Asus M4a79 deluxe up close and personal

3.72 seems to be no trouble. It passes 10 iterations of linpak without any trouble. Anything 3.8 and over seems to crash with any moderate load on this chip(unless I leave core 3 at a lower clock). I'm hoping to get somewhere in between where I am now and 3.8 to be stable with some more tweaking or, if nothing else, I hope to get a little more NB speed.. I don't much care for OCCT's interface or waiting periods, so I dropped the occt linpak into LinX for testing. Temps top out at 42C after 2 or 3 iterations and don't increase from there.

--Matt

I am running into a problem. I am trying to get my mobo setup and ready for my new x25-m, so I reinstalled vista x64 on my F1 1TB hdd with AHCI enabled in the mobo bios. Then once it was installed I went on to install all the drivers and such and no matter what drivers i install there is always a unknown device in device manager. I have installed 9.2 catalyst, the 9.2 for SB750, and 9.2 of the AHCI Raid drivers, but that unknown device is still there. Can anyone help me out please?

Uninstall realtek and disable it.......Then rebbot and let you computer find the other driver that is unknown off the installation CD....I'm preety sure the file it wants is hdaudiobus.sys.

I had this issue in vista before I had to drop thefile in the drivers.bin file for windows before it found it.....I think IIRC I had to rename the file .sys as well.

Thanks for trying to help out chew* but it was still a no go. I uninstalled the "high definition audio device" under device manager, then rebooted, and I told vista to look for the unknown devices driver under the cd that came with the mobo and it didnt find it. I then searched for the cd for "hdaudiobus.sys" and I couldnt find anything on the cd. Any other ideas cause this is driving me crazy. It says the device is "on PCI standard ISA bridge" if thats any help?

Yah the file is not called hdaudiobus.sys I had to rename it look at the file size in the screenshot and you will know which file it is ;) .....It's in the realtek drivers in the WDM folder......sometimes it can be found in ati's WDM folder as well.....You may have to remove folder and file restrictions to see it.....It will not install if any realtek drivers are installed and it will only install at startup, if it doesn't find the driver the first time it will not allow you to install it untill you reboot again.

http://members.cox.net/bostonreefer3/hdaudio.JPG

I really appreciate you helpin me out chew* but so far its not working. I downloaded the audio drive .zip from the asus website, looked inside the wdm folder and renamed rtkhdaud.sys to hdaudiobus.sys. Then I disabled the unidentified device and then uninstalled it through device manager, rebooted, and when it started up it asked to look for the driver, i told it to look where the hdaudiobus.sys was, and it still didnt like it. One thing i noticed is that it says for "hardwar Id: ACPI\PNP0700"

Yah pointing it to it doesn't work in vista unless it in vistas driver bin.:shrug: gotta put it there yourself.

Have i mentioned I love vista :rolleyes:

could you elaborate on what you mean "driver bin"? I dont have any experience with that.

hmm let me hook up my vista drive and see if I can find the location I stuck it in.

I stuck both hdaudibus.inf and hdaudiobus.sys in this folder, not really good at explaining this stuff so heres a shot of vista/windows/system32/driverstore/filerepository

http://members.cox.net/bostonreefer3/hdaudio.jpg

which file did you rename to hdaudiobus.inf? I tried renaming hdart.inf to hdaudiobus.inf, and then stuck both hdaudiobus.inf and hdaudiobus.sys into that filerepository folder, restarted windows, and it did that look for driver thing, but it still didnt find anything :confused:

depends on the particular driver.

the one on the left first above screenshot for vista 32 would be RTKHDAUD.sys If its that type of driver, I would drop that and a clone named hdaudiobus.sys in that folder.

same file is in the other driver foldr on the right.....same thing...depends on if your 32bit or 64 bit which file you use.

ok so i'm on vista x64, so then I should rename "RTKHDA64.SYS" to "hdaudiobus.INF" and then make another copy named "hdaudiobus.SYS" and put both in the the filerepository folder?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FoxRacR17

ok so i'm on vista x64, so then I should rename "RTKHDA64.SYS" to "hdaudiobus.INF" and then make another copy named "hdaudiobus.SYS" and put both in the the filerepository folder?

---

yah drop the original and those 2, it won't hurt anything....

ok, i have no idea what i'm doing wrong but windows still will not find the drivers, i made two copies of RTKHDA64.SYS, renamed one to hdaudiobus.inf and the other to hdaudiobus.sys, put all three in the root of the filerespository folder, and restarted, but windows still didnt want to find the driver and asked me to look online and stuff.:confused:

I was troubleshooting some issues that I was having with high NB clocks on this board and found that having CnQ enabled causes Vista x64 to BSOD on boot if the NB frequency is at, around, or over 2600mhz. Disabling CnQ avoids the issue completely. I can set the NB multiplier that I wish, bump the ref frequency up in overdrive and attain the same NB clock with it enabled but cannot boot with it on. It's pretty strange, since I can boot right up at over 2800nb no problem without it. That's a pretty substantial difference! It really sucks though, since c1e and cnq knock an easy 60w off of the system's power consumption at idle. :-/

--Matt

well now I have complete disabled the onboard audio within the bios, and tried reinstalling vista again, and after install all drivers (minus audio drivers) there is still that unknown device. I think its releated to ACPI because when I open up the system information under catalyst, and select "problem devices" it says "ACPI\PNP0700\4&CB4DC81&0" How come I am having trouble with this all of a sudden, i'm pretty sure that when I first installed vista everything was good and i have no unknown devices. Is anyone else having this problem?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FoxRacR17

well now I have complete disabled the onboard audio within the bios, and tried reinstalling vista again, and after install all drivers (minus audio drivers) there is still that unknown device. I think its releated to ACPI because when I open up the system information under catalyst, and select "problem devices" it says "ACPI\PNP0700\4&CB4DC81&0" How come I am having trouble with this all of a sudden, i'm pretty sure that when I first installed vista everything was good and i have no unknown devices. Is anyone else having this problem?

---

Did you run Windows update? Do you have ATK0110 ACPI UTILITY listed under System devices in device manager?

I did update windows fully, and I do have ATK0110 listed under system devices.

Well here's my device manager:

http://home.comcast.net/~lathode/tal...ce_manager.jpg

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mattkosem

I was troubleshooting some issues that I was having with high NB clocks on this board and found that having CnQ enabled causes Vista x64 to BSOD on boot if the NB frequency is at, around, or over 2600mhz. Disabling CnQ avoids the issue completely. I can set the NB multiplier that I wish, bump the ref frequency up in overdrive and attain the same NB clock with it enabled but cannot boot with it on. It's pretty strange, since I can boot right up at over 2800nb no problem without it. That's a pretty substantial difference! It really sucks though, since c1e and cnq knock an easy 60w off of the system's power consumption at idle. :-/

--Matt

---

yep matt theres is a long list of stuff you must disable to get the most out of the cpu.....

C1E, C&Q, spread spectrum.....when you really want to hammer it which I usually reserve for cracking records you turn EVERYTHING off...USB,NIC,Sound, anything onboard except the ps2 ports....I don't notice much if any in gains but I have killed a few onboard nics when pushing the system to its limits if left enabled.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by chew*

yep matt theres is a long list of stuff you must disable to get the most out of the cpu.....

C1E, C&Q, spread spectrum.....when you really want to hammer it which I usually reserve for cracking records you turn EVERYTHING off...USB,NIC,Sound, anything onboard except the ps2 ports....I don't notice much if any in gains but I have killed a few onboard nics when pushing the system to its limits if left enabled.

---

That really sucks, since the NB speed makes such a huge difference. I didn't have this problem on the M3A78-T that I had before this. I guess that settign can only be pushed for benching sessions and heavy gaming sessions. There's no way I'm going to leave my computer drawing 210w at idle 24/7 when backing the speed off a little makes it draw only 130.

--Matt

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FoxRacR17

I did update windows fully, and I do have ATK0110 listed under system devices.

---

You need to turn off the floppy drive controller in the BIOS, unless you have one installed, if so, the cable might be reversed or the device is really old. Your PNP string of 0700 is for the floppy drive controller on this board, at least on mine it is. ;)

The 0700 string is part of a series of strings (0303 is for PS/2 keyboards, etc) for Legacy ISA Devices within ACPI and usually this device message pops up when the device is not attached but activated in the BIOS or is attached but the device is not PnP aware (usually older keyboards, floppy drives, serial devices from several years back). Oddly, the device will normally work just fine, even with the error message.

Vista 64 SP1 actually increased the number of legacy devices that would be recognized properly, of course, if you are not on SP1, there is no real reason to be running Vista. :D

Thanks for the reply bingo13, I ended up figuring it out that night. I already had disabled the floppy drive in the bios, and I was using a copy of my vista ultimate that I made with vlite, and in vlite I told it to