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Yes, that's correct. AGP frequency is not a problem, the card can work@100+ MHz. Don't know how much more the PCI could handle, but I guess it might not be a problem. The board is a PITA to mod. It is using separate controller for the CPU, can mod it easily (bios limited to +10% which results in 1.775V for the test Sempron 2200+). I can go up to 2V via software in windows though. And there's a FB pin, so this should be an easy mod. The rest (Vagp, Vnb, Vdimm and Vsb) are controlled by a single LM324. Vagp and Vnb are tied together, so incresing Vagp will increase chipset voltage as well. Vsb is 2.7V. Vdimm is problematic. I guess something else is fed with Vdimm and when the DRAM votlage is increased to 3+ the board gets unstable and hardly even POSTs when 2 DIMMs installed. If it boots, then it freezes randomly. The only solution I see is to use separate power for DRAM, e.g. lift the mosfet leg and get power from a DC-DC buck converter, but I will have to order some. "High" setting for Vdimm from bios translates to around 2.64V, but when 2 modules installed the voltage drops to 2.44V. I have tried direct 3.3V rail mod and it behaves the same. Also tried OCZ Booster (which is the same, but source is 5V rail) and still freezing, although I can't really use it for benching on this board, because the slots are very close to each other and it interferes with one of the slots used for dual-channel configuration. On top of that, the mod area is very crammed with all the slots and elements around it. The LM324 chip is between first AGP slot and the expansion card slot. As you might guess 2.44V is not really enough for anything with BH-5 and tight timings. Running different divider than 1:1 means performance loss. So..waiting for the buck converter. Can't figure bios modding out. It's AMI, but all amibcp tools I tried say "bios checksum incorrect" and refuse to load. There's only one good bios for this board (Performance bios M1.00), which has the timings unlocked. It's a "beta" from Asrock.

I have bought the frankenstein board Asrock K7Upgrade-880. The bios is not very tweakable, with most voltages missing (or having something like +10%, normal, high). Will need voltmods for everything. The good things: - Unlocked Sempron 2200+ boots with its native multiplier x9 (and not the highest detected), which will help reaching high frequencies, that are not possible on nForce2. - I can control the multiplier within Windows, which was the original goal - Board works at 250MHz FSB no mods, could go to 260, but it crashed. Memory divider set to 166 right now. - There's S2K drive strength in bios - There are FID jumpers, which might be useful in some cases Will have to check the bios if I can mod it somehow, unlock hidden options, etc. This was the only KT880 board I could find. Came with a Sempron 2600+ and a cooler.

Shouldn't be a problem with strong hardware. It's not a problem for the videocard. If the integrated controllers don't drop at high FSB then external PLL might not be needed. My KT600 stops at ~240MHz with mods, but haven't messed with bios yet.

As far as I can see the max FSB is comparable to nForce2 and that's without the lock. Hooking up external PLL might allow it to go higher. I've seen reviews that it is a little faster clock for clock and might allow higher stable DDR frequency due to a better mem controller. Also has higher bandwidth. As for the diagrams, if you're interested you can make the physical FSB-detection switches with cables soldered at the back of the socket (L12-mod). I have them on the old AN7, but it doesn't help when you have a modded bios. Doesn't hurt to have it, though. I've also made an entire multiplier switch board in an attempt to change the multiplier of a super-locked CPUs, but it didn't work. That's why KT880 would be better. On Nforce2 you're limited by the FSB and with 9x multiplier (in the case with 2200+ Sempron) you can't go much higher, while on VIA chipset 2600+ is possible. If you find a golden chip you can even go to 3GHz with SS/LN2, I guess. I think it would be rather easy to beat @TerraRaptor's wprime scores even on KT600, but since it is single-channel only I couldn't beat his PI 1M score even at 2.6GHz (came close, but still slower). http://fab51.com/cpu/sempron/s10-e.html

