Re: DISCOVERED! Cause of Athlon/VIA KX133 Instability

[Jonathan Morton <chromi@cyberspace.org>]

>> the only general issue is that kx133 systems seem to be difficult
>> to configure for stability.  ugly things like tweaking Vio.
>> there's no implication that has anything to do with Linux, though.
>
>
>When I reported my problem a couple weeks back another fellow
>said he and several others on the list had the same problem,
>and as far as I can tell it is *only* with the IWILL boards.
>When I compiled with k7 optimizations I'd get all kinds of oopses
>and panics and never fully boot.  They were different every time.
>When any of the lesser optimizations are used I have no problems.
>My memory is one 256MB Corsair PC150 dimm, CPU is a Thunderbird 850,
>and mobo is an IWILL KK266 (KT133A).  The CPU runs between 35°C
>and 40°C.

I'm using an Abit KT7 board (KT133) and my new 1GHz T'bird (running 50-60°C
in a warm room) is giving me no trouble.  This is with the board and RAM
pushed as fast as it will go without actually overclocking anything...  and
yes, I do have Athlon/K7 optimisations turned on in my kernel (2.4.3).

Out of interest, what FSB are you using for your machine?  I understand the
difference between the KT133 and the KT133A is that the latter supports a
266MHz FSB for the Athlon rather than 200MHz.  Since your CPU is running
cool, I doubt you've managed to accidentally o/c it, but nevertheless this
is a possibility...

The 266MHz FSB does require considerably higher standards in board
construction though, so it could be that IWILL have managed to do a shoddy
job on that end.

--------------------------------------------------------------
from:     Jonathan "Chromatix" Morton
mail:     chromi@cyberspace.org  (not for attachments)
big-mail: chromatix@penguinpowered.com
uni-mail: j.d.morton@lancaster.ac.uk

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