance is spot on in XP Pro. You could have a issue with your ram settings in the bios or possibly a weird ram stick.

Have not tested yet the board with that much RAM myself, I was merely referring to that some people mentioned it to be an issue in this thread. I corrected my earlier post to reflect that.
1.5 GB of RAM in Windows 98 would be a problem for other reasons as well, so I tend to use max. 1 GB.

Yes for 9x having more than 512mb can cause issues. I know alot of people here run the R.Lowe ram patch with great success.

1. KT7A v1.3 uses different Bios. Although there is no difference between raid and non-raid Bios. Both kinds of motherboards (raid and non-raid) use the same Bios. AFAIK the last version for v1.3 is from 22/08/2002.
2. There is no such problem with RAM. 768MB RAM (3 sticks) is just as fast as 512MB RAM (2 sticks) with the same timings (2-2-2-6) and same FSB.
3. KT7A v1.3 has no problem handling disks bigger than 137GB. I currently use a 250GB IDE HDD with this board. If you run R.Lowe's 48bitlba.exe it explicitly says that 48 bit LBA is supported.
4. I currently use a Geforce 6600 GT without problems. Previously I used a Geforce 4 Ti 4200 in this board also without problems.

Falcosoft wrote on 2022-11-07, 00:05:

1. KT7A v1.3 uses different Bios. Although there is no difference between raid and non-raid Bios. Both kinds of motherboards (raid and non-raid) use the same Bios. AFAIK the last version for v1.3 is from 22/08/2002.

Ok, found presumably the correct BIOS update for the KT7A V1.3. The file was named "kt7sb4.exe", containing the "kt7s_b4.bin" file. Also, apparently LBA 48 should work with the latest BIOS.
Now I will try to add the patches and see what hidden options I can enable / add in the BIOS for what I want.

Please find attached the latest KT7A BIOS: A9 for 1.0/1.1 and SB4 for 1.3

Windows98_guy wrote on 2022-10-29, 17:56:

Interesting. This means that at least Palominos can definitely work on a normal KT133 mb, but with reduced speed. […]
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Interesting. This means that at least Palominos can definitely work on a normal KT133 mb, but with reduced speed.

On a side note, there are some special low voltage Athlon XP Palominos, called Athlon SFF. They have lower voltage from regular Palomino and consume even less power, but even those are rare. I get no results on ebay.

Update, 3.11.2022:
Since i had some extra free time, I decided to try Amd Athlon XP 1700+ Palomino on another board, that needs repair. With 133MHz FSB i get no post, as with the QDI motherboard, but it does work on 100, 105 and 110 MHz. It posts even on 115, but than it becomes unstable (even mb bios gives me an error). So with that i get it to run from 1.1Ghz to 1.2 GHz. All that is left now is to try and unclock the multiplier and try it to run at 100MHz FSB (14 x 100). I have also purchased Amd Athlon XP 2100+ Thoroughbred and will try it out as well in the future.

I did some more experimenting with KT133 (DFI AK74-EC Rev. B2), with a Bios Patcher patched BIOS. I managed to get an Athlon XP Thoroughbred-A to work by modifying the L3 bridges on the CPU. It seems that some KT133 boards are picky about the extra bit added to L3 bridges in newer than Palomino CPUs (older had 4 L3 bridges and newer have 5 bridges). Therefore, at least with some of the KT133 boards, the 5th L3 bridge probably should be cut for improved compatibility, which then significantly limits what multipliers can be pre-set on a Thoroughbred-A. However, it seems that pinmod can still be used to achieve the missing multipliers anyways that are lost from the L3 bridge.
Interestingly, I also bought a Mobile Athlon XP Thoroughbred-A, and it just completely refuses to work on the KT133 no matter what I tried, even with modding the bridges, although the non-mobile version of the Thoroughbred-A worked fine. I can't be sure if the mobile version is not just broken though, as I did not test it beforehand with another motherboard.

