Messin w/ The A78NX Again... [Archive]

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RoydRage

12-03-2002, 05:43 PM

In the quest for finding the best setup for my new Prome Conversion/Lian-Li rig to be built over the Holidays, I'm back to messing with the ASUS nForce board after establishing a baseline reference for my Chip/Ram XP2700/XMS3500 C2 with the EPoX 9k8A2+... I have got to 2496MHz. With a 217MHz. FSB... And a Sandra Mem Score Of 3263/3100 On Air. Which I'm pretty happy with.

I returned to continue testing with this board for a couple of reasons... 1. being that despite the slower FSB, and Lower Sandra, this is undoubtably the fastest board I have ever used with a AMD system... 2. I can use the ATI 9700 Pro, and not worry about limiting my OC. 3. It opens up a world of possibilities using different PCI Cards like the RocketRaid 404 I have installed in there now because of the locked PCI Buss.

It has been stated on other forums that the board has an unusually high CPU Temp in the BIOS Which was causing enough problems for me to abandon testing it... With Water Cooling or the Prome/Vapo it would not be a problem.. But on Air it was for me... Windows Temps where always fine BTW... It's just they were skyrocketing it the BIOS..

I have switched to a heavier heat Sink MX-462 from the SLK-800.. The SLK it superior But it's light weight, and heats up faster... The thicker 462.. Holds the Temps down long enough to get in Windows.....

I have also Gotten another Stick of 512mg... XMS3500 C2 so I can use this Ram in Dual Channel. I was using old KingMax DDR333 before that would go to 185FSB... So having 1GB of Good Ram To run Dual Channel with, Spurred me on to further testing as well, trouble is, I cannot get into Windows 98' with the 1GB of Ram installed... Each stick will boot into the OS @205FSB Separately... But If I put Both in, it will not boot no matter how slow I put the settings... I'm wondering if there is an issue with Win98, and having a Gig of Ram?

Right now it's dead in the water... I know sysfailure is running the same board, with the same 1GB of memory with great success.

Sys.. Is there anything you had to do to get that to work? I have done both Vmods, and have 3.28 MemV, and 2.2v Vcore.

Thanks, RoydRage

muzz

12-03-2002, 06:45 PM

I thought Win 98 had trouble with over 512 or something? I think there is a file you need to manipulate. Someone will answer.

Schitzo

12-03-2002, 08:57 PM

Very true, win9x operating systems will puke on anything over 512. I forget how to fix it, though, or if it's even possible.

RoydRage

12-03-2002, 09:11 PM

I got it....

You have to go to the 386Enh section in sysedit, and write:

MaxPhysPage=35000

apparently Windows does not like accessing anything near 1GB of RAM and it causes instability....

This worked like a charm... just Ran a Sandra Mem @ 200FSB...

It just made it over 3k...

Thanks, Royd

scottk

12-03-2002, 09:21 PM

Here's the > 512 MB fix for Win98

MS KB article Q253912 (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;253912)

I add these to the System.ini, in the specified [sections]

[386Enh]
ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1

[vcache]
MaxFileCache=524288

muzz

12-03-2002, 10:29 PM

Cool bro.
Good Luck with that this time.

zakelwe

12-04-2002, 12:04 AM

Originally posted by RoydRage
I got it....

You have to go to the 386Enh section in sysedit, and write:

MaxPhysPage=35000

apparently Windows does not like accessing anything near 1GB of RAM and it causes instability....

This worked like a charm... just Ran a Sandra Mem @ 200FSB...

It just made it over 3k...

Thanks, Royd

Glad you got it sorted.

Can you let us know whether the dual two stick configuration is faster than the single channel one stick solution for same speed ? Pifast would be a good indicator rather than Sandra.

There are rumours / tests showing dual channel shows no improvement. If this is the the case then a single stick should be able to be overclocked more and thus be faster than dual.

Regards

Andy

RoydRage

12-04-2002, 05:39 AM

Originally posted by zakelwe
Glad you got it sorted.

Can you let us know whether the dual two stick configuration is faster than the single channel one stick solution for same speed ? Pifast would be a good indicator rather than Sandra.

There are rumours / tests showing dual channel shows no improvement. If this is the the case then a single stick should be able to be overclocked more and thus be faster than dual.

Regards

Andy

Andy,

The Dual Config is faster...

And, While with a single channel board the rule generally is that you cannot clock as fast with 2 Dimms. This does not hold true with this board... In fact with the two Dimms it seems more stable than one... I have achieved the same clock with the 2 Dimms but with better stability... This is probably because the iinconsistencies between the 2 sticks don't matter because of they are on different channels, and there is a controller deligating between them.

