Vcore & Ratio Settings

[excitron]

After discussing with some folks here, I've decided to replace the 1.4 gig T-Bird athlon in my system with a faster CPU. The motherboard, an MSI K7T Turbo-R Limited, is supposedly rated only for an XP-1600, although I've been informed I can place a higher chip in there as long as it has a 266 FSB.

So I've found an XP 2600+ .13 Micron 266 FSB online (AXDA2600DKV3C), but I'm uncertain about Vcore and CPU ratio settings for this board. They are now set to "default", but the docs don't say what this is or what this means. Does "default" mean that the BIOS communicates with the chip and sets them as needed? Am I being too hopeful here?

Manual Vcore range from 1.550 to 1.850 in .250 increments and ratios are X5 to X12 in .5 incremets, then whole numbers to X15. The currant BIOS I've installed, V3.6 claims to "support AMD XP 2400+ & 2600+" for the K7t Turbo2 (my board's successor), but supposedly not my board. I'm not sure what think about that.

So should I just leave the Vcore and Ratio to "default", or should I be setting these manually? Are there any other settings I should concern myself with?

Thanks for any help with this.

 

[Crashman]

I'd leave it at default until you get comfortable with it, then try overclocking later.

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[excitron]

Oh, my statement wasn't in reference to OC'ing, I want to know if "default" will properly set the normal voltage and multiplier for the XP 2600, or whether I should be doing it manually.

Also, the present 1.4 gig T-Bird has an unidentified CoolerMaster fan, can I use the same fan for the 2600? The T-Bird is rated at 1.75V, 41.2A, while the 2600 is rated at 1.65V, 41.4A (is that really AMPERES? That's the kind of amps you start your CAR with!). I would imagine I can use the fan, but I don't know for sure.

 

[Crashman]

My recommendation still stands. I said I'd try it with everything at default first.

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[Crashman]

BTW, it typically takes 300+ amps to start a car.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[Guest]

Get the retail 2600. It comes with a better warranty, and a fan.

_________________________
Your arrogance is boring!

 

[allanon1965]

I need to make a bit of adjustment to your statement crashman, it typically takes 150-200 amps to start a car, at 300+ cables will be smoking, at 400 the starter wont even turn over and the battery will die a horrible death! been doing the auto repair thing for 22 years now and been ase master certified for 12 of those 22 no offense is intended with this post, only clarification

Fat, Drunk, and Stupid is no way to go through life Son.

 

[Crashman]

I've been in it for 12 years too, I'm not master certified (just degreed), but I remember it took around 160 amps just to start a 4 cylinder car on a warm day. I prefer V8s and live in Michigan.

According to a chart I just looked up, an 8 guage wire will carry 200A 12v 7 feet. The other charts I've found give lower numbers but without feet, so I'm assuming they refer to indefinate length (that is, whatever length that would drop the voltage near 0 due to resistance). The shorter the wire is the more amperage it can tolerate for brief periods, and the briefer the period the less heat is built up within the cable. So I'll assume the 200A 7ft is a valid number, I've never seen a starter cable longer than 7 feet or smaller than 4 guage! Of course I've never worked on a car with an engine smaller than 2 liters.

My batteries are rated at over 700CCA. They are capable of around 1000A loads for several seconds in warmer temps. A tiny 350CCA battery won't start a V8 on a cold day, yet even pushing it's heart out on that stuck engine the cables don't fry nor does the battery boil.

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[excitron]

Some folks over at motherboards.org are thinking this MoBo isn't going to crank anything higher than the rated XP 1600 limit. So I'm curious as to why you folks here believe otherwise. I certainly would like to think this can be done. Looking at the multiplier charts here...

http://www.msi.com.tw/program/support/cpu_support/cpu/spt_cpu_detail.php?UID=25

...pretty much rules out the 2600, assuming other chips like the 2400 are game.

So on paper it certainly seems like these faster chips could work, but why would MSI state that they wouldn't, and has anyone here actually tried this and proved them wrong?

