That should read "any device in IDE3 or IDE4"

well.... i assume most you are probably experts with this board by now, so maybe you can help with this, win 2k sp3 and xp sp1 both reboot randomly, here is my system.

enermax 550 psu
ga-7xavx mobo
western digital HDD 100 GB
athlon 1800+ t-bred B core
40x12x48 cd-rw
gf2 mx400 (asus)
kingston ram pc 2700 (1x 256 mb)
have via 4.46 update installed, as well as the latest video drivers.

get BSOD different error every time.

top performance is off, and i have tried the slowest memory timings, i have also tried uping the voltage (just a bit) to the cpu/ram/agp
happens everytime i try to play a game, or do something graphicly intensive.

HELP.............................



_____NEVER play leap frog with a unicorn____

and i should add, nothing is over clocked.


____NEVER play leap frog with a unicorn____

Have you tried loading optimal defaults for BIOS running XP?

I have the most powerful computer I've ever seen and dislike it more than most that I have had. It is overpriced, loud as hell, the motherboard has given me more trouble than it is worth, and the support I have received from vendors is awful.

If you like support at all, DO NOT BUY ATI.

The only product I would recommend is the Sony DVD+/-R/RW which is reliable, compatible, and fast.

The worst part of the whole package is the NOISE. The fans on the AGP and processor are ridiculous.

Gigabyte 7VAXP
AMD Athlon 2400+
ATI Radeon 9700 AIW
1gb DDR400
2x 7200rpm WD 100GB HDD
Soundblaster Audigy Platinum
Sony 500U(?A?) DVD+/-R/RW

i have set the optimized defaults, and i have set the ram to 266 and i still have the problem.

I have a 7VAXP. I had really liked the board except for a few quirks up until a week ago when things really started to suck. I bought a Radeon 9700 Pro, and now my stability is terrible. I am running the old F6 BIOS, but if I upgrade to F9 or F11 the 'Top Performance' feature causes my system to reboot and memory flush in an endless cycle. Top Performance is important because it really effects the speed of the computer. And right now during games and stuff I will get normally a pure blue screen from which the only escape is reboot. I have Win2k so this is uncommon. If anyone has any idea how I could upgrade BIOS and run in Top Performance I would be VERY grateful. Thanks.

Given the absolute crap for documentation that explains what the 'Top Performance' features does, I would be inclined to avoid it.

As for system reboots and blue screens during games, I would suggest from personal experience with the 9700 Pro (which I traded for the AIW) on this board that you give +1V to AGP. That cured the intolerable 'thread stuck in queue' error and sudden reboots that were killing all DirectX apps after a copule of minutes. That led to a HORRIBLE SUPPORT EXPERIENCE with ATI. They provide only 30 days from day of purchase support and do not respond to e-mails as advertised. They do not care about their customers, contrary to the marketing in their support e-mail.

I'm sorry to vent here but since manufacturers could give a crap, it's the only way to fight against crappy product, crappy support, crappy QA. I haven't bought any other motherboards separately so have no point of comparison, but web-based support for Gigabyte sucks.

i think i found my answer, i just installed a new DIMM today. (corsair pc 3200) set at 200 mhz with the top performance off, and the bule screen stopped. WHOOOOHOOOO .............. well at least for now

btw. top preformance does not make much difference, it just over clocks the ram and cpu slightly, but it does not devide them properly, and because of this, the feature is touchy with certain ram.

i'm not 100% sure on this, but i have read it in a few threads. but if i'm wrong, don't hesitate to point it out

____NEVER play leapfrog with a unicorn____

Boy I feel bad for everyone who has posted about how $H!TTY This board is. I posted a few times myself on this site about my mobo, but I was lucky to find someone who wanted me to build them a computer. I was able to fix most of the bugs out of this board, but they better mot try to enable the top performance option, or try OC in anyway.

This is definitely not a performance or overclock user board. I now have the A7N8X deluxe board and it is so awsome.

My suggestion to everyone is do what I did, work out the bugs the best you can, and then try to find someone who wants to save a little money by having someone build or upgrade a computer for them.

Top performance doesn't work on my PC but- what the hell- i "Top performace" the PC on my own...make that ram work faster in the Ctrl-F1 magic BIOS menu and just put the ram FSB the same of the CPU FSB coz i don't understand what can a 200 FSB ram on a 166 FSB CPU(or worse a 133 one) make better....Can you have a 3200 MB/sec Ram bus when your CPU bus is only a 2700MB/sec one?(or a 2100MB/sec bus)...like p**sing in a very very very...very large hole...

So i think that you can "Top performace" your mobo by making that Ram working sync with your CPU and with smaller timing.