I don't have PiFast... If you can give me a link, and tell me how you want it run, I will get to it when I get home...

Regards, Royd

RacerX

12-04-2002, 05:52 AM

RoydRage, whats the highest FSB you can run with dual channel running 1:1 ratio?

Can you post some Sandra pics?

RoydRage

12-04-2002, 03:21 PM

Originally posted by RacerX1
RoydRage, whats the highest FSB you can run with dual channel running 1:1 ratio?

Can you post some Sandra pics?

I could get some pics up on a site, but they won't post... It would be a link...

But take my word for it... I can get to 204MHz. FSB... Dual Channel... That's with 2 512mg Sticks of Corsair XMS3500 C2.. And That's 8-4-4 CAS2.5.... It will boot In CAS2 but is unstable... I have run Mem Benches with both, and CAS 2 did not make that much difference... This is not with the Good Chip... It's an Xp2400 not the Xp2700 in the EPoX. This is also With Win98' SE The scores would probably be better, and I probably could get more FSB With XP Or Win2k... I have just got 2k Pro, and will be fiddling with it tonight..

@204FSB It scored l 3052/2851 And It says Chipset "UNKNOWN".... But Sandra does not show this boards Speed... I have the EPoX 8k9A2+ At 11.5 X 217 With a 3262 Sandra, and this board is faster...

Royd

zakelwe

12-05-2002, 12:30 AM

Originally posted by RoydRage
Andy,

The Dual Config is faster...

And, While with a single channel board the rule generally is that you cannot clock as fast with 2 Dimms. This does not hold true with this board... In fact with the two Dimms it seems more stable than one... I have achieved the same clock with the 2 Dimms but with better stability... This is probably because the iinconsistencies between the 2 sticks don't matter because of they are on different channels, and there is a controller deligating between them.

I don't have PiFast... If you can give me a link, and tell me how you want it run, I will get to it when I get home...

Regards, Royd

thanks for the info Royd. I was hoping it was not much faster as I have only one stick and cannot afford another at present as they have gone from £150+ to £200+ here in the UK.

You can get the info on pifast from the challenge on this forum

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3694

It's a very good indicator of the effect of RAM speeds in real life in my opinion.

Regards

Andy

RoydRage

12-05-2002, 05:23 AM

Originally posted by zakelwe
thanks for the info Royd. I was hoping it was not much faster as I have only one stick and cannot afford another at present as they have gone from £150+ to £200+ here in the UK.

You can get the info on pifast from the challenge on this forum

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3694

It's a very good indicator of the effect of RAM speeds in real life in my opinion.

Regards

Andy

Yes Andy,

I come from a Professional Racing Background... And you know the saying; "Speed Costs..... How Fast Do You Want To Go?".... And just like in Racing... You can have all the ability in the world... If you don't have the equipment... you're not going anywhere...

There's a major snow storm here in the U.S. Northeast... So it's going to be a tuff day out there... When I get home, (hopefully, LOL) I'll download it, and run some comparision benches.... Interesting... Last night I installed Win2k Pro for the first time... And the Disk Performance was doubled over Win98' SE... I also have WinXP Pro to Test... If you have a preference for one, or the other let me know...

I already have XP in my Laptop, and I must say I like the look, and feel of 2k better...

Regards, RoydRage

RoydRage

12-05-2002, 08:40 AM

muzz

12-05-2002, 09:57 AM

You will need winrar or winace to open it. There is a batch file in there, just click on it and sit back......... as you see it will take 53 - whatever seconds to complete.

RoydRage

12-05-2002, 10:07 AM

Originally posted by muzz
You will need winrar or winace to open it. There is a batch file in there, just click on it and sit back......... as you see it will take 53 - whatever seconds to complete.

And where do I get that?

Thanks,

Royd

muzz

12-05-2002, 10:18 AM

http://www.winace.com/
http://www.rarlab.com/

Winace is better as it does rar also( and more compression as far as I know ), in the setup you can specify what type of compressed files it will open by default.
You can dl it there, but it is a demo............. everytime I open it, it says I'm 66 days over my 30 day trial period...... heheh:D

zakelwe

12-05-2002, 12:06 PM

If you can't get pifast thru winrar I'll winzip it and put it on my §§§§e website so you can download it. It is a very good quick test for stability.

I got my £ wrong for the Corsair 3500, it is £100 for 256MB not £200 so I have ordered another stick. I couldn't quite break 70 seconds for pifast with this Abit KX7 Kt333 board so hoping this will do the trick.

Meanwhile my returned rma dual MSI board still beeps on boot, so I have 3.6GHz just sitting here for nothing.

I HATE RMAS's :) They should do onsite visits :D

Regards

Andy