X48 Rampage Formula Preview.

There are lower CPU GTL Ref ratios in Bios 0207, 0.61x 0.59x 0.57x, which found thanks to AlienGrey on Asus RF forum. Don't know if these themselves are useful, but what it does mean is the RF isn't locked to only the current GTL Ref ratios we have available as I had previously thought. If sufficient handles and index pointers, and string space are free in the 1B/21 module more can be added of course. I need to figure out how to get the offset for the instruction pointer to the stack which right now has me baffled.

Blindly disassembling the 1B module without complete understanding of how the bios is loaded is a task big for any man! I'm reading through the Architecture design guides from Intel as I go along and come up with questions and it's a long slow process. Loading the bios and setting up all the hardware and registers is such an enormous task. I respect the hardware engineers at Intel for writing all the assembly to do the core functions. 440KB 1B module equates to too many instructions, considering an instruction is kept at less than 2 bytes optimally! MOV EAX, 190h for example is equivalent of 2 bytes or 00-03h. Other part is trying to figure out which data is actually data, and which are instructions.

I think I'll be here doing this Dec 2009! Hell I'll keep at it though, since finding the instruction in the I7 bios that sets D_LCK bit in SAD register will mean we can set timings, qpi ratio, mem ratio, etc while in the OS! D_LCK locks the PCI Device Bus registers set out by the Rules for System Address Decoder. Simply put means all registers that can change bios settings for the IMC are read only until RESET once the bios sets that particular bit to 1.

I don't even know where to start there!

Hi guys, this is my first post here at XS. More than 400 posts at ASUS Rampage Formula forum and not a single post here.

I hope to see a mod BIOS with the lower CPU GTL Reference Voltage settings in the future made by Mikeyakame. I'm still wondering if a CPU GTL Reference Voltage setting of 0.60X can get my Q9450 stable at an FSB above 465MHz with higher FSB termination Voltage that i need for the NB GTL Reference Voltage and without raising the CPU GTL Reference Voltage. I can get my Q9450 IntelBurnTest stable at 8 X 465MHz with CPU GTL Reference Voltage 0.63X, NB GTL Reference Voltage 0.67X and FSB Termination Voltage 1.16V. I need a FSB Termination Voltage of 1.22V to get the NB stable at 8 X 465MHz. This can only be done with the latest BIOS 0701. The BIOS releases before did not allow me to run it stable at FSB 465MHz. The highest i've got stable was 460MHz. The problem was that i couldn't raise the CPU GTL Reference Voltage without losing stability on the CPU. Maybe with a lower CPU GTL Reference Voltage setting i can get it stable above 465MHz.

I've contacted ASUS and asked them why they removed the lower CPU GTL Reference Voltage settings from the release BIOSes. I never got a straight answer from them.

Is there someone who knows how i can change my nickname here on the forum. I want to change it to Alien Grey. The registation did not allow me to use my nickname. I find this very annoying.

Keep up the good work Mikeyakame.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mikeyakame

i ended up giving up since my current 4 x 1gb setup wont go beyond 1165-1170mhz no matter how finely i adjust the sec/ter timings and fine tune the dram controller / channel voltages. I believe if i could run 1200mhz on these sticks there would be a fighting chance to get close to 500 fsb stable on my board.

---

I have 4x1 Gb DRAMs and I have a lot of troubles to reach 1000 MHz, even if I was able to reach with 2X1 Gb more than 1150 MHz.

Do you remember what you changed in second/third block of memory timings and channel voltages?

Thanks, :)

um, lemme see mate.

not sure what ICs were, possibly elpidas but they weren't too bad, only thing is the board delayed their skews like crazy due to ai clock twister. thats why such high advance skews, which are worse for mem bw but by time they balanced it all out dimm1-4 clock fine delay in everest were around 7-4-6-4 which is quite nice.

dram skew cha advance 150ps
dram skew chb advance 250ps

primaries
5-5-5-16-4-45-7-4
secondaries.
8-4-5-4-6-4-6
tertiaries
15-5-2-5-5

ai c/twist stronger
vdimm 2.24v (llc -> 2.34v lol)
dram cntr ref -30mv
chan a ref -10mv
chan b ref -20mv

thats off top of my head mate!
i'm running these g.skill 2x2gb 8800pi's at 1156 5-5-5-16-3-65-7-4 8-4-5-4-6-4-6 14-5-1-6-6 2.0v

It would be nice to have CPU Clock Skew, NB Clock Skew and tREF timing available in the ASUS Rampage Formula BIOS.

Since all ASUS X48 boards have these available i see no reason why we can't have it available in our ASUS Rampage Formula BIOS.
At least one board has this available now with a BIOS update.

It's time that we start asking the ASUS Tech Support to do something and start working on the ASUS Rampage Formula BIOS.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mikeyakame

um, lemme see mate.

not sure what ICs were, possibly elpidas but they weren't too bad, only thing is the board delayed their skews like crazy due to ai clock twister. thats why such high advance skews, which are worse for mem bw but by time they balanced it all out dimm1-4 clock fine delay in everest were around 7-4-6-4 which is quite nice.

dram skew cha advance 150ps
dram skew chb advance 250ps

primaries
5-5-5-16-4-45-7-4
secondaries.
8-4-5-4-6-4-6
tertiaries
15-5-2-5-5

ai c/twist stronger
vdimm 2.24v (llc -> 2.34v lol)
dram cntr ref -30mv
chan a ref -10mv
chan b ref -20mv

thats off top of my head mate!
i'm running these g.skill 2x2gb 8800pi's at 1156 5-5-5-16-3-65-7-4 8-4-5-4-6-4-6 14-5-1-6-6 2.0v

---

Well Mikey,
last night I obtained a 90% stability at 1067 MHz only loosing tRFC to 70.
I noted that A-Data SPD EPP has 68 as tRFC and I never tried so high value as OCZ run perfectly at 50. I tried 55 and 60, but never 70.
70 helped a lot but it is not still rock stable.

This night I will try a couple of configurations coming from your suggestions.

I let you know.......and thanks.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by A-Grey

It would be nice to have CPU Clock Skew, NB Clock Skew and tREF timing available in the ASUS Rampage Formula BIOS.

Since all ASUS X48 boards have these available i see no reason why we can't have it available in our ASUS Rampage Formula BIOS.
At least one board has this available now with a BIOS update.

It's time that we start asking the ASUS Tech Support to do something and start working on the ASUS Rampage Formula BIOS.

---

I agree completely!

The dutch ASUS Tech Support already knows about the problem if they have read the mail i've send to them.

I didn't get an answer back but i know they read it.

If more of you guys would ask the ASUS Tech Support to do something about the BIOS we might see some changes in the BIOS.

Here's a link to a dutch site with the change log for the ASUS P5E64 WS Evolution.

Why can they have CPU Clock Skew and NB Clock Skew with a BIOS update and we can't on our ASUS Rampage Formula?

I think if more people asked the ASUS Tech Support to add it in the BIOS that we could have a good chance that they 'll do it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by A-Grey

Here's a link to a dutch site with the change log for the ASUS P5E64 WS Evolution.

Why can they have CPU Clock Skew and NB Clock Skew with a BIOS update and we can't on our ASUS Rampage Formula?

I think if more people asked the ASUS Tech Support to add it in the BIOS that we could have a good chance that they 'll do it.

---

Could someone post the contact information for the relevant (preferably highly placed technical people in asus) department and we start bombarding them daily?

A-Grey, :welcome: Maybe you can create a separate thread for this sole purpose to give this matter the importance it warrants. You can do a little write-up explaining why these features are important. :up:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Brama

Well Mikey,
last night I obtained a 90% stability at 1067 MHz only loosing tRFC to 70.
I
I let you know.......and thanks.

---

Unfortunately my MCH is not able to drive such a mix of memories. :(

I was able to reach 1000 MHz but not rock stable.
I will work on it this WE but I am convinced that 1066 MHz is impossible to reach on my system.

Anyway, thanks for suggestions. :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zucker2k

Could someone post the contact information for the relevant (preferably highly placed technical people in asus) department and we start bombarding them daily?

A-Grey, :welcome: Maybe you can create a separate thread for this sole purpose to give this matter the importance it warrants. You can do a little write-up explaining why these features are important. :up:

---

Yes, we could start a new thread about this. My english is not so good to write it down like it should be. Perhaps Mikeyakame can do that, he can explain it better than me. If it's to technical i can try to explain it that everyone else can understand it. But i have to say that sometimes it's hard for me to understanding everything he writes. I don't know all the technical details and names.