On another front, I succesfully modified a Palomino Athlon XP 2100+ so that it now shows up as a Mobile Athlon XP on the KT133, and runs at 1.8 GHz (18 x 100), which is a higher frequency than what the CPU runs at stock (1733 MHz). However, it seems that there is no bit on the KT133 registers to enable PowerNow! features, so it seems is not possible to switch the multiplier with software, like it is with KT133A.
For DOS gaming purposes, even though I can't switch the CPU multiplier on the KT133, using the Throttle software should be enough for most of the older games.

makechu wrote on 2022-11-25, 23:14:

I did some more experimenting with KT133 (DFI AK74-EC Rev. B2), with a Bios Patcher patched BIOS. I managed to get an Athlon XP […]
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I did some more experimenting with KT133 (DFI AK74-EC Rev. B2), with a Bios Patcher patched BIOS. I managed to get an Athlon XP Thoroughbred-A to work by modifying the L3 bridges on the CPU. It seems that some KT133 boards are picky about the extra bit added to L3 bridges in newer than Palomino CPUs (older had 4 L3 bridges and newer have 5 bridges). Therefore, at least with some of the KT133 boards, the 5th L3 bridge probably should be cut for improved compatibility, which then significantly limits what multipliers can be pre-set on a Thoroughbred-A. However, it seems that pinmod can still be used to achieve the missing multipliers anyways that are lost from the L3 bridge.
Interestingly, I also bought a Mobile Athlon XP Thoroughbred-A, and it just completely refuses to work on the KT133 no matter what I tried, even with modding the bridges, although the non-mobile version of the Thoroughbred-A worked fine. I can't be sure if the mobile version is not just broken though, as I did not test it beforehand with another motherboard.

On another front, I succesfully modified a Palomino Athlon XP 2100+ so that it now shows up as a Mobile Athlon XP on the KT133, and runs at 1.8 GHz (18 x 100), which is a higher frequency than what the CPU runs at stock (1733 MHz). However, it seems that there is no bit on the KT133 registers to enable PowerNow! features, so it seems is not possible to switch the multiplier with software, like it is with KT133A.
For DOS gaming purposes, even though I can't switch the CPU multiplier on the KT133, using the Throttle software should be enough for most of the older games.

Interesting, but have you tried pinmoding and/or modding the L bridges on a Barton though?

Windows98_guy wrote on 2022-11-26, 18:25:

Interesting, but have you tried pinmoding and/or modding the L bridges on a Barton though?

No, but I did try Thorton as well with modified L3 bridges on my KT133, and it did not work at any multiplier I tried, above or below the officially supported 12.5x that KT133 should typically be able to handle. As Thorton is the same chip as Barton, but with half the cache disabled, so I think it is safe to assume that Barton will not work either. But I have not done any deeper research that could it be even technically possible.

Well, the Voodoo3 AGP was another videocard that the KT7A did not like.

I ran Expendable and it crashed to desktop. I then tried appending "-nocputest" to the game's go.exe with a shortcut, and then the game froze (hard lock) and the system required a reset.

I then tested with my Biostar M7VKD and it worked fine.

The CPU on the KT7A was an AXMH2500 Barton, and the M7VKD has a desktop Barton modded to Mobile, so the CPU is not the issue.

I wonder if later revisions of this board have better AGP compatibility.

So far, the reference AMD designs (with the AMR slot) seem the most stable and compatible. Don't rush in your judgement that the KT7A is unstable with a Voodoo3, I'm just saying it is unstable with a Voodoo 3 when running out of spec with a much later released Barton.

Oddly enough, the KT7A + Voodoo3 was completely 3DMark99 Stable (loop test).

mockingbird wrote on 2023-03-27, 02:48:

Well, the Voodoo3 AGP was another videocard that the KT7A did not like. […]
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Well, the Voodoo3 AGP was another videocard that the KT7A did not like.

I ran Expendable and it crashed to desktop. I then tried appending "-nocputest" to the game's go.exe with a shortcut, and then the game froze (hard lock) and the system required a reset.

I then tested with my Biostar M7VKD and it worked fine.

The CPU on the KT7A was an AXMH2500 Barton, and the M7VKD has a desktop Barton modded to Mobile, so the CPU is not the issue.

I wonder if later revisions of this board have better AGP compatibility.

So far, the reference AMD designs (with the AMR slot) seem the most stable and compatible. Don't rush in your judgement that the KT7A is unstable with a Voodoo3, I'm just saying it is unstable with a Voodoo 3 when running out of spec with a much later released Barton.

Oddly enough, the KT7A + Voodoo3 was completely 3DMark99 Stable (loop test).