In my original bioses I've followed that recommendation and changed all these values. On a side note, the memory timings start from b0/d0/f1 offset 90 (IIRC, at work right now). I've tried to play with some values in the near offsets, without much luck. Will try your values in the evening, but will change the CPU first, since I'm using one of my best XP-M in the moment. Tried to find a similar romsip table in VIA KT600 bioses, again without a positive result. Also checked NF3 and NF4 bioses and although there are some tables, it's not the same as in nforce2 bioses. PS: Btw, I think a better option might be a KT880 board, eventually modding it with external PLL, since it has no PCI/AGP lock. The mem controller is better than nF2 and you can also change multiplier in windows, which is useful for super-locked CPUs. Edit: S2K Bus Disconnect is b0/d0/f0/6F, data set to 1F (or 10). Perhaps we can dig into that direction and the S2K drive strengths are also there and we can control the values runtime. The S2K should be common/similar for all K7 chipsets. But be aware that all documents say it can be dangerous for the CPU and damage it permanently. I remember using S2KCtl application back in the days, to control the bus disconnect feature. CPUId can also control HALT states and divisors. Have to check if something changes accordingly when you modify the romsip table registers from @TerraRaptor's testing. Edit 2: ROMSIP from Nforce4 Ultra-D 702-1 bios (BH-5), located in decomp_blk.bin 000061c0: 65 D0 16 2B 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 4C FF FF eP.+.........L.. 000061d0: 08 00 03 00 00 00 00 0F 1C 70 E0 81 FF FF FF FF .........p`..... 000061e0: FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 000061f0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 00006200: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 00006210: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 00006220: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 00006230: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 00006240: 21 41 24 00 00 E4 16 1D 21 41 25 00 00 E4 16 1D !A$..d..!A%..d.. 00006250: 21 41 25 00 00 E4 16 1D 21 41 26 00 00 E4 16 1D !A%..d..!A&..d.. 00006260: 21 41 23 00 00 E4 27 25 21 41 24 00 00 E4 27 25 !A#..d'%!A$..d'% 00006270: 21 41 25 00 00 E4 26 1D 21 41 26 00 00 E4 26 1D !A%..d&.!A&..d&. 00006280: 21 41 20 00 00 E4 16 1D 21 41 21 00 00 E4 16 1D !A...d..!A!..d.. 00006290: 21 41 21 00 00 E4 16 1D 21 41 22 00 00 E4 16 1D !A!..d..!A"..d.. 000062a0: 21 41 22 00 00 E4 16 1D 21 41 23 00 00 E4 16 1D !A"..d..!A#..d.. 000062b0: 21 41 23 00 00 E4 16 1D 21 41 24 00 00 E4 16 1D !A#..d..!A$..d.. 000063a0: 65 D0 16 2B 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 4E FF FF eP.+.........N.. 000063b0: 08 00 03 00 00 00 00 0F 1C 70 E0 81 FF FF FF FF .........p`..... 000063c0: FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 000063d0: 03 80 80 80 4B 04 00 00 03 80 80 80 4B 04 00 00 ....K.......K... 000063e0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 000063f0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 00006400: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 00006410: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 00006420: 21 41 24 00 00 E4 16 1D 21 41 25 00 00 E4 16 1D !A$..d..!A%..d.. 00006430: 21 41 25 00 00 E4 16 1D 21 41 26 00 00 E4 16 1D !A%..d..!A&..d.. 00006440: 21 41 23 00 00 E4 27 25 21 41 24 00 00 E4 27 25 !A#..d'%!A$..d'% 00006450: 21 41 25 00 00 E4 26 1D 21 41 26 00 00 E4 26 1D !A%..d&.!A&..d&. 00006460: 21 41 20 00 00 E4 16 1D 21 41 21 00 00 E4 16 1D !A...d..!A!..d.. 00006470: 21 41 21 00 00 E4 16 1D 21 41 22 00 00 E4 16 1D !A!..d..!A"..d.. 00006480: 21 41 22 00 00 E4 16 1D 21 41 23 00 00 E4 16 1D !A"..d..!A#..d.. 00006490: 21 41 23 00 00 E4 16 1D 21 41 24 00 00 E4 16 1D !A#..d..!A$..d.. Very similar to "CPU Interface OFF" [E4] table from TaiPan 0.3, but the last value is adjusted "higher". There's also a difference in the first part of the table, but don't know if it can be used directly in NF2. Same "multiplier" table can be found in nForce3-250GB UT bios. Is decomp_blk.rom just the LHA-decompressor? If so, I guess it's no point of interest?