I also like to see CPU GTL settings for each core.
Sometimes when overclocking a Quad it's better to use different GTL settings. Most of the time you can keep it stable with playing with the FSB Termination Voltage and CPU Voltage but on higher FSB it's more complicated and while three cores stay stable in Prime95 the fourth core can be unstable. Using a different CPU GTL setting than the other three cores might help to keep the fourth one stable to.

If we could contact someone from the ASUS Global Technical Support Department directly we have a chance that they will add it in the BIOS.

If you want to know what CPU Clock Skew and NB Clock Skew can do and how important it is, take a look at Tony's post on th OCZ forum.
It's an explanation that everyone can understand. I can't write it down like that at least not in english.

How important is it? These are the most important settings to keep everything stable at higher FSB.

Removed it. We don't need it anymore.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DaLiu

Does anybody know how to use Optical digital output from ASUS Rampage Formula, i have soundcard a Creative X-FI XtremeMusic and i bought a ZERO DAC preamp for my headphones and i would like to connect the preamp using Optical digital output but looks like is not working, anybody have any idea how to use it?

---

You have to use one or the other. In your sound options in windows, you'll have to set the default audio device to either optical or the soundcard (speakers)

If there is a way to use both at the same time, I'd love to know about it as well.

I forgot to say that if the ASUS Technical Support answers back to you and they ask why you want all this to be changed in the BIOS?
Tell them that we bought this board as a performance board and payed good money for it and we deserve to have a good BIOS with every setting available to get the best performance and stability.

If you don't know what to answer on a question they ask?
There are a lot of guys among us that can help you to answer that question.

If you are a registered to other forums with ASUS Rampage Formula users give them the link to this page. Everyone who wants the best out of this board should fill in a technical inquiry.

Just let me know and I'll be happy to write a confusing answer for them ;)

Question.

Is there someone who uses 8 Giga PC2-8500 memory on this board and can run this stable at 1066MHz?

Should be a few guys here running that stable.

8 Giga

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by A-Grey

Question.

Is there someone who uses 8 Giga PC2-8500 memory on this board and can run this stable at 1066MHz?

---

Yeah, 8gigs runs solid at 1066MHZ, but no higher.

Damned, it would have been better if it wasn't stable at all. That way i could send a message again to the ASUS Tech Support that we need NB Clock Skew because of the problems with 8 Giga Memory at 1066MHz.
Perhaps someone can do it with 8 Giga Memory at 1100, 1150 or 1200MHz. I could do it myself but i'm not going to buy another 2 X 2 Giga G.Skill PC2-9600 to try to run it at 1200MHz.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by A-Grey

Damned, it would have been better if it wasn't stable at all. That way i could send a message again to the ASUS Tech Support that we need NB Clock Skew because of the problems with 8 Giga Memory at 1066MHz.
Perhaps someone can do it with 8 Giga Memory at 1100, 1150 or 1200MHz. I could do it myself but i'm not going to buy another 2 X 2 Giga G.Skill PC2-9600 to try to run it at 1200MHz.

---

HAHAH :D I love this guy :D Even I didnt consider this scenario but he's spot on ;) We also need Dram Skews for individual Dimm slots too, CHA and CHB skews aren't completely controllable. AI Clock Twister determines what they will be even if you set Skews c orrectly.

There is one problem we might encounter. The Tech Support is going to say that higher than 1066MHz is overclocking and that they don't support overclocking.
Than i would say:"On what page in the manual does it say that i can't use 8 giga of this memory on this board?" and "Why can't i use this 8 giga memory on my X48 RF board and the guys with a X48 RE can use 8 giga 1600MHz".

And than it will be silent and you won't hear from them again.

In my experience you need a high level contact in Asus. Bombing with emails the Tech Support is wasted time.
I had a very serious issue with a SAS controller not working at all after BIOS 401.
I was able to get a BIOS that corrected the issue only involving a friend of a friend that works at Asus Italy.

I am not too confident that they will even put a working minute on RF BIOS, unless they have to fix a real big error.

I hope I am wrong....

Brama,

Unfortunately deep down in my heart I know you are right :( We all do, but we are still hoping there is a chance they won't let us down even though the board has been around nearly a year now. It's still one of their top tier FSB boards so I hope they still care enough to make a difference for all of us. My friend at Asus Tech support in Sydney can't help me either, they have no real contact with Bios engineers to do anything.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mikeyakame

Brama,

Unfortunately deep down in my heart I know you are right :( We all do, but we are still hoping there is a chance they won't let us down even though the board has been around nearly a year now. It's still one of their top tier FSB boards so I hope they still care enough to make a difference for all of us. My friend at Asus Tech support in Sydney can't help me either, they have no real contact with Bios engineers to do anything.

---

Wasn't there a name: Vivian, floating around here a while ago? We need some top tier e-mail addresses.

I have a question about the mosfet cooling. Right now I am running with the oc I have listed in my sig. I had replaced the thermal paste on the nb with as5. I am getting ready to pull the mobo and replace the paste with MX-2. Should I remove the thermal pad/tape that is on the mosfets and replace it with arctic ceramique or mx-2 or will it be okay as is?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Brama

In my experience you need a high level contact in Asus. Bombing with emails the Tech Support is wasted time.
I had a very serious issue with a SAS controller not working at all after BIOS 401.
I was able to get a BIOS that corrected the issue only involving a friend of a friend that works at Asus Italy.

I am not too confident that they will even put a working minute on RF BIOS, unless they have to fix a real big error.

I hope I am wrong....

---

You might be wrong. If you didn't receive the answer you where hoping for you can give them the lowest score.:down: I think that triggers something over at ASUS.:shocked:
I did it a few times after every disappointing answer and suddenly they have the time to phone me and send my questions to the ASUS Global Tech Support.:up:

Gah. I've now got an official reason to complain to Asus to fix something on the RF.

S3 Suspend to Ram is f****d. it inversed my Dram Fine Clock Delay values. By inverse I mean original value XOR'd with F. So original was 3h.

Fh ^ 3h = Ch = 13T

Had to full power cycle it to clear the values back to original 3T. Windows wouldn't even shutdown, I'm lucky it didn't corrupt the registry or anything at all.

This is something that's completely intolerable. It's upto bios code to correctly save PCI registers for suspend so this is Asus' problem not Windows. I'll be writing an angry tech support email when I wake up tomorrow explaining how they need to fix this and they are lucky it didn't cost me any data. I'll make a complaint about lack of NB/CPU clock skews while I am doing it.

Do any of you guys have problems with Dram Clock Fine Delay values after suspend resume? I could tell I did straight away because the LCD poster backlight stays on permanently which means to me memory clock skews are way way way too tight.

Edit:

No sooner did I say everything was ok, did I find a problem.
Running SFC /scannow to find and fix whatever the hell Asus' broken suspend corrupted. Guess I won't be using it again, funny thing is I never use it either and figured I'd try it to see if it actually works.

Edit2:

Definitely Asus fault. This is from Windows Event Viewer.

Quote:

---

The platform firmware has corrupted memory across the previous system power transition. Please check for updated firmware for your system.

---

Edit3:

Meh, Thank god for Windows 7 having automatic system restore points being saved. Fixed corrupted NTDLL.dll library that was broken by screwed up S3 suspend.
I think I might know what the culprit is too. I have a hunch it's tREF, Self Refresh Interval. At 3120T it's dangerously low and It wouldn't surprise me if this corrupted memory. Damn Asus and not even bothering to include code to self track the value according to DRAM frequency.

I don't really want to break my system again trying to fix it but I'll give it a shot, and see if it helps any by forcefully setting it through MCHBAR PCI register and trying to S3 suspend again and see if it corrupts or not.

Bah It's not even saving the PCI registers correctly, what a joke. Let me explain bold underlined registers too.

Before suspend.
FED14260 0B373D91 130E0078 CFD19500 0302BF33 <- CHA
FED14660 0B373D91 130E0078 CFD19500 0302BF33 <- CHB

Highlighted is tREF = D195h - C000h. = 1195h = 4501T
Which i set myself through writing the MCHBAR register for CHA/CHB for 577MHz (DDR2-1154)

After suspend.
FED14260 0B373D91 130E0078 CFCC3000 0302BF33 <- CHA
FED14660 0B373D91 130E0078 CFCC3000 0302BF33 <- CHB

Highlighted is tREF = CC30h - C000h. = C30h = 3120T
Not correctly saved during suspend, reverted back to Intel default value for 400MHz (DDR2-800).

Before Suspend
FED14510 00008523 00000CF7 00000425 00000012 <-CHA
FED14910 00008323 0000020B 0000084E 00000052 <-CHB

After Suspend
FED14510 0000853D 00000CF7 00000425 00000023 <- CHA
FED14910 0000833D 0000020B 0000084E 00000043 <- CHB


These ones are the kickers though and the huge problem. Compare 23h, 12h for CHA and 23h, 52h for CHB to below after suspend values of 3Dh, 23h for CHA. 3Dh, 43h for CHB.
Now you wonder what these are. Let me explain and so you know these correlate with Dimm 1-4 Fine clock delay in Everest.

The Last values of 23h, 43h CHA. 12h, 52h CHB are some other kind of skew most likely DQS. Data Strobe Skew. They change too before and after.

23h != 3Dh.
Before
2h = CHA2 Dimm Clock Fine Delay = 2T
3h = CHA1 Dimm Clock Fine Delay = 3T

After
3h = CHA2 Dimm Clock Fine Delay = 3T
Dh = CHA1 Dimm Clock Fine Delay = 14T

Same goes for CHB

23h != 3Dh.

Before
2h = CHB2 Dimm Clock Fine Delay = 2T
3h = CHB1 Dimm Clock Fine Delay = 3T

After
3h = CHB2 Dimm Clock Fine Delay = 3T
Dh = CHB1 Dimm Clock Fine Delay = 14T

Now 1T = ~50ps according to how Asus bios for DRAM clock skew sets these up.
So my point is on CHA1/CHB1 the DRAM Clock Skew values are being delayed an extra 550PS or a bit less and this is corrupt your OS in 2 minutes or less territory and should never EVER happen, EVER. A2/B2 by 50ps but they aren't occupied.

Edit5: UPDATE

Heres a couple more but I don't know exactly what they are as they are unknowns but I know they are static values.

Before Suspend
FED145D0 80000008 11330002 00F1CCCC 38004CD0 <- CHA
FED149D0 80000008 11330002 00F1CCCC 38004CD0 <- CHB

After Suspend
FED145D0 80000008 11330002 00F1CCCC 38000C90 <- CHA
FED149D0 80000008 11330002 00F1CCCC 38000C90 <- CHB

All I know is they are something to do with MCH internal timings or skews, but no doubt they are probably important. CHA and CHB settings are always 400h offset apart ;) They seem to exist between 200h-5FFh for CHA, 600h - 9FFh for CHB. Outside this are other values unknown.

I made this neat so I don't have to explain it twice in an email.

Nice an official reason to complain to ASUS.:ROTF:

Don't be to hard on them.:up:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by A-Grey

Nice an official reason to complain to ASUS.:ROTF:

Don't be to hard on them.:up:

---

Go ahead Mickey!

This is a thing they must work out.

Now I understand why a stable overclock after S3 is causing BSOD or other instabilities.

If you prepare a letter, I can send with my name to TechSupport and to my friend at Asus Italy.

I remember some guy on the ASUS Rampage Formula forum posted a message about Ai NAP and how it f****d up his computer.

No wonder he had missing and corrupted files.

I confirm that the dump of MCHBAR registers after S3 is different in some points. If someone needs it, I can send.

Some registers hold inc/dec counters for things like errors, misses, etc so the easiest way to pick out unknown registers that arent listed in Intel X48 express chipset DRAM Register chapter of self named datasheet is to take two or three dumps one after another. Compare 2 or 3 way and narrow down which registers are changing values between all three. These are counters and you can ignore their values!

I'll draft something up in the morning just thought I'd check back on the thread before I sleep!

And yes this is 100% the reason why anyone is getting f'd up S3 resume and BSOD's or corruption on the OS. There is no doubts about it. It may or may not be directly Asus' fault. It might be the AMI core bios code too, which if so they've got a huge problem on their hands because all the bios' using the same ACPI instructions will have this same problem. Good chance if this is the case it's going to be a global issue on lots and lots of boards. If it's solely a problem of the RF it should be easy for them to figure out and fix now we've gone and done their QC testers job of isolating the problems cause. You'd think something like this would be checked during bios QC because if its not doing it right overclocked you can guarantee it wont be normally either. It just doesn't affect you at default clocks and default Performance Level because they are as loose as a pair of jeans 5 sizes too big.

I personally would have thought you would compare something as important as MCHBAR registers pre and post power saving to make sure that they aren't being corrupted or lost, or worse that they aren't being incremented or decremented by the ASM instructions to implement their stupidly named AI aka ASUS INTELLIGENCE options.

I added mine for easy reference. Updated previous post with 2 more offsets that hold a static value that change.

These are mine:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by A-Grey

Question.

Is there someone who uses 8 Giga PC2-8500 memory on this board and can run this stable at 1066MHz?

---

I am running 8GB stable at 1116MHz.

Cheers Brama! I'll take a look over yours in the morning, feel free to compare yours to mine too. More eyes on this the better. You might catch some thing I miss and I the same.

Wanna know a neat trick I learnt too. If the LCD poster backlight stays on either during OS boot or after RESUME skews are f'd up severely. So either shutdown or reboot and figure out why. Only other case I seen this was when voltages were playing up but I'd say thats probably related to skews being too tight for the voltage. Provided you haven't got it on permanent backlit of course but I don't know why anybody would it's bloody bright!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ElAguila

I am running 8GB stable at 1116MHz.

---

Good to know you can run them at 1116MHz.

I ordered a set of 2 x 2 G.Skill PC2-9600.

I don't need 8 Giga right now but if 1116MHz is possible with 8 Giga it's not bad at all.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ElAguila

I am running 8GB stable at 1116MHz.

---

Care to share your bios settings? I know it would help me, especialy the NB voltages and RAM skews.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ElAguila

I have a question about the mosfet cooling. Right now I am running with the oc I have listed in my sig. I had replaced the thermal paste on the nb with as5. I am getting ready to pull the mobo and replace the paste with MX-2. Should I remove the thermal pad/tape that is on the mosfets and replace it with arctic ceramique or mx-2 or will it be okay as is?

---

Depends on how hot they get. I'm using Thermalright Mosfet Coolers with the thermal pad that came with them. I've no need to use arctic ceramique because they never get hot with my Q9450@3.72GHz.

With my Pentium D 840@4.2GHz it's something completely different and the Mosfet Coolers get pretty hot. Using better thermal paste could have helped to keep the temperature down.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MJR

Care to share your bios settings? I know it would help me, especialy the NB voltages and RAM skews.

---

Here are my settings. The numbers in parentheses are the actual readings. I am using bios 0710. I am currently testing with the CPL set to 7. If I set the AI Clock Twister any lighter than moderate with these settings I can't post.

DRAM Frequency DDR2 - 1116MHz
DRAM Command Rate - 2N
All DRAM Skews - Auto
DRAM Timing Control - Auto
DRAM Static Read Control - Disabled
AI Clock Twister - Moderate
AI Transaction Booster - Manual
Common Performance Level - 8
All Pull In's - Disabled
CPU Voltage - 1.31250(1.2880)
CPU PLL Voltage - 1.60(1.680)
NB Voltage - 1.49(1.504)
DRAM Voltage - 2.02(2.080)
FSB Termination Voltage - 1.40(1.328)
SB Voltage - 1.050(1.072)
SB 1.5 Voltage - Auto(1.552)
Loadline Calibration - Enabled
All GTL's - 0.67x
DRAM Controller Voltage Ref - Auto
DRAM Channel A Voltage Ref - Auto
DRAM Channel B Voltage Ref - Auto

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by A-Grey

Depends on how hot they get. I'm using Thermalright Mosfet Coolers with the thermal pad that came with them. I've no need to use arctic ceramique because they never get hot with my Q9450@3.72GHz.

With my Pentium D 840@4.2GHz it's something completely different and the Mosfet Coolers get pretty hot. Using better thermal paste could have helped to keep the temperature down.

---

I am still using the stock coolers. I put a fan on the NB area and the NB temps stay good. I replaced that paste with mx-2. I wasn't sure if I should do the same on the mosfets as well.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ElAguila

Here are my settings. The numbers in parentheses are the actual readings. I am using bios 0710. I am currently testing with the CPL set to 7. If I set the AI Clock Twister any lighter than moderate with these settings I can't post.

---

Thanks. What strap are you using and what fsb are you running at?

Looks like he is either using 12:10 divider on 333mhz strap and 466mhz FSB or so, or 5:4 divider on 400mhz strap with 450fsb or so.

I am running at 9x445 with a 4:5 divider

Hey guys,

I'm going to draft up a formal letter to Asus regarding outstanding Issues this board has with bios, and if there are any you can think of besides additional options such as individual GTL landing pin reference adjustment, NB/CPU clock skews, individual DRAM slot clock skews, and possibly individual DRAM channel slot reference voltage control and CPU differential amplitude adjustment, that you would consider problems which need adjusting or fixing please feel free to add to my list.

Here are some known problems I know need to be addressed, at least I can confirm and replicate these problems on 0701 bios so I will assume they are global and not localized or random.

MCHBAR register space not being correctly stored during S3 sleep and resulting in over-zealous DRAM skews on resume which may result in further operating system corruption due to insufficient Read Delay and DRAM strobe window turnarounds during cross clocking procedure.

EHCI hand-off procedure not working correctly during soft RESET when set to enabled. Bios not correctly retaking EHCI semaphore when OS is handing back off during shutdown/restart resulting in USB wireless/bluetooth/possibly cabled devices being unusable during soft RESET POST as OS still has ownership of EHCI semaphore.

Keypress on USB wireless/bluetooth keyboard during USB finalization while USB ports are being initialized (temperamental) can result in instant SOFT reset or USB device not detected so unable to enter BIOS setup.

CPU PLL Voltage not visible for monitoring outside of Bios.

Self Refresh Count Window Timing (tREF) not being set by bios when DRAM frequency is set automatically or manually. Could result in potential page faults or unnecessary repaging of data to memory. Set to Intel default for 800MHz DDR2. Needs to track DRAM frequency as it changes to comply with JEDEC and Intel specs.

AI Clock Twister always having control resulting in unpredictable DRAM Clock & Command skews when they are set manually in bios. If ASUS Intelligence functions break manual control of settings then AI functions need to be able to be disabled permanently otherwise have manual skews take priority or show their current MCHBAR register value in BIOS so manual settings can be tuned correctly before entering OS as to prevent possible memory/system corruption from AI Clock Twister assuming too much skew delay.

NB and CPU clock skew adjustment should be implemented to work around instabilities and cross chatter/jitter where FSB frequency collides with PCI frequency at set points, ie. 300mhz, 366mhz, 433mhz, 500mhz. Windows within 8-15mhz of these frequencies either side suffer high amounts of interference and cross talking between clocks.


These are some fairly important ones that come to the top of my head, if you guys have problems make sure you are using 0701 bios and not earlier ones so we know for sure the problem needs fixing now. Older bios problems will be pointless to explain to Asus bios engineers because they've already fixed them and will say "update to latest bios to fix this" and not take the problem seriously.


Thanks guys. If we all work together I think we can get something done about outstanding issues. I really appreciate you guys helping me trying to get things done. We buy a top tier board and support Asus' enthusiast products we deserve at the least to be listened to and taken seriously. If Asus can't take our problems and suggestions seriously, the people who spend a lot of their free time helping others with these same products obtain stable and dependable systems for POORLY documented hardware they market and POORLY support, then we have to simply start boycotting their enthusiast products.

If honestly I don't see anything done soon the next X58 board I buy will be a DFI one and not an Asus Rampage II EXtreme, I've been supporting Asus products for years as well. I might only be one person, but I'm one person who Asus should consider a valuable asset due to the amount of time I spend trying to help and educate their customers they couldn't give a damn about. There are many of you guys here in this thread too which I would consider the same as myself for the amount of time you guys put into helping out and teaching. If all the customers like us start boycotting Asus' enthusiast products they will start to feel it because we are hard to replace, those who are loyal to them and those who understand and help Asus move more numbers by spreading this understanding.

You are not the only one thinking of buying other brands.:mad:

My next purchase will be a new Graphics Card and it isn't going to be a ASUS one.;)

I've been very happy with my previous ASUS products and never complained about anything. This board has been nothing but trouble for me. It started when i first build this system with a faulty LCD Poster connector on the board. It took me three days and a lot of frustrations before i found the problem. Two pins in the connector made contact with eachother.:down:
My second problem was the Thermal Sensor Cables. Why the hell didn't they include them in the box. They only cost 3 Dollars and it wouldn't have been a problem for me to pay an extra 3 Euros to have them. In the manual you can read that you can buy them optional. They aren't available in Europe. It looks like someone from the ASUS sales forgot to send them to Europe.:clap:
I've got a nice Swiftech watercooling system to cool my CPU, NB and Graphics Card. I've bought it to have lower temperatures and less noise from the fans. The fan speeds on this board have been a frustration for me from day one. For months i've been asking ASUS to do something about it.
Why can't they just give us lower fan speed settings in the BIOS? I don't need that high speed because of my watercooling and i want less noise on my ears. Was it a mistake from me to use three 120mm fans in my case?:shrug:

I think it's time that ASUS start fixing the problems. Maybe they don't care if we don't buy their products anymore at least not now. Two generations of motherboards further they will see that they made a mistake because the enthusiasts will be using an other brand and the guys that can use a little bit support won't have no choice than to buy that brand to.:up:

Damn AI clock twister is driving me crazy. Keeps changing my DRAM clock skews randomly. One boot they are at 3T/2T/3T/2T next they are 6T/5T/6T/5T simply if I touch a voltage?!?!? What the hell gah. My Windows Update keeps breaking now too since the S3 Resume incident. I've done system restore 4 times now to fix it. If this keeps up I'm going to have to do a complete Windows reinstall, and I don't want to because that's going to kill at least 10-12hours.

I would add to your letter to fix the backlight issue of LCD Poster.
If I set from BIOS the backlight OFF, it stays OFF untill S3 resume. From that point it is always ON.

Example:

- backlight in BIOS is OFF
- starting a cold boot
- the light is ON until the last POST step
- as soon the LCD Poster is displaying time, the light goes OFF (as programmed in BIOS).
- I order Vista to put PC in S3 mode (S3 is forced in BIOS)
- the PC goes OFF except the power on led that is blinking
- I wake up the PC touching a keyboard key
- after some seconds I have my PC completely on and functional
- the light of LCD poster is ON (not correct).

I can duplicate in my system this bug 100% of times.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by A-Grey

You are not the only one thinking of buying other brands.:mad:

My next purchase will be a new Graphics Card and it isn't going to be a ASUS one.;)

I've been very happy with my previous ASUS products and never complained about anything. This board has been nothing but trouble for me. It started when i first build this system with a faulty LCD Poster connector on the board. It took me three days and a lot of frustrations before i found the problem. Two pins in the connector made contact with eachother.:down:
My second problem was the Thermal Sensor Cables. Why the hell didn't they include them in the box. They only cost 3 Dollars and it wouldn't have been a problem for me to pay an extra 3 Euros to have them. In the manual you can read that you can buy them optional. They aren't available in Europe. It looks like someone from the ASUS sales forgot to send them to Europe.:clap:
I've got a nice Swiftech watercooling system to cool my CPU, NB and Graphics Card. I've bought it to have lower temperatures and less noise from the fans. The fan speeds on this board have been a frustration for me from day one. For months i've been asking ASUS to do something about it.
Why can't they just give us lower fan speed settings in the BIOS? I don't need that high speed because of my watercooling and i want less noise on my ears. Was it a mistake from me to use three 120mm fans in my case?:shrug:

I think it's time that ASUS start fixing the problems. Maybe they don't care if we don't buy their products anymore at least not now. Two generations of motherboards further they will see that they made a mistake because the enthusiasts will be using an other brand and the guys that can use a little bit support won't have no choice than to buy that brand to.:up:

---

Hi Alien Grey!
I allways check your threads in asus site. Im glad now that youve started writing here with the other capable guys:welcome::clap:. Maybe now we are gonna see some results with all problems WE have:mad:.
I would like to ask whats your watercooling system specs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Brama

I would add to your letter to fix the backlight issue of LCD Poster.
If I set from BIOS the backlight OFF, it stays OFF untill S3 resume. From that point it is always ON.

Example:

- backlight in BIOS is OFF
- starting a cold boot
- the light is ON until the last POST step
- as soon the LCD Poster is displaying time, the light goes OFF (as programmed in BIOS).
- I order Vista to put PC in S3 mode (S3 is forced in BIOS)
- the PC goes OFF except the power on led that is blinking
- I wake up the PC touching a keyboard key
- after some seconds I have my PC completely on and functional
- the light of LCD poster is ON (not correct).

I can duplicate in my system this bug 100% of times.

---

Heh thats part of the S3 corruption "bug"

Backlight staying on means the skewing is completely fubared to the point something going to be corrupted soon! Thats the only time I've ever had it not work properly. I wish this "backlit bug" was a real indicator of errors but it's not it just so happens that one of the critical segments (maybe POST_SEG) that handles it ends up with invalid data and result is light doesn't go off. It's bad news no matter how u look at it or why.

My rule is if it ever stays on after INIT ROM or anytime during Windows, either if outside OS I will immediately power it off or within OS shutdown and if that fails power off. Rather lose data than corrupt it. The former is easier to fix.

I speak from corrupting OS/wiping out half my registry experience here ;D I've done it more times than i'd like to ever admit! :rofl: I've actually done it so many times that I've realized OS partition backups are much easier than full reinstalls :rofl: I don't mind it when it's all fault of my own it just sucks when it isn't!

I learnt about the dangers of Performance Level phase pull-ins that way! I think the worst one was when I've corrupted the boot manager for Windows! THat was pretty bad! :rofl:

Some guy at ASUS Rampage Formula forum says that the CPU 3 Pin Fan issue is already fixed from BIOS 0410.:shrug:

Can anyone with a 3 Pin CPU Fan confirm this?

The fan on the CPU Fan connector on my board is always at the same speed, idle or load.:down:

Since ASUS is not updating ich9r and jmicron roms, i decided to find whatever versions i could extract and where latest and made custom bios that you can download here: http://rapidshare.com/files/185584480/c0701.ROM

it has Intel(R) Matrix Storage Manager ROM v8.5.0.1030 from EVGA x58 mobo (yes ICH10R ROM is working fine on ICH9R) and JMicron(R) JMB368 v1.06.78 from some DFI mobo, probably it doesnt matter that much i was just messing around trying to learn some new things :) i know that at least IMSS ROM v 8.6.0.1007 is out in some intel mobo bioeses but they are impossible to extract, so if someone knows for any normal award/ami bios that is using newest IMSS rom please tell me!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by greg.m

Hi Alien Grey!
I allways check your threads in asus site. Im glad now that youve started writing here with the other capable guys:welcome::clap:. Maybe now we are gonna see some results with all problems WE have:mad:.
I would like to ask whats your watercooling system specs.

---

Hi greg.m

Nice to see someone else found the way to XS.:up:

I'm using a Swiftech H20-220 Apex Ultima Plus. I'm very happy with it. I never have to worry anymore about the temperatures.:)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mikeyakame

I've actually done it so many times that I've realized OS partition backups are much easier than full reinstalls

---

Always keep a Norton Ghost Backup image from your OS partition, in case you f****d up your OS. It takes 10 minutes to make one and another 10 minutes to restore it.;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SoLoR

Since ASUS is not updating ich9r and jmicron roms, i decided to find whatever versions i could extract and where latest and made custom bios that you can download here: http://rapidshare.com/files/185584480/c0701.ROM

it has Intel(R) Matrix Storage Manager ROM v8.5.0.1030 from EVGA x58 mobo (yes ICH10R ROM is working fine on ICH9R) and JMicron(R) JMB368 v1.06.78 from some DFI mobo, probably it doesnt matter that much i was just messing around trying to learn some new things :) i know that at least IMSS ROM v 8.6.0.1007 is out in some intel mobo bioeses but they are impossible to extract, so if someone knows for any normal award/ami bios that is using newest IMSS rom please tell me!

---

JMicron one shouldnt be a problem, but Intel MSM ROM might cause instabilities on raid arrays that already exist. 7.5.x are for ICH9R, 8.x are for ICH10R. I considered doing this but after reading Intels documentation about it, I retracted my ideas.

Cool though mate, nice work ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by A-Grey

Some guy at ASUS Rampage Formula forum says that the CPU 3 Pin Fan issue is already fixed from BIOS 0410.:shrug:

Can anyone with a 3 Pin CPU Fan confirm this?

The fan on the CPU Fan connector on my board is always at the same speed, idle or load.:down:

---

Yes, i think to remember so.
I have a double connector to my ultra kaze and keep it always at 100%, but i remember the bios would allow % change.

If it's true that they already fixed that i find it very annoying that the ASUS Tech Support can't say that to me.

The fan profiles don't do their job as should be.
With the CPU Fan Control enabled in the BIOS and Performance Mode profile selected the fan should start spinning faster according to the load of the CPU, no matter what the CPU temperature is.
That's what Performance Mode profile should do and that's what it did on my P5WD2 Premium.

With the fan profile Optimal the fan should start spinning faster as the CPU temperature rises.

This is something that should be fixed by the ASUS BIOS Engineers.

Some guy on the ASUS Rampage Formula forum is using a 4 Pin CPU Fan and says that the fan Profiles in the BIOS don't work like they should be. The fan only starts spinning faster when his CPU reaches 60° Celsius. That's not how it should be.

Figured out the AI Clock Twister bug and can replicate it and know how to fix it. Weird.

Bug:

AI Clock twister incorrectly setting DRAM skews at high FSB, cmos register storing menu item index select value not updating?

Fix:

On changing DRAM skew values manually forcing cmos register update by changing AI Clock twister setting to another and then back to previous consecutively.

This resets my DRAM skews to the correct values for the AI Clock Twister setting and thus don't have to keep adding advance skew to fix it up!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mikeyakame

JMicron one shouldnt be a problem, but Intel MSM ROM might cause instabilities on raid arrays that already exist. 7.5.x are for ICH9R, 8.x are for ICH10R. I considered doing this but after reading Intels documentation about it, I retracted my ideas.

Cool though mate, nice work ;)

---

well im using raid0 and it seems to work fine, ill report if there will be any instabilitys, also i finaly found method of integrating slic in to it without that :banana::banana::banana::banana:y "invalid boot block" error in ezflash (i dont want to force dos flash, with something that is giving so dangerous errors).

so more updates: http://rapidshare.com/files/185925112/C0701_SLIC.ROM

this is with asus oem SLIC, updatable from ezflash without errors, you just need key+certificate and vista is activated. Before someone attacks me, yes i DO have original vista, but after i changed 2 components (cpu+mobo), it didnt want to activate over internet anymore and since i cba with phone activations i finaly found "safe" solution ;)

edit: also some wierd bug i noticed couple of days back, FSB VTT went on MAX for no aperant reason, it didnt happened again after i changed it back tho. some wierd glitch i guess, but can fry your cpu....

Hehe yeah thats why editing 1B module can be risky unless you know what you are doing ;) SLIC data is stored inside 1B module in ACPI SLIC table. Sop you just need to be carefully when screwing around with a tool that patches it, because you don't know if it screws up any index pointers for bios functions, etc.

EVGA X58 is using Award bios right? So you just extracted the PCI option for Intel MSM with module extraction tool cbrom or something like that if i recall then replaced one inside RF rom with MMTool

I need to find some time to figure out where the Rampage II Extreme / P6T store the Nvidia SLi certificate too. I would assume its kept inside 1B module.

yes, used cbrom for award bioses and replaced them with mmtool in rampage bios. Also there are 2 different sizes of imsm rom, one is 64k (most mobos are using also rampage) and other is 79k (some award mobos are using) and i have no clue what is different, same versions and everything with different size... for adding slic i was using http://drop.io/slictool with SSV3 method inserted "manualy" with mmtool, that automatic module insertation is giving errors with ezflash. And if someone wants extracted imsm 8.5.0.1030 rom is HERE.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mikeyakame

Figured out the AI Clock Twister bug and can replicate it and know how to fix it. Weird.

Bug:

AI Clock twister incorrectly setting DRAM skews at high FSB, cmos register storing menu item index select value not updating?

Fix:

On changing DRAM skew values manually forcing cmos register update by changing AI Clock twister setting to another and then back to previous consecutively.

This resets my DRAM skews to the correct values for the AI Clock Twister setting and thus don't have to keep adding advance skew to fix it up!

---

Nice find, Mike. What bios are you running? I wonder if this affects all bioses.

0701 mate. By consecutively I mean just ie. I use moderate, so i set it to light, set the dram clock skew i want then change it back to moderate and save settings.

If I dont do this it does all kinds of wacky things, like I advanced 50ps more than previous and it set to Fine clock delay from 5 to 0. Instead of 5->4. 0 is shown by Fine clock delay for slot as missing. My skews went from 3/2/3/2 to 7/6/7/6 between boots sometimes without touching a setting. This seems to fix that so far at least. Now my 4/2/4/2 is 4/2/3/2 with Normal on CHA, 50ps advance CHB which is correcto.

It might happen at low FSB dont know though, I've pretty much always used above 460+ since I've had the board. Only few times have I used less.

To me it seems like if you change the DRAM clock skew without changing AI clock twister setting to another it is "twisting" the delay skews more than it is supposed to.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SoLoR

yes, used cbrom for award bioses and replaced them with mmtool in rampage bios. Also there are 2 different sizes of imsm rom, one is 64k (most mobos are using also rampage) and other is 79k (some award mobos are using) and i have no clue what is different, same versions and everything with different size... for adding slic i was using http://drop.io/slictool with SSV3 method inserted "manualy" with mmtool, that automatic module insertation is giving errors with ezflash. And if someone wants extracted imsm 8.5.0.1030 rom is HERE.

---

Did you check the one the R2E is using?

Nevermind.
Heres 8.0.0.1038 from Rampage II Extreme bios. It's exactly 65536bytes.

Becareful though mate, I just replaced the 7.5.x with 8.0.0.1038 in a test bios and MMTool doesn't look like its writing module 80 correctly, Image Information. Its 40 bytes larger and all over the place.

Heres a binary compare.

[ 1 ] D:\INCOMING\Bios.Stuff\ii-orig.bin 20/01/2009, 1:48:35 am
[ 2 ] D:\INCOMING\Bios.Stuff\ii-update.bin 20/01/2009, 1:48:21 am
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
binSmartModebinMode
00000000 [ 1 ] * 09 00 60 04 01 34 2E 31 34 10 00 10 02 01 01 03 ..`..4.14.......
00000000 [ 2 ] * 07 00 10 02 01 01 03 14 00 20 08 01 E0 FF 00 00 ......... ..àÿ..

00000010 [ 1 ] * 1D 00 20 08 01 E0 FF 00 00 50 FF 00 00 2A 00 2F .. ..àÿ..Pÿ..*./
00000010 [ 2 ] * 50 FF 00 00 21 00 2F 08 01 E8 FF 00 00 EC FF 00 Pÿ..!./..èÿ..ìÿ.

00000020 [ 1 ] * 08 01 E8 FF 00 00 EC FF 00 00 37 00 30 08 01 00 ..èÿ..ìÿ..7.0...
00000020 [ 2 ] * 00 2E 00 30 08 01 00 00 02 00 00 00 01 00 45 00 ...0..........E.

00000030 [ 1 ] * 00 02 00 00 00 01 00 4E 00 40 06 03 04 10 FF FF .......N.@....ÿÿ
00000030 [ 2 ] * 40 06 03 00 00 00 80 1B 00 01 10 FF FF FF FF 04 @.....€....ÿÿÿÿ.

00000040 [ 1 ] * FF FF 00 00 00 80 1B 00 01 10 FF FF FF FF FF FF ÿÿ...€....ÿÿÿÿÿÿ
00000040 [ 2 ] * 10 FF FF FF FF 5E 00 50 0A 02 01 FF 00 00 00 00 .ÿÿÿÿ^.P...ÿ....

00000050 [ 1 ] * 50 0A 02 01 FF 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 01 FF 00 P...ÿ.........ÿ.
00000050 [ 2 ] * 10 00 00 00 01 FF 00 20 1C 00 F0 DF 00 00 FF FF .....ÿ. ..ðß..ÿÿ

00000060 [ 1 ] * 20 1C 00 F0 DF 00 00 FF ..ðß..ÿ
00000060 [ 2 ] * 60 04 01 34 2E 31 34 FF FF 51 12 02 00 00 00 00 `..4.14ÿÿQ......

00000070 [ 1 ] *
00000070 [ 2 ] * 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 ................

00000080 [ 1 ] *
00000080 [ 2 ] * 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So if this isn't written properly chances are something else might not be either, you need to do a binary compare for the rom images and check the original against the changed one. You gotta be really careful when doing this kind of thing as there are a lot of static index's and address pointers in a bios so you don't know what you might break by replacing, changing or patching modules.

Other problem is X48 AMI bios are slightly different than P35/P45 AMI bios. I haven't figured out what it exactly is though but it's enough to completely break AMIBCP when loading it, and after debugging it (and yet to analyze 400mb segment dump properly) all I know is AMIBCP is moving a weird memory address offset to EAX register and seg faulting when its trying to access memory address that isn't allocated to it. It doesn't do this on any P45 bios.

While we're complaining about stuff . . . Is it possible to enable a system shut down based on CPU temp. I know that you can set it to shut down based on the NB and the temperature cables (SOLD SEPERATELY!), but I wasn't able to find a setteing for the CPU. This would be very useful for us watercooling guys in the inevitable case of a pump failure.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rickpatbrown

While we're complaining about stuff . . . Is it possible to enable a system shut down based on CPU temp. I know that you can set it to shut down based on the NB and the temperature cables (SOLD SEPERATELY!), but I wasn't able to find a setteing for the CPU. This would be very useful for us watercooling guys in the inevitable case of a pump failure.

---

CPU will automatically power off if TJMAX distance is reached. My Q6600 G0 chip seems to cut voltage at about 85-90c on any core.

There is CPU TM which we disable also, but that is for throttling when temps get too high and can cause instability.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mikeyakame

Heh thats part of the S3 corruption "bug"

Backlight staying on means the skewing is completely fubared to the point something going to be corrupted soon!

---

I am not so convinced...;)

Probably you are right, if this happens after a cold boot but in the case back light goes ON after S3 (instead to be OFF as programmed) the bug is present from BIOS 219, with or without overclock.

The Rampage II Extreme has a fix for a similar sounding problem in one of its newer bios'. Who wants to guess whether this is a global or localized issue ;) Sounds like an AMI Core8 issue to me, the S3 problem I mean.

I guess it's both. I would say it's a global issue but the ASUS Tech Support is going to say that it's a localized issue because no one else reports a problems with that. So the question is who is right?
I think the ASUS Tech Support because of the fact that i don't use it and i've got no problems with it.:ROTF:

It's a serious problem and the least you would expect is that the ASUS BIOS Engineers fix it.:up:

http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/...0_61026520.zip

Updated Soundmax drivers ;) v6.10.2.6520 dated 10/07/2008

Blackhawk are 6.10.2.6480 dated x/03/2008

These are the drivers Asus supplies for P6T6 revolution X58 board which uses ADI chipset for sound, so luckily they supplied a nice newer updated driver to go along with it!

Enjoy. I;ve installed so don't worry they work as they should. Contains driver for all the ADI chipsets anyhow.

Blackhawk has been given a face lift which it needed like Bush needed that awesome shoe ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mikeyakame

CPU will automatically power off if TJMAX distance is reached. My Q6600 G0 chip seems to cut voltage at about 85-90c on any core.

There is CPU TM which we disable also, but that is for throttling when temps get too high and can cause instability.

---

Will this harm the CPU at all? Sorry for being off topic, but I have no idea what you guys are talking about :clap:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rickpatbrown

Will this harm the CPU at all? Sorry for being off topic, but I have no idea what you guys are talking about :clap:

---

It's simple, it's diificult to kill a modern cpu through heat, as it is rigged to shut down before the cores burn out.

This is a copy from my post at the ASUS Rampage Formula forum.

I received an email from the dutch ASUS Tech Support today asking me what can be done to fix the issues that we are experiencing with the ASUS Rampage Formula BIOS.

Tomorrow i'm going to answer them back and send them all the information they need to fix the issues.

All the issues that we've been discussing here are going to be in my answer to them. Mikeyakame from XS is going to write a note for me with all the issues that they have found with the BIOS.

For now it looks that all the hard work, research and hours of stress testing are finally going to pay off.

Tell them that while they are at it they could upgrade to latest "offical" (if they cant just put latest ich10r since its working fine) IMSM for ich9r and other modules, but ofc they wont do that... this is only wishful thinking... for example asus is most SLACK company regarding that, while other x58 mobos are all using 8.5.1030 IMSM option rom, asus is still on 8.0.0.something, even on rampage II extreme. There is even more, lets not count intel that regulary updates all those modules on their top end mobos, but i saw that even DFI upgraded their IMSM option rom via bios update on some P45 mobo. I mean like its that HARD!

We want skews on everything; we want very low voltage options on fsbt, cpupll, low gtls; we need vnb pll too, individual dram skews, etc.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SoLoR

Tell them that while they are at it they could upgrade to latest "offical" (if they cant just put latest ich10r since its working fine) IMSM for ich9r and other modules, but ofc they wont do that... this is only wishful thinking... for example asus is most SLACK company regarding that, while other x58 mobos are all using 8.5.1030 IMSM option rom, asus is still on 8.0.0.something, even on rampage II extreme. There is even more, lets not count intel that regulary updates all those modules on their top end mobos, but i saw that even DFI upgraded their IMSM option rom via bios update on some P45 mobo. I mean like its that HARD!

---

PM Mikeyakame for that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zucker2k

We want skews on everything; we want very low voltage options on fsbt, cpupll, low gtls; we need vnb pll too, individual dram skews, etc.

---

PM mikeyakame for that. Most of it will be in his note but i don't know if everything will be in it.

If Asus does decide to implement more extensive DRAM skewing options, it'd be nice if it does it DFI style, either showing the current skew level as a "level" (like 1-7 or however high they go), or in the actual ps value.

I actually prefer the real register values, of 0x0T-0xFT. 1-16T. If they convert to roughly 50ps, then that is probabbly the MCH's accuracy of skewing clocks. DRAM Command Skews are 25ps at 1T command rate, but all that means is they work off a known turnaround for issuing queued commands that is half the normal. So if we send commands twice as fast, then we can probably make the assumption that they apply 50ps over 2 clock periods but issue 2 commands over those same 2 clocks. So they cheat to get 25ps!

FSB operates at 4 x clocks on the bus, DRAM operates at 2 x clocks on the bus, if DRAM is 50ps at 2x, then FSB will be 100ps at 4x and then we can use the 0T-FT and cover upto 1500ps since the skews themselves are implemented irrespective of the data clocks per cycle.

This is a copy of my post at ASUS Rampage Formula forum.

This is my answer to the dutch ASUS Tech Support.

This is what we like to see added or fixed in BIOS ASUS Rampage Formula 0701. This will give us the BIOS that we deserve to have on our X48 performance board ASUS Rampage Formula.

CPU GTLREF0 - 3, independant control of each input buffer reference divider. 0.60-0.75x 0/2, 0.58x-0x.73x 1/3. Increment at 0.01%

NB GTL from 0.57x - 0.73x. Increment at 0.01%

CPU CLOCK SKEW / NB CLOCK SKEW - independant control of each skew with usable range, ie 0ps - 1200ps.

DRAM CLOCK SKEW A1/A2/B1/B2 - need individual skew adjustment as AI clock twister unpredictable

CPU / PCIE differential amplitude (drive) 400mv-1200mv

SATA PCIE clock frequency adjustment individual of DMI PCIE/NB PCIE frequency. Interference and jitter at high FSB where close to PCI stepping frequency

AI Clock Twister - Requires manual kickstart to work properly at high FSB. Need to set it to another value than current if changing DRAM skew values otherwise it seems to assume the current delay skew values are base values instead of realizing they are changed and just need minor adjustment ie -1T

tREF - Should be added.

REF[T] = REFI[ns] / CK[ns]
; REFI = Self Refresh Interval of IC in microseconds
REFI = 7.8us or 15.6us and is found in SPD table for dimm
; CK = clock period in nanoseconds
CK[ns] = 1000[ns] / DDR2_IO_FREQ[Mhz]

For DDR2-800 which is Intel default value of tREF you get:

REF[T] = ( 7.8 * 1000 ) / ( 1000 / 400 )
= 3120T

So Automatic Self Refresh Turnaround will be 3120 clocks at 800mhz before the next self refresh cycle can begin.

Lets say I change DRAM Frequency to 1066mhz or 1200Mhz.

For DDR2_FREQ = 1066Mhz , IO_FREQ = 533Mhz, CK[ns] = 1000 / 533 = ~1.86ns, REFI = 7.8us/7800ns

REF[T] = 7800 / (1000/533)
= 4157T

For DDR2_FREQ = 1200Mhz, IO_FREQ = 600Mhz
CK[ns] = 1000 / 600 = ~1.667ns, REFI = 7.8us/7800ns

REF[T] = 7800 / (1000/600)
= 4680T

With respect to those calculations above, if that minimum clock turnaround value tREF I've shown is already greater than the Intel default of 3120T then we may have a problem during Self Refresh.

If the value of that register is only 3120T regardless, and if me the "end user" decides to use DDR2-1200 I now am in a position that's not worth smiling about.

If I actually need 4680 clock periods to meet the minimum turnaround at 1200Mhz and I only have 3120 clock periods, then....

Well the answer is simple, we start automatic refresh/precharge 1560 clock periods earlier than expected and as such best case scenario we may just increase traffic on the DRAM bus and externally on the FSB when page faults begin to occur because data expected isn't the data being read.

Worst case scenario may be physical wear and tear from the repaging of memory unnecessarily, to a more localized problem of refreshing incomplete data during burst read/writes leading to continuous refreshing of bad memory data and corrupting devices, files, etc.


CPU Fan Control for 3 pin CPU Fan.

Some say that this is already fixed. I have a 3 pin CPU Fan connected and i don't see any speed increase no matter what profile i use.
If this is already fixed the problem could be the profiles. Some say that the CPU Fan only starts spinning faster when the CPU reaches 60° Celsius.

Silent Mode - The CPU Fan is always at low speed (No problem the CPU Fan is always at low speed)
Optimal Mode - The CPU Fan starts spinning faster when the CPU temperature raises. (I don't know if this works because my CPU is watercooled)
Performance Mode - The CPU Fan starts spinning faster according to the load on the CPU. (If this is how it works i can say that this isn't working. If it's based on temperature the CPU Fan should be at the maximum speed around 40° Celsius. An increase in CPU Fan speed above 60° Celsius is to late.)

Chassis Fan Ratios - Lower Fan speeds should be possible (50% is good if it's really 50% - A Fan with a maximum of 2500 rpm at 50% should spin around 1250-1300 rpm)

Optional Fan Ratios - Lower Fan speeds should be possible (50% is good if it's really 50% - A Fan with a maximum of 2500 rpm at 50% should spin around 1250-1300 rpm)

I think everyone can live with that.

Thanks to you guys helping me out and especially mikeyakame for all the hard work that he has done.

Thanks very much guys (especially A-Gray and mikeyakame) for all your support in this thread! Thanks also for doing your best to get continued BIOS support/upgrades for this motherboard, the changes you have suggested would be awesome and it seems that there is actually a chance they will get implemented! Keep pushing it guys!

Ok guys

I received some good news today.

Soon we will see CPU and NB clock skew in a new beta release that they are going to give me.:clap:

tREF is still under testing and won't be available in this beta release.

They didn't find anything very wrong with the CPU Fan Control. Not much will be changed on that part.
I'm still going to ask if they can do something about it for the Performance profile and give them my reason why i ask it.

My contact didn't receive anything about the other features we asked. This may take a longer time before they decide what can be done.

And don't worry i will share this beta BIOS with you guys if i receive it.:up:

This is just greate. Maybe if someone else send message about on-die GTL refs will see them too.

In the GLT's tread i have some posts about what i'm testing now. Since, this is the right tread, i'll cry my tears here - i started from bottom - 333x8.5, all voltages at minimum. All the way to 450 (i tested with 10mhz step) i'll i need was vCPU and two step on the VTT, vNB and one PLL. Stable at 1.35 vCPU, 1.26 VTT, 1.31 vNB, 1.52 PLL, GPU GTL 65x, NB GTL 67x. Just 5mhz up to 455 and i'm in the "lockups world". One step to vNB and VTT doesn't help, now i rised VTT to 1.30. Probably, again i won't be able to reach 471 stable ... ;/

I can give you mine for FSB 465MHz and 8 multiplier. You can find them here on the ASUS Rampage Formula forum.

Thanks, but the didn't help ... i mean, my setting are with more voltages. VTT is what help stoping the lockups, and 1.36 VTT i just for 455, my goal is 470. I'm now 100%, that it's CPU problem. 6x472 - no problem, 8.5x473 - hard lockups.
A question - after flashing P5E to RF, and 04** RF to 0701 RF i haven't clear CMOS(never cleared it). Could this help or clearing is just after flashing to reset BIOS?
I'm just hopeless now, for 450 i need really low voltages, for 455 i'm rising them and it just keep on locking up ...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by spoof

Thanks, but the didn't help ... i mean, my setting are with more voltages. VTT is what help stoping the lockups, and 1.36 VTT i just for 455, my goal is 470. I'm now 100%, that it's CPU problem. 6x472 - no problem, 8.5x473 - hard lockups.
A question - after flashing P5E to RF, and 04** RF to 0701 RF i haven't clear CMOS(never cleared it). Could this help or clearing is just after flashing to reset BIOS?
I'm just hopeless now, for 450 i need really low voltages, for 455 i'm rising them and it just keep on locking up ...

---

Ok try this, forget all the settings you are using right now and start fresh.

Start at 466mhz FSB with 7x multi and PL at 9 on 12:10 divider. Leave CPU GTL on auto, set NB gtl to 0.63x. Start with 1.24v VTT, 1.41-1.45v Vnb, and whatever Vcore you need to be stable and guaranteed error free. 1.2-1.25v I assume would be enough? DRAM Clock Skews to Normal, and advanced/delay if you need to. DRAM Static Read to Enabled, Vsb to 1.075v, Vsb_pll to 1.50v, Vcpu_pll to 1.54v, Vdimm to whatever you need for ~ 1120mhz, DRAM Controller REF to DDR2_REF or -10Mv, others are ok on auto, PCIE frequency to 102-104mhz. AI Clock Twister if you have it set it to moderate.

And start from here. If you don't have all those options don't worry too much, but if I missed some let me know what they are. Also put a 40mm fan on the NB heatsink if you haven't got one already.

And with Vtt, for me sometimes changing a few Mhz FSB above whatever I'm using requires me to add 0.04v - 0.06v Vtt, then I may go up 2-3mhz more and have to drop Vtt back down 0.08-0.1v to get stable and adjust GTLs all over again. Everytime you change Vcore, Vnb or Vtt you have to adjust CPU_GTL, NB_GTL or both respectively.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by spoof

A question - after flashing P5E to RF, and 04** RF to 0701 RF i haven't clear CMOS(never cleared it). Could this help or clearing is just after flashing to reset BIOS?
I'm just hopeless now, for 450 i need really low voltages, for 455 i'm rising them and it just keep on locking up ...

---

You can try that. At first everything looked stable for me with BIOS 0701 and FSB465MHz. After a reboot everything was a mess again, so I tried to clear the CMOS. It really helped. Everything was stable again after a Clear CMOS.

I'm with Alien on that. Clear CMOS seems to correct bugs which set in sometimes from combinations of settings or bug in bios assembly code resulting from the former. What ever the reason, clearing the cmos fixes most bios code bug problems.

A-Grey
These are tons of issues and features to be corrected/added in future bios release for RF. But i will not be able to enjoy it at all if ASUS doesn't correct that problem when my Adaptec 3405 Raid controller cannot work with bioses newer than 0403. For God's sake pls. tell the ASUS to fix this stupid problem!

I really, really highly appreciate you help, both of you mikeyakame and A-Grey, i'm really thankful. I'll try first with clearing CMOS and than with mikeyakames settings and later i'll post what are the results.

One more time thank you so much, both! ((:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DEFLORATOR

A-Grey
These are tons of issues and features to be corrected/added in future bios release for RF. But i will not be able to enjoy it at all if ASUS doesn't correct that problem when my Adaptec 3405 Raid controller cannot work with bioses newer than 0403. For God's sake pls. tell the ASUS to fix this stupid problem!

---

Strange that you say that. I thought they fixed the RAID Controller issue with BIOS 0601.
Did you try a Clear CMOS after you've flashed your board with a new BIOS?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by A-Grey

Strange that you say that. I thought they fixed the RAID Controller issue with BIOS 0601.
Did you try a Clear CMOS after you've flashed your board with a new BIOS?

---

Yes, of course I cleared bios. I tried all bioses, any newer than 0403 doesn't work when Adaptec 3405 is installed. The difference was in the behavior of PC: with 0406 and 0407 PC will not boot at all, only removing of raid card helped; starting from bios 0408 PC starts, but Adaptec isn't seen for system. Raid controller has the newest firmware (I tried other versions too, but that didn't helped).

Did you contact the ASUS Tech Support for your problem?
You can send them a Technical Inquiry about your problem with their new BIOSes and your Raid controller.
That's the first thing you should do. Now that they are working on the BIOS they could try to solve the problem for you.

I'll do my part and I'll tell them about the problem when they contact me.

I think, i maybe found a sweet spot at 460FSB for the CPU - this means no lockups(for 1 hour 30 min). BUT( there is always but) i got after 1 hour 30 minutes "Final result was *******, expected *******" on core #3 in Prime95 Small-FFT. Ran Memtest, as i expected - errors (not mass errors, but ofter 3% 1,2 errors). Last time i had this problem(there was mass error, no just from time to time) 67x NB GTL fix it, but now it's the same on 67x and 63x. DRAM Controller to DDR2_REF -10mV doesn't help, high vNB too. My 8800PC are to 1105 with 1.90* real, so i don't think they are the problem. PL is 7, which i think is not the problem too. Any ideas?

I forgot - the problem causes BSOD too with 0x0000101 or 0x0000124.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by A-Grey

Did you contact the ASUS Tech Support for your problem?
You can send them a Technical Inquiry about your problem with their new BIOSes and your Raid controller.
That's the first thing you should do. Now that they are working on the BIOS they could try to solve the problem for you.

I'll do my part and I'll tell them about the problem when they contact me.

---

Thanks, I sent inquiry today. It's Chinese New Year these days, till Feb 1st they have days off, hopefully tech support will revert to me after holidays.

I've send a mail to my contact for your issue with your RAID card.
All you can do now is hope that they will/can fix it.

I dont know how A-Grey and Mikeyakame are able to run such a low NB voltage for their FSB OCs. I recently upgraded to a Q9650 and am running 467 FSB x9 at 4.2GHz 16+ hrs stable Prime95 with the following voltages in bios:

vcore: 1.33v
PLL: 1.54v
NB: 1.69v (as tRD of 9 I can lower it to 1.65v)
DRAM: 1.98v (They are rated for 2.1v, but runs table as 2x2Gb at 1.8v and 4x2Gb at 1.94v)
FSB Term Volt: 1.38v (but Hardware Monitor in bios and Everest report it as 1.26v)

LLC: disabled
CPU GTL: x.63
NB GTL: x.67

Spread spectrums disabled


Running DDR2 934 5-4-4-12 45
Ai Clock Twister at moderate
Transaction Booster at 8


But as soon as I drop the NB voltage to 1.67, one core fails. My NB temps never go above 42°C, but I hate running the voltage so high.

Dont know for certain, but it might be to do with your divider? And FSB Term Voltage, i set 1.40v, my bios/everest report 1.46-147v, i set 1.47v Vnb reports about the same.

I'm about to start considering that my board might be a female, I could swear it's that time of the month :(

I gotta stop pulling my comp apart because every time I do I end up spending 1/2-1 day fixing problems that I dont know how to fix by moving cables around and playing musical chairs with pci-e power and fan headers till eventually after a while it stops acting like a child that didn't get its toy it wanted and works normally again. Dont know if its my board or not. I would only imagine it is, because the problem it self appears as many fluctuating voltages in hardware monitor, by fluctuating i mean 0.05-0.1v, bouncing around like a pogo stick. Then during the exorcism I perform it does all kinds of evil things like corrupting and wiping my cmos!

Argh I can fix most things but this one has me baffled, it's been on going for 2 - 3 months and as many times as Ive fixed it up I still don't know how exactly I fixed it.

The only thing positive to come out of it is my CPU temps have plummeted from high 50s to high 40s and all I did was replace the thermal paste I replaced recently, and shimmed down my TRUE so it clamps better. Even Linpack temps are amazing now, 65c full load!