____________________________________________________________
Demigod

Athlon XP2200+@166*11 256MB Twinmos M.tec CL2.5@2 DDR 333

Hi all,

While it seems (touch wood) to be working fine at the moment I have had a few glitches with my board... I had RAM problems... I found that Corsair XMS 2700 wouldn't run at 333, but was fine at 266, I now have a 3200 XMS and that now runs fine at 333, but not at 400 ! I did however expect some issues, since there are many registered on the Corsair website...
And Corsair isn't mentioned in the manual as compatible....

I have also had a problem with my IDE 2 kicking out for no reason.... 99% of the time it's fine and just occasionally it wouldn't detect... However, it hasn't done it for a couple of months now !


My most current problem is the F11 BIOS flash... It kills my machine ! Well, it runs, but it falls over as soon as I try to do anything with heavy processing... I gave up in the end and went back to F9.... Bummer is I would like to get a 2800 or the like (where ever the 333 bus stops at) at some point to max my board out, since I intend to keep this system for a while...

Has anyone else had this flash problem ?


It's not a bad board to some degree, but it has been a pain to get it to where it is now...


L8rs,
Ant.

To the above post, I would recommend not upgrading BIOS until you have a Barton CPU, just for the simple reason that it's designed for Barton classes.

Anyhow, I was wondering if anybody has heard of Lumberjacker BIOS. It's in Germanm, but I hear its a great thing. I have downloaded it for my 7VAXP, but I am hesitant to install it without being sure of its worth. If someone could advise me on it it would be great.

Also, be sure not to use those @BIOS utilites that run inside Windows. They are trash, believe me. If you have XP, 2K, or another OS version that won't boot to DOS, make a disk. Either way, be sure to flash BIOS from DOS and recheck your CMOS settings afterwards.

I changed bios 4 times with @bios and it was fine
working very simply and gave me no problem

what a mess making dos disk,rebooting to dos, giving parameters to bios update executable

my advice???Use that @bios!!! IT'S GREAT!!

Don't want to use it???
Go in the Bios and launch QBios(or Qflash or what is its name i dont remember well)just need to copy an a disk the image(.bin or .hex) of the newer bios.No windows,No trash ^^^

Athlon XP2200+ Mode1DR266(133*13.5@1808Mhz) Mode2DR333(166*11@1837Mhz)
Twinmos M.Tec 256MB CL2.5@2
GigaByte GA-7VAXP Chipset Apollo KT400



Memory Benchmark

Ram Bus 166 Mhz (DDR333) CPU Bus 133 Mhz (DDR 266)

Normal Command + Smaller Timing CL2

Int Buff aEMMX/aSSE (Integer STREAM) Results Breakdown
Assignment : 1848MB/s
Scaling : 1845MB/s
Addition : 1869MB/s
Triad : 1869MB/s
Data Item Size : 8-bytes
Buffering Used : Yes
Offset Displacement Used : Yes
Bandwidth Efficiency : 87% (estimated)

Float Buff aEMMX/aSSE (Float STREAM) Results Breakdown
Assignment : 1827MB/s
Scaling : 1746MB/s
Addition : 1717MB/s
Triad : 1711MB/s
Data Item Size : 8-bytes
Buffering Used : Yes
Offset Displacement Used : Yes
Bandwidth Efficiency : 82% (estimated)
*************************************************************************************
Ram Bus 166 Mhz (DDR333) CPU Bus 133 Mhz (DDR 266)

Fast Command + Smaller Timing CL2

Int Buff aEMMX/aSSE (Integer STREAM) Results Breakdown
Assignment : 1970MB/s
Scaling : 1969MB/s
Addition : 1968MB/s
Triad : 1964MB/s
Data Item Size : 8-bytes
Buffering Used : Yes
Offset Displacement Used : Yes
Bandwidth Efficiency : 92% (estimated 1967MB/s)

Float Buff aEMMX/aSSE (Float STREAM) Results Breakdown
Assignment : 1951MB/s
Scaling : 1890MB/s
Addition : 1836MB/s
Triad : 1826MB/s
Data Item Size : 8-bytes
Buffering Used : Yes
Offset Displacement Used : Yes
Bandwidth Efficiency : 87% (estimated 1875Mb/s)
*************************************************************************************
Ram Bus 166 Mhz (DDR333) CPU Bus 133 Mhz (DDR 266)

Ultra Command + Smaller Timing CL2

Int Buff aEMMX/aSSE (Integer STREAM) Results Breakdown
Assignment : 1987MB/s
Scaling : 1982MB/s
Addition : 1977MB/s
Triad : 1983MB/s
Data Item Size : 8-bytes
Buffering Used : Yes
Offset Displacement Used : Yes
Bandwidth Efficiency : 92% (estimated 1982MB/s)

Float Buff aEMMX/aSSE (Float STREAM) Results Breakdown
Assignment : 1978MB/s
Scaling : 1898MB/s
Addition : 1848MB/s
Triad : 1839MB/s
Data Item Size : 8-bytes
Buffering Used : Yes
Offset Displacement Used : Yes
Bandwidth Efficiency : 88% (estimated 1890MB/s)
*************************************************************************************
Ram Bus 166 Mhz (DDR333) CPU Bus 166 Mhz (DDR 333)