Doh, thought most of the nForce2 boards use the SilliconImage. Well, my idea still stands. By updating the SilliconImage rom it became much faster and definitely faster that tne IDE->SATA adaptors I use sometimes as well. But if you couldn't manage it, then buy some of these cheap adaptors (very fragile, so get some spares). AFAIK many of these controllers have problems with large drives, which sometimes is solved by updating the firmware in the bios.

Update the sillicon image Sil3112 to 4.4.02 (last available version). I've used it successfully many times on AN7 and always use USB flash drive as an install media. Some boards can't boot from USB though and need some sort of a boot manager mod (I've recently replaced LAN option rom with plop manager on NF7-S). You can update the bios by simply replacing existing RAID rom with the updated version using cbrom. PS: Alternatively, you can give me your bios files and I will quickly mod them. That for the Soltek board, for the promise controller maybe search for a newer version as well. 4402.bin

@Tzk Thanks for the collection! I've tried the 4.90 as well, but it didn't boot, as expected. The 4.35 dropped my max FSB a little. The main difference I noticed are the tighter default timings compared to usual nforce2 bpl. Latencies are good, but nothing extraordinary. And I had problems booting with locked Sempron at 9x multiplier. This might make it incompatible with certain DDR sticks. Main and subtimings are very close to as tight as you can get with BH-5 on this platform.

I tried that v4.35 and it works on NF7-S. Can't tell much more right now, needs testing.

That PDF is interesting. I've done most of the things in the first part, but I'm not willing to spend time with the part where he goes into assembly. I've done reverse-engineering on an android phone kernel to get various calibration data tables of sensors for use in a custom kernel compiled from scratch. And it is a lot of work. At least you can understand what is going on with the integrated memtest. PS: My boards are dying one by one. First the AN7 problem with newer CPUs and even if it boots with some CPU I can't save any settings in bios. Perhaps the uGuru chip is bad. Then I had 3 NF7-S stored as working and 2 of them don't react to power button. Changed capacitors and still no sign of life. I have a willem programmer and have re-programmed some bios chips, but it didn't help. The spare AN7 doesn't do that high FSB like the old one.

Unfortunately I don't have many proper wprime 32/1024 scores, since most of the time I'm just lazy and run it on XP or don't run it at all. You will have to test it yourself or I can try it in the evening with my Sempron 2200+ (I can run 2400MHz on stock cooler). Don't know why, but Vista is fastest on this platform. I'm not good at tweaking wprime, though. Most of the socket A wprime scores are done on XP/2003 or 2000 and only very few on Vista (including some of mine), but from the screenshots I can't tell which ones. I've cut them to size and always using the classic theme, so I don't know.

- gif attachment fail -

Not to spoil the fun, but that 6.9 is cpuz valid AFAIK 😛. Which for "today's standards" is not that good. Most of the later Deneb CPUs can do 7+ valid, I think. A bold statement, since I haven't tested many, but the process was mature enough. You have a better chance hitting 7+ with one of the newer C3's out there (the 3-letter ones). You can get 3 pieces for that price from China with new steppings. PS: Still a good CPU, would be useful for CCup, I guess.

Vista is the fastest for wprime on K7 😛 Unless some of the older versions is faster, but Vista > XP for sure.