Northwood Dillema - Am I Seriously this Unlucky?

[lastig21]

Durron - I have all the same problems you do with that TH7-II. I haven't ruled out the motherboard being the cause of my problems, but I'm just blindly hoping that the new memory will solve my problems. If the memory doesn't help, I'll have to quickly rma this board and try a different vendor. Getting close to the cutoff.

I don't know if you have done any research on it, but the 77 bios is actually newer than the 38 bios. It also allows for a higher vcore than the 38 bios. I've got some more info in this thread with a link to download it. I still haven't tested it myself. Flash to it at your own risk.

 

[KenAF]

I've seen all of those problems reported above for the pre-77 bios. Remember, you may need the 77 bios to keep the AGP and PCI in spec. This option was in the last official bios, but IIRC, it didn't actually work. I have fixed the link the the 77 bios in this thread (see my post above).

You are not going to run stable with your PCI bus overclocked to 133/3=44.3MHz and AGP overclocked to 100-133MHz.

 

[BadThad]

Just for reference:

P4 1.8a@2358 (131 fsb) 1.650v (same stepping as the 2.2a cores)
Asus P4B266-C
512 MB Corsair XMS2700

After quite a few hours of tinkering, this is the best it will do. The BIOS (due to a bug) shows the core always at 40°C as does Asus Probe (naturally). It will post and boot into win2k at 2400@1.700v, but after playing a few maps of Quake3 would crash. Plus, when I set the core to 1.700 the voltage seems to fluctuate wildly in comparison to other voltages.

The only way I'm going any higher is with the voltage mod trick and 1.75-1.80 V. I'm not going to do that until Asus fixes the freaking bios temp reporting problem. For now, I'm basically happy though.

 

[lastig21]

Glad to hear that tidbit of info KenAF. It gives me some hope finally. I got the new memory in today and have no doubts that it can run the 133fsb. Even with the new memory installed, when I get that high, I still have the problem where my computer runs incredibly slow when booting into Windows 2k. It could be from my pci running so far out of spec. When it should be initializing the nic is where I have the problems at. Everything runs quick until then. I'll flash to the 77 bios today and see if that solves my woes.

BTW, if anyone is keeping up with this thread I am going to be selling a 1.6a Malaysia chip. I don't feel like cleaning the stock thermal pad off the cpu and heatsink of that one, so I'll keep the costa rica and let the buyer deal with that. PM me if interested and I'll get you the numbers off the chip when I get home. $130 shipped to your door.

-edit- maylay chip is from mwave. Received last Friday.

 

[ginfest]

<< All those problems reported above were reported for the pre-77 bios. Remember, you need the 77 bios to keep the AGP and PCI in spec. This option was in the last official bios, but IIRC, it didn't actually work. I have fixed the link the the 77 bios in this thread (see my post above). >>



A couple of things:
The "77" BIOS, although advertised as a "beta" BIOS is actually a "hacked" BIOS. Whether this matters or not, there are reports of people haviing trouble with this BIOS, specifically needing more voltage at lower OCs.
The "fix" option in the "38" BIOS does work. There is a guy on the Hard Forum who tested the PCI slots on the TH7-II with the "fix" option in place and found that they were running at 33 Mhz.
See this thread for more info. If the link doesn't take you to the right page, look on page 4
TH7 PCI scope tests

Even if the "fix" option didn't work, look under "AGPCLK" in the BIOS, there is a 2/3, 2.4, and fix. The board defaults to 2/3 (100 Mhz/66 AGP/33 PCI), I had to use 2/4 (133/66/33) when I OC my 1.6A to 2.1.
I wonder if your problems are due to this 2/3 setting, or did you already try 2/4?
Hope this helps,
Mike G