Normal Command + Smaller Timing CL2

Int Buff aEMMX/aSSE (Integer STREAM) Results Breakdown
Assignment : 2262MB/s
Scaling : 2258MB/s
Addition : 2290MB/s
Triad : 2283MB/s
Data Item Size : 8-bytes
Buffering Used : Yes
Offset Displacement Used : Yes
Bandwidth Efficiency : 85% (estimated 2273MB/s)

Float Buff aEMMX/aSSE (Float STREAM) Results Breakdown
Assignment : 2228MB/s
Scaling : 2072MB/s
Addition : 2021MB/s
Triad : 2003MB/s
Data Item Size : 8-bytes
Buffering Used : Yes
Offset Displacement Used : Yes
Bandwidth Efficiency : 78% (estimated 2081MB/s)
*************************************************************************************
Ram Bus 166 Mhz (DDR333) CPU Bus 166 Mhz (DDR 333)

Fast Command + Smaller Timing CL2

Int Buff aEMMX/aSSE (Integer STREAM) Results Breakdown
Assignment : 2371MB/s
Scaling : 2364MB/s
Addition : 2384MB/s
Triad : 2379MB/s
Data Item Size : 8-bytes
Buffering Used : Yes
Offset Displacement Used : Yes
Bandwidth Efficiency : 89% (estimated)

Float Buff aEMMX/aSSE (Float STREAM) Results Breakdown
Assignment : 2347MB/s
Scaling : 2175MB/s
Addition : 2111MB/s
Triad : 2092MB/s
Data Item Size : 8-bytes
Buffering Used : Yes
Offset Displacement Used : Yes
Bandwidth Efficiency : 82% (estimated)
*************************************************************************************
Ram Bus 166 Mhz (DDR333) CPU Bus 166 Mhz (DDR 333)

Ultra Command + Smaller Timing CL2

Int Buff aEMMX/aSSE (Integer STREAM) Results Breakdown
Assignment : 2439MB/s
Scaling : 2434MB/s
Addition : 2434MB/s
Triad : 2426MB/s
Data Item Size : 8-bytes
Buffering Used : Yes
Offset Displacement Used : Yes
Bandwidth Efficiency : 91% (estimated 2433MB/s)

Float Buff aEMMX/aSSE (Float STREAM) Results Breakdown
Assignment : 2401MB/s
Scaling : 2246MB/s
Addition : 2158MB/s
Triad : 2143MB/s
Data Item Size : 8-bytes
Buffering Used : Yes
Offset Displacement Used : Yes
Bandwidth Efficiency : 84% (estimated 2237MB/s)

Can someone help me out? I'm not convinced that I have the right settings on my Gigabyte GA-7VAXP, although it works ok.

As I boot it tells me that I have an Athlon XP 2000+ when it should really be 2600+. I was told by the vendor that I must have something set wrong in my bios or mobo. Anybody know what this could be?!

Also, I'd like to make sure that I've got CK_RATIO and SW1 set properly.

I still haven't been able to get DMA working on both hard drives simultaneously. If I have 2 HDD and 2 DVD drives, can you tell me the best way to cable? Right now, I've got HD1 on dedicated IDE cable in slot 1, HD2 on dedicated IDE cable in slot 2, skip slot 3 because it didn't work, and both DVD drives on a single cable in IDE slot 4.

IDE SLOTS
4 3 2 1

Sorry for my hard core noobiosity. Any help on optimizing would be appreciated. Next time I'll cave and buy a Dell...

Thanks,
Jason

Can someone help me out? I'm not convinced that I have the right settings on my Gigabyte GA-7VAXP, although it works ok.

As I boot it tells me that I have an Athlon XP 2000+ when it should really be 2600+. I was told by the vendor that I must have something set wrong in my bios or mobo. Anybody know what this could be?!

Also, I'd like to make sure that I've got CK_RATIO and SW1 set properly.

I still haven't been able to get DMA working on both hard drives simultaneously. If I have 2 HDD and 2 DVD drives, can you tell me the best way to cable? Right now, I've got HD1 on dedicated IDE cable in slot 1, HD2 on dedicated IDE cable in slot 2, skip slot 3 because it didn't work, and both DVD drives on a single cable in IDE slot 4.

IDE SLOTS
4 3 2 1

Sorry for my hard core noobiosity. Any help on optimizing would be appreciated. Next time I'll cave and buy a Dell...

Thanks,
Jason

If you set the SW1 switch to auto(Not ON) your computer should read 2600+ at startup. You probably have the fsb set at 100mhz(on position).
Try that and it should read as a 2600+.
Good Luck!