Here's an update on my situation if anyone has insight. As suggested by the previous poster, I checked SW1. I actually have it set to 133Mhz (1 off / 2 off) but at boot I still get Athlon 2000+.

I also double-checked the ck_ratio jumper and I have it set to auto.

In the bios, I reverted back to 'optimize defaults' to see if that would help, which it did not.

Lastly, I resorted to pulling the heatsink off the cpu and it appears from the numbers that it is indeed a 2600 (AXDA2600KV3d on the proc).

In case anyone is interested in silencing their own POS Gigabyte mobo, I am going to install the following and could report back :
zalman motherboard heatsink for the northbridge chipset $9
silent cpu cooler $30
silent case fan $18

I resent the fact that Gigabyte shave prices by putting on horribly loud components. I would much rather have paid a few extra bucks to get something not obnoxious.

I think I'm going nutz.

Jason

If you haven't tried CPUIDLE, I highly recommend it. It drops my CPU temp by 5-6 degress on average.

Regards,
Jason

Re The 2600....

I'm certainly no expert on computers, but.... I seem to recall that the XP chips diverge at 2600.... I think they did a 266 *AND* a 333 Mhz one... So... If you have the 333, you may need to set the DIP to 166.... I'm not sure, but you may also need to update your BIOS to the F11 to get the extra multipliers ??

Hope this helps,
Ant.

Hiya,

So is the F11 flash incompatible with the lower chips ?? Seems a bit silly to me... Surely they would have made it backward compatible ??

My flashing works fine (I have done it 3/4 times) and I reset the CMOS after each flash, and then manually change my RAM times, etc.

Has anyone else had a problem with this flash?? Or is anyone running it fine on a sub Barton system ??


L8rs,
Ant.

My heartfelt thanks to Ant. After updating my bios to F11 and setting SW1 to 166 I am up and running at 2600+.

Regards,
Jason

You are more than welcome Jason, glad to be of help !

I take it that you aren't having any problems with the F11 flash then ??

It made my system fall over ! But someone posted that it might be better not to flash until I have the higher chips... I only have an XP2000 at the mo...

L8rs,
Ant.

After probs with the mobo when I first had it, I put F11 bios on, but have had no probs with that on an athlon2000+

Maybe not the right forum, but as everything is stable now I want to know am I at the optimum for my system.

My 3d mark 2001 score is 6500 average, has anyone else got results for a system the same as mine

athlon 2000+ (@1.67mhz)
ga-7vaxp mobo (F11)
sapphire ati radeon 9000
512mb ram 2700@ 333

all this run on win98se

Or does anyone know what forum I look on to find out some info?

Hey there i have a athlon 2200+ at 2400+ and i got it upto the 166 FSB on my Rev 1.2 GA-7VAXP, BUT i want 200 FSB without overclocking the PCI and AGP cards, does anyone have ideas for me? please post suggestions! to unlock the 333 i placed a metal clip over the 2 metal surfaces beside SW_1 because the 1.2 doesnt have the extra dip that the 1.1 and 1.0 did.

I have Creative Live 5.1 Player Surround Card... Should I use the onboard Realtek which is 6 channel (6.1 ?).

Anyone got any comments on which is the best option? Would using onboard sound be more stable for O/C ing? (ie not using PCI slot)

Thanks

****
Thermaltake Xaser II Case (recommend this beauty to anyone!)
1 in-take & 1 out-take 80mm fans running
Enermax 460watt PSU
GA-7VAXP Rev 1.1
Athlon XP 2700+ @42-46 Degrees C
Volcano 7+ HSF @ 3000rpm
Samsung PC-2700 512MB DDR Stick O RAM (cl 2.5)
Radeon Saphire 9700 Pro graphics (AGP @ +.01v)
Seagate Barracuda ATA 100 40Gb HDD
*****

Allthough i sympathise with some of you guys having probs with this MB I have found it to be stable enough to run anything i throw at it, my 400 RAM runs at 400 without self frogging and i have had no stress with it. XP went in first time too I do however have some HUGE probs with an Asus A7S333 board that refuses to even spark life into the Vid card. I used to own the A-OpenAK77 pro before and reccomend this board to anyone.

I run an AMD 2400+
albatron medussa ti4200 pro turbo 4X AGP
1gb PC3200 CL=2.5 RAM

hope you lot manage to sort ya probs out but as i recall someone saying earlier, AMD is not for the weak hearted or complete novice, it does help to know a bit about maintanence when owning one of these top performence machines. when they work properly they ROCK when they dont, they SUCK. i always have and always will use AMD even in the days of the old 100mhz 586 CPU's.