 

[Crashman]

According to that, .13 micron CPU's aren't compatable. This is usually a voltage issue, most boards won't even POST when they detect a processor out of range for the VRM, but if yours has jumpers for setting it manually, that might work. Otherwise you might have to mod the CPU to get it detected at a higer voltage that falls within the VRM's limits.

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<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[allanon1965]

yes i understand the cables are capable of theoretically carrying that much load, but the truth is, they wont tolerate it long enough to crank the engine to start, case in point is the 1988 ford taurus in our shop right now with a 3.0 V-6 that the starter is drawing 385 amps, battery cables smoking, batery gets extremely hot, which warped the battery plates,leading to a shorted cell and the starter refuses to turn over, merely grunts and quits turning. it has a battery that is rated at 900 cca, cold cranking amps, that rating is decieving. the reason for the cca rating is that when a battery reaches 32*F it loses 50% of its cranking ability, at 0*F it loses 75% the high cca allows for enough amps at 0*F to still give enough to start the car. it like alot of theories in computers, they are there, but in reality they dont mean what they seem to. lol! oh well, it does make for interesting days at work.

Fat, Drunk, and Stupid is no way to go through life Son.

 

[phsstpok]

[edited for clarity]

You have the wrong motherboard at that link! That's the K7T Turbo (no "2") Limited Edition. There isn't even a K7T Turbo2 Limited listed at the MSI site.

I'd say trust the Turbo2 specs. You shouldn't have any problem with the XP2600+ (266) but do keep it at default settings. Because of multiplier remappings, changing the multiplier produces unexpected results (See my multiplier remapping table at the end).

Take a look at the <A HREF="http://www.amdforums.com/forumdisplay.php?s=a3b055dce8b21db8521eb4e2b4e21109&forumid=12" target="_new">MSI forum</A> at AMDMB.COM. You'll see some people using XP2600+ on the K7T Turbo2.

If you work at it hard enough (meaning mods involved) you can make any Athlon XP work on any Socket 7 motherboard.

Check out the newsgroup, alt.comp.hardware.overclocking.amd, and you will see people installing Tbreds and Bartons on even KT133 (no "A") mobos thanks to the AMDs multiplier remap feature. You'll need a newsreader or use some like Google Groups (which is what I use).

I, myself, put a Tbred XP1700+ (modified to beo an XP2400+) into an Abit KT7 Mobo (KT133) and ran it at 2000 Mhz (20 * 100 Mhz). Note that's a real 2000 Mhz not XP2000+.

A stock XP2400+ would work just as well, better because there's a little more overclocking headroom.

In fact, an XP2400+ is the best choice for legacy motherboards because it has a default multiplier of 15x which avoids one issue, see table), a high enough default voltage to avoid POST problems, has a high multiplier (13x and above turns on the remap function), and has decent speed and overclocking headroom (should you want to do overclock), and most importantly it's the processor that is most likely to work without doing ANY MODs on legacy motherboards.

The highest multiplier available with the XP's is 24x. This means even on my lowly Abit KT7 with its 100 Mhz (200) bus I could run a processor up to 2400 Mhz. This can be done without overclocking the bus. My KT7's bus would only overclock 106 Mhz (because it's an early release of KT133 chipset) but if I wanted to do it and if I had a good enough processor I could in theory run up to 2544 Mhz. Not bad for a 3+ year old motherboard.

Here's my multiplier remap table

<pre>Bios Remap
5x ----> 13x (doesn't work on some mobos w/out mods)
5.5 ----> 13.5x (same)
6 ----> 14x (same)
6.5 ----> 21x (same)
7 ----> 15x
7.5 ----> 22.5x
8 ----> 16x
8.5 ----> 16.5x
9 ----> 17x
9.5 ----> 18x
10 ----> 23x
10.5 ----> 24x
11 ----> (reserved)
11.5 ----> 19x
12 ----> (reserved)
12.5 ----> 20x</pre><p>

<b>56K, slow and steady does not win the race on internet!</b><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by phsstpok on 10/14/03 03:05 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[excitron]

That's my point. I have a K7T Turbo-R Limited. Not a Turbo2. That said, I do have the ability to set the voltage as listed in my initial post here.

So my curiousity is why wouldn't a chip that I have voltage and multiplier settings for not work? Am I missing some other requirement here?

 

[phsstpok]

My point is you were linking to the wrong table, the Turbo(1) Limited not the Turbo2 table. The recommended processors for the Turbo(1) wouldn't apply to your Turbo2, Limited edition or otherwise.

If you leave the settings at "Default" or "Auto" you will get the correct multiplier and voltage for the XP2600+.

I wouln't fuss with the voltage jumpers unless you have stability problems. In which case, you might want to raise the voltage a little higher than default. (I don't recall what the default voltage is for XP2600+)


<b>56K, slow and steady does not win the race on internet!</b>

 

[phsstpok]

Sorry, I must be blind.

Don't know why I was reading Turbo-R as Turbo2.

I still recommend an XP2400+.

<b>56K, slow and steady does not win the race on internet!</b>

 

[phsstpok]

Still looking for info but this partly what I meant by "can be made to work".

from the MSI forum at AMDMB.com..

"youpii
Junior Member

Registered: Jul 2002
Location:
Posts: 6
I had a few CPU with the K7T Turbo 1: I started with a 1100, then a 1400, then a XP1800+ (0.18), and now a XP2400+ (0.13).
Although the XP2400+ (0.13) is not supposed to work, it seems to do. The only annoying think, wich started from XP1800+ is that I have to press the reset button after power up for it to boot.

My only concern is about the voltage. The Xp2400+ is supposed to run at 1.65V. If I leave the voltage as default or force 1.65V, MBM 5.3.2.0 reports 1.78V. Forcing 1.60V, then MBM reports 1.72V. At 1.60V(1.72V) CPU temp is 52°C with a silent heatsink.

My PSU is an Enermax 365."



<b>56K, slow and steady does not win the race on internet!</b>

 

[Crashman]

I had a Delta 88 with a diesel I bought for $95 with 38k miles, and put a 350R into. Unfortunately one of my neighbors stole my starter, so I ended up using the diesel starter and flexplate. Now, the diesel had a smaller starter ring because diesels need HEAT to start, probably meant to crank the engine faster. And it came with dual batteries and 0 gauge cables (I kept those even after the car was gone). I put one top quality 970CCA battery in that car, and even at -5F, that big starter, small starter ring, and big cables allowed my engine to crank faster than a normal car does on a warm day. And I was using 20W-50 oil at the time to quiet a noisy lifter! I used to give a lot of jump starts!

That was impressive, going out in such cold weather my nose hair would freeze instantly, hopping in a car with rock hard frozen seats, and starting the car as if it were the middle of July when everyone else was waiting for help!

Actually, it would start like "wrrrWHOMPH wr-wr-wr Vroom", the "wrrrWhomph" not being present in hot weather.

I had it down to a science, pump the throttle 7 times and it would start on the fourth spin.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
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[allanon1965]

hehe that sounds like one super setup would be great to have that here in nw indiana on cold winter mornings

Fat, Drunk, and Stupid is no way to go through life Son.

 

[mgame]

Your reply to Excitron has me thinking. I have an ASUS A7V333 mobo. Currently I'm running a XP 1700. I wanted to upgrade to a XP 2500 Barton FSB333. According to both ASUS and AMD. I should be able to run this time on my mobo. Unfortunetly I can't get my system to post as you were stating in your reply. Even after I manually set the core voltage and FSB to the needed paraameters. Still no luck. All I get is "system cpu error message". I may just sell the cpu on ebay and get some of my money back. Better then paying a restock fee.

 

[Crashman]

If it's retail boxed and you have the receipt, I have a friend with an unopened 2400+ he might trade you.

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[kep55]

This may have answered my question. A friend has the same mobo MS-6330 and he dropped an Athlon XP 2000 into it. The BIOS and MSSysInf both only show 1.2GHz instead of the rated 1.67GHz. And there's no way I could find in the BIOS to change any of the settings.

I know enuff to be dangerous. :tongue: