The Unofficial ASUS K7M Resource Centre

maintained by Digital Business Solutions

last updated 2003/04/08

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[contents]

• specifications
• power supplies
• keyboards
• chassis intrusion
• bios upgrades
• drivers
• geforce
• super bypass
• reviews & articles
• links

[specifications]

A picture is worth a thousand words, so here is a scan of the K7M spec sheet:

ASUS now have some information on their website, click here to visit them.

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[power supplies]

There is  a sticker on the K7M box that warns that you use a minimum of a 200W power supply, inside the manual they recommend a 250W power supply that is capable of supplying 20A on the +5V rail, and 10mA on the +5V standby (+5VSB) rail.  AMD also recommends a minimum of a 250W power supply, (see their list of recommended power supplies).

You will see there, that they list a specification called Combined Power, this is the combined power of the +3.3V and the +5V rails. Many new power supplies show this specification, in addition to the maximum current on each rail.

Here are some sample specifications from a 250W ATX power supply:

On this power supply we would expect the combined power of the +3.3V and +5V to be 171.2W (3.3 x 14 + 5 x 25), but we see that it is actually limited to 135W.  This means that we can get a maximum of 14A on the +3.3V rail OR 25A on the +5V rail, but not both at the same time!

In AMD's list we can see that the lowest Combined Power is 125W, so when choosing a power supply for your K7M, choose one that meets the following minimum specifications:

• 250W Total Wattage
• 125W Combined Power (+3.3V and +5V rails)
• 20A on the +5V rail
• 10mA on the +5V standby rail

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[keyboards]

We have encountered problems with certain keyboards and the ASUS K7M, the symptom is that the computer will not boot every time, requiring several resets or on/off transitions to get it to boot.  We have tried using older AT-style keyboards with a PS/2 adapter, and this works fine.  We have also tried a USB keyboard, and this works as well, but if you are using MS-DOS or Windows NT remember to enable USB KB/Mouse Legacy Support in the CMOS setup.  You will find this setting under Advanced Chipset Setup.  Be aware that the keyboard indicator LEDs don't work under NT, but their functions (Num Lock, Caps Lock) still do.

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[chassis intrusion]

If you are not using a chassis intrusion lead, ASUS recommend grounding the Chassis Signal, by placing a jumper cap over the Chassis Signal and Ground pins, this is to prevent unnecessary power loss.

It turns out that this is not necessary, and was actually a mistake in the manual, Ivo Särak sent us a copy of the message he received from Asus technical support.

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[bios upgrades]

Here are the latest BIOS upgrades for the ASUS K7M:

Click here to visit the ASUS FTP site.

If you have a problem flashing your BIOS, and you find that you can no longer reboot your computer, you can recover by copying the BIOS image of your choice to a fresh floppy disk (does not even have to be bootable), and renaming it to 'AMIBOOT.ROM'.
Boot your computer with this disk in the floppy drive, and it should beep once, read from the floppy, beep four times, and then reboot.
Remember to load the fail safe settings in the CMOS configuration. Thanks to Steve Benson for this tip.

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[drivers]

Here are the drivers you will need:

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[geforce]

If you are running NVIDIA GeForce based video card on a K7M make sure you are using the latest NVIDIA Reference Drivers, OEM specific drivers are often a little behind, and you should only use them if you require an OEM specific feature on the card, e.g. video capture, VR glasses.
There have been reports of compatibility problems between the GeForce and the AMD IronGate chipset when using AGP 2x transfers (read all about it here, and here).  NVIDIA worked around this problem with driver release 3.62 and later, by always using AGP 1x transfers if an IronGate chipset is detected.
We have written a utility called GeTune, which will allow you to change this, as well as some other options in the NVIDIA drivers.
The latest NVIDIA drivers as well as other utilities are available on our Detonator Resource Centre.

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[super bypass]

AMD have enabled a feature in newer versions of the IronGate chipset, called Super Bypass, which improves perforormance by reducing latencies in the CPU accessing system memory.  Tom's Hardware Guide has a nice article on Super Bypass, as well as a benchmark comparing the results between a system with Super Bypass enabled, and one without.  Older K7M boards won't have chips that support Super Bypass, but newer ones will.  As far as I know, there is no way of telling from the K7M revision which you have.  The best way I have found, is to install the latest BIOS upgrade, which has a new CMOS setting for Super Bypass, if your IronGate chip does not support this feature, the option will be greyed-out.

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[reviews & articles]

Here are links to online reviews of the ASUS K7M motherboard:

• 3DNow! - The Unofficial 3DNow! UK Asus K7M Guide
• AnandTech - AMD Athlon Buyer's Guide - Part 1 : Motherboards
• BXBoards - Asus K7M Review
• Hardware-One - Asus K7M Athlon Motherboard
• LostCircuits - ASUS K7M Cloak and Dagger with Chipzilla
• Tom's Hardware Guide - Athlon Motherboard Review
• 3DNow! UK - Asus K7M Guide

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[links]

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