Re the Realtek onboard sound...

Use the SB !!!!! The on board sound sucks bigly ! Unless you have the surround capability I don't see as it's much use... And the quality should be better from the SB....

I have an M-Audio Audiophile 2496.... I don't have surround but what I do have is crystal ! I would recomend this card to anyone who want top quality sound fairly cheaply....

Ant.

Re the Realtek onboard sound...

Also... I think using an external card like the SB should take some of the loading off of our CPU.... The realtek used to kill mine !


Ant.

http://www.endpcnoise.com

I just bought these parts for my Giga 7VAXP and they converted my PC from the noisiest PC on the block to a nice quiet machine.... If you buy just *1* thing you gotta buy the heatsink for the Northbridge chipset for 9 bucks to replace the P.O.C. fan that Gigabyte put on..

I have no affiliation with this company. They shipped promptly and I got everything as expected.

J.


Quan Item No. Description Price Extension
---- ----------- ------------------------------- -------------- ----------------
1 00046 Zalman Motherboard Heatsink $8.95 $8.95
NB32J
SHIPPED time: 18-Apr-2003 04:48PM

1 kcz-2700 NEW Nexus KCZ-2700 Quiet $29.95 $29.95
Athlon XP CPU Cooler
SHIPPED time: 18-Apr-2003 04:48PM

1 00025 Papst 8412NGL Quiet Case Fan $17.95 $17.95
12dB
SHIPPED time: 18-Apr-2003 04:48PM

I've just bought one of these boards and I'm very disappointed. I'm running an XP2800+ with 1Gb Corsair DDR400, 2x Diamondmax 160Gb striped on raid controller, All in Wonder 9700 Pro with an Enermax 460w PSU.

I'm getting data corruption on big file transfers, when XP crashed last time it wiped out the onboard NIC (I can't get Windoze to detect that there is no cable inserted and I cant get a link light on the NIC when there is, any ideas?) I've flashed the BIOS to F11, loaded all the compatible drivers and I'm still bombing out at completely random intervals. Any help on this would be much appreciated but I've a feeling that I've wasted money on this product. And Gigabyte boards you to be so good.

Incidently, does anyone know if the Soyo Dragon K4 Platinum is any good?

JamieL

YA!! my board has been good, but i cant get my nic to work anymore!! I dont even have the onboard lan option in the bios anymore! please help SOMEONE! ive tried flasing with F9 and F11

Im experiencing memory problems on my GA-7VAXP. I had 2 x 512mb Kingston 333Mhz PC2700 Modules running and when i introduced a third module (exactly the same as the other two) i always recieve no signal from the monitor. After trying some possible solutions given to me i decided to just go back to the two that were already in there and discovered that i still got no signal. The only way i can get a signal is to have one of the modules in there, always the same one. Is it possible that two of them have blown?

I have a Gigabyte GA-7VAXP,
AMD Athlon XP 2700+,
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro.

Thanks for any help.

KT400 boards are touchy about Dimms. Gigabyte don't say a lot about their board but the ASUS KT400 supports only 4 banks at PC2700, 2 at PC3200. That's 2 or 1 double sided Dimms resp.

If you can get your PC to boot with a single dimm, load the optimised defaults in the BIOS. It usually helps if you put the known working Dimm in the first slot (nearest the CPU).

Don't bother with the top performace setting as it's know to not work correctly with multiple dimms. I'd be surprised if you can get the more the 2 dimms in there unless you're prepared to clock it down to PC2100 or increase some of the memory timings in the (CRTL+F1) advanced BIOS

Ant

Try them in all possible combinations,

Have you tried them all on their own, it might be the slots.

Does the computer recognize them as the right type, amount etc..

Try to get hold of some other memory to try in the different slots, and try the one that works in all the slots on it's own, u have to eliminate things systamatically until you find the cause, sorry if this info is useless but I hope it helps.

Also try all the memory in another computer if you can.

I HAVE THE ANSWER!!!!!!

Return you Gigabyte board to the re-seller as faulty and buy an Abit AT7 MAX2 which is well stable!!!!!!!!!

Jamie,

Great idea but if you take a few minutes to read the ABIT specs below you'll see that the ABIT only supports 2 DIMM DDR 333/400 so this board is unlikely to be stable with 3 DIMMS of PC2700 (DDR333) which is the configeration the poster was trying to operate.

Memory

Four 184-pin DIMM sockets
Supports 2 DIMM DDR 333/400 (Max. 2GB)
Supports 3 DIMM Un-buffered DDR 200/266 (Max. 3GB)
Supports 4 DIMM Registered DDR 200/266 (Max. 3.5GB)

Ant