little help from the pros please

[Gabriel]

Quick question for the gurus. I purchased an ABIT KX7-333R (from Mike actually) and then, this weekend, picked up an Athlon XP 2500 Barton. I just wanted to know if this will work with this board, because I have checked all over the place and no one lists it as supported. I don't know much about this stuff, so figured I would ask all of you. Thanks for any help.

Gabe

[Player0]

Im getting a KX7 from Mike too...im not sure if it has Raid tho...Mike?

Anyway, if you have the Barton and the Board, try it yourself. Make sure you flash to the latest KX7 BIOS first. I have a chip you can borrow for flashing if you dont have a spare other than the 2500. Just come pick it up or I'll bring it Wednesday or whatever.

As I told you before, the Barton working fully depends on the revision of the KX7 that you have. At worst, it just wont boot. But it's likely to boot at something, you just might not get the full speed of the chip, or maybe it wont recognize all of the L2 or something.

Having never tried it, and not likely to own a Barton, I cant say for sure.

[Farabomb]

I think Mike had a KD7 up for sale too. Maybe you're getting that. (if you need RAID I have a KX7-333R we can swap ;) )

Gabe, it will probally work but not at it's rated speed. I have a t-bred in my KX7 and the mulipliers crap out at 13x or something. If you have some good ram you might be able to make it up on the FSB. You might be able to hardlock the CPU but even that may work. Take p0's advice, get the latest BIOS and try it. There may be a new one that takes care of it but I haven't looked latley. :)

[Gabriel]

Being the unoverclocker guy that I am, I really only need it to run at stock speed. The RAM I got was (2) 512MB sticks of Micron PC2700, not sure about the rest of the specs on it. I just want it to be faster than my current setup (KR7A-RAID, XP 1900, 512MB PC2100) which I hope it is. I really want to be done with this, and thought I was doing good by getting this chip, but then again, I am an idiot with this stuff, I am just a graffix guy.

[Player0]

Too bad you cant start over and get an IS7 and a 2.4C.

[Gabriel]

OK, this is what it says on ABIT's BIOS update page for the latest update to the KX7 BIOS, but I am not sure I understand, and have a few questions.

"Support Athlon XP 2400+, 2600+ CPU"

I assume that this means the update allows these chips to work on this board, but I am not sure why it skips the 2500+ I realize the only true way to know if this is all going to work is to hook it all up and try it, but I guess I just wanna know how it is working, or why it wouldn't. In as quick a definition as possible, what is the difference between a T-bred and a Barton. I notice the L2 cache on the Barton is 512, and the T-bred is 256, but is that the only major difference? Is that essentially what I would be losing out on is the L2 with this board. For purposes of comparison, this board is the one Mike used for his KX7-333R review. I guess if all of this fails, I may end up either needing to trade someone an XP 2500+ Barton or an ABIT KX7-333R for something that will work.

[Drake]

Yup, a barton is just a t-bred with 256k more cache. I imagine they skip the 2500+ rating because at the time it wasn't a processor.

[KODE]

GOOD NEWS (http://www.amdforums.com/showthread.php?threadid=231540&highlight=barton) for you Gabriel, looks like you just need to use the B6 BIOS.

Regards,

KODE.

[Gabriel]

Yup, I actually read that over at the ABIT Forums. Whew. Those guys seem pissed too about ABIT not supporting the 333 in that board. I saw about ten guys with the same board running the Barton, so I was much releived. Thanks again for all your help, everyone.

[mdzcpa]

Yep...late to the party I am:)

Anyway, you can definitely run the Barton 2500 on that board, but you'll need set the CPU up manually...there will be no preset choice for XP 2500.

Just select the 11 multiplier and set the FSB to 166.
Set the divisor to 5:2:1

That's it. The CPU voltage will read and set it self up correctly.

Set as above the chip will run at it's factory rated 1833mhz, and will match perfectly with your PC2700 memory running synchronously with the FSB at 166mhz.

Use BIOS B6 as already stated.

Have fun:)

BTW, Tom...yes that is a KX7-333R...so it will be a RAID board.

[Gabriel]

Well, I mounted my first processor tonight. Never did it before (in fact, I made Player0 mount the last one) and I don't think I broke it, but we will see tomorrow night when I try to get her to post. Thanks again all for the insight, and I will post my results as soon as I do/don't have them :)