I remember having some issues with a Voodoo 3 AGP too. Now I use a Voodoo 3 PCI + GeForce 4200 AGP and all is well! 😀

mockingbird wrote on 2023-03-27, 02:48:

Well, the Voodoo3 AGP was another videocard that the KT7A did not like.

Very odd. I've had a Voodoo 3 2000 AGP in my KT7A (rev 1.0) for years without any issues. And I've played some fairly demanding Glide games on it, including Need for Speed: High Stakes, Deus Ex and Unreal Tournament '99. No problems whatsoever.

That said, I am using a Thoroughbred B 1700+ and I imagine that particular CPU doesn't stress the board a whole lot.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-04-15, 10:15:

mockingbird wrote on 2023-03-27, 02:48:

Well, the Voodoo3 AGP was another videocard that the KT7A did not like.

Very odd. I've had a Voodoo 3 2000 AGP in my KT7A (rev 1.0) for years without any issues. And I've played some fairly demanding Glide games on it, including Need for Speed: High Stakes, Deus Ex and Unreal Tournament '99. No problems whatsoever.

That said, I am using a Thoroughbred B 1700+ and I imagine that particular CPU doesn't stress the board a whole lot.

My hypothesis is that I am using a modern PSU that is too weak on the +5V line. Perhaps on the KT7A the PCI power supply is better filtered in terms on capacitors wrt AGP. What PSU do you use on your KT7A?

cde wrote on 2023-04-15, 18:29:

What PSU do you use on your KT7A?

A refurbished LC Power 550W from the early 2000s. Here's a pic.

I doubt its claims of 40A on the 5V rail were accurate even back in the day, as it's not exactly a reputable brand. But it has worked well enough for almost three years now, so I can't complain. I got it on my local classifieds from a guy who refurbishes and sells old PSUs.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-04-15, 10:15:

That said, I am using a Thoroughbred B 1700+ and I imagine that particular CPU doesn't stress the board a whole lot.

Yes, I think you're alluding to the root of the issue... I think Barton XP causes a voltage droop on the AGP. The 6800 cards worked fine with their external connector.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-04-15, 19:38:

cde wrote on 2023-04-15, 18:29:

What PSU do you use on your KT7A?

A refurbished LC Power 550W from the early 2000s. Here's a pic.

I doubt its claims of 40A on the 5V rail were accurate even back in the day, as it's not exactly a reputable brand. But it has worked well enough for almost three years now, so I can't complain. I got it on my local classifieds from a guy who refurbishes and sells old PSUs.

I'd crack it open and post a photo here. Chances are it might be similar to the LC420H-12 I have in my Winfast rig.

PcBytes wrote on 2023-04-16, 16:15:

I'd crack it open and post a photo here. Chances are it might be similar to the LC420H-12 I have in my Winfast rig.

I'm not confident enough to open up a PSU. That and CRT monitors are two things that I humbly avoid, and leave any repair work to professionals.

I'm sure someone more skilled could do it with ease though.

I can confirm that Orpheus ][ works on Abit KT7A flawlessly. http://pcmidi.eu/orpheus2.html
If you just set in BIOS all needed resources to 'Legacy ISA' so no PCI device gets on to same IRQ.

Too bad Voodoo -cards don't like Radeons and this mobo don't like Geforces (at least Flatout2 don't like and that game just have to work). But, this machine is now about perfect all arounder.

-Abit KT7A
-Athlon XP-M (Barton) @2GHz (148x13,5)
-768MB RAM
-Radeon X800Pro
-140GB WD Raptor SATA
-Audigy2
-Aureal Vortex2
-Orpheus ][

With setmul.exe, throttle.exe and viafsb.exe I have FULL control of the computer speed in DOS.

dj_pirtu wrote on 2023-04-25, 05:09:

-Athlon XP-M (Barton) @2GHz (148x13,5)

I was thinking... Maybe it's better to run the board with 100mhz FSB and a really high multiplier as opposed to 133+ Mhz FSB... That way you can go as low as 3 x 100 (300mhz), whereas you are stuck with a minimum of 400mhz with 133mhz.

What are you using for throttling to get sub-444Mhz speeds (in your case)?

throttle.exe works quite good for slowing down further.