ABIT KT7A Mobo Question

[RaT]

i planning on making a cpu upgrade on one of my "older" systems. it's basically an Abit KT7A board currently running an AMD T-Bird 1.1ghz cpu.

If i was to only replace the cpu, would any current athlon CPU work as long as it supports the 266MHz FSB? Although it doesnt make sense, does that mean that even an AMD Athlon MP 2800+ "Barton", 266MHz FSB, 512K Cache Processor work on this paricular board.

Seriously though, i was thinking of going with something like an AMD Athlon XP 2000+, 266 FSB, 256K Cache Processor or an AMD Athlon XP 2200+, 266 FSB, 256K Cache Processor

Do you guys see any compatability problems with the cpu's i plan on buying??

[ShibasScotch]

That will be depending on the board itself. according to the board, it will only support up to AMD athlon/duron 1.2hz processors. However, with newer bios flashes, you may be able to go higher. You cant use an MP however. The biggest hold back that you are going to see with this board as opposed to newer ones, is the RAM. If you are looking for an upgrade, pick up a cheap board (that will be decent, Abit, Asus, Gigabyte, Biostar) that can support DDR memory.

[VidmanII]

Originally posted by RaT
i planning on making a cpu upgrade on one of my "older" systems. it's basically an Abit KT7A board currently running an AMD T-Bird 1.1ghz cpu.

If i was to only replace the cpu, would any current athlon CPU work as long as it supports the 266MHz FSB? Although it doesnt make sense, does that mean that even an AMD Athlon MP 2800+ "Barton", 266MHz FSB, 512K Cache Processor work on this paricular board.

Seriously though, i was thinking of going with something like an AMD Athlon XP 2000+, 266 FSB, 256K Cache Processor or an AMD Athlon XP 2200+, 266 FSB, 256K Cache Processor

Do you guys see any compatability problems with the cpu's i plan on buying??

Usually if you go to your Mobo Mfgrs BIOS update site, they'll show in the BIOS release notes compatibility info on CPU's released after your mobo was manufactured. Check it.

[RaT]

thanks for the input guys. after a little searching on Abit's website, i found this:

"ABIT KT7A / KT7A-RAID V1.3 mainboard is hardware compatible (ready) and can support AMD Athlon XP processor via BIOS update. ABIT KT7 / KT7-RAID all version and KT7A/KT7A-RAID V1.0/1.1/1.2 cannot support AMD Athlon XP processor.
ABIT has release BIOS for KT7A V1.3 to patch the CPU model name. If user did not upgrade to the latest bios, users can also manually set the suitable working frequency for AMD Athlon XP processors in SoftMenu BIOS. AMD Athlon XP Processors SoftMenu III Setup -> CPU Operating Speed ->User Define With above setting users can use AMD Athlon XP processors flawlessly. The incorrect CPU information during POST can be fix via BIOS update.
As for KT7 and KT7A old version mainboards, which launched earlier than AMD Athlon XP processors, they are not hardware compatible with new CPU."

i guess i'll have to check what version i have on the motherboard.

[matt719]

I have this board.... running a 1900+ in it. I think it supports 2000 or 2100 with default bios, and maybe 2200 with bios update. HOWEVER!!!! I tried to run a tbred b 2400+ in it and it would go into windows fine and clock at the right speed, but it wasn't stable. (this was with the latest bios at the time, about a year ago). it would lock up and crash any way possible and it was unusable (you couldn't do anything w/o a lockup. it was at this time i got NF7 nforce 2. if you update your bios and stick with palomino cores you will be set, but it would be risky to go with tbred b and barton seems like it wouldn't work at all.

Edit: i guess i had revision 1.3

[Busby]

I had the board and my research on it at the time was that it supported XP processor but not the Throughbred cores. So an original XP processor would work, if I remember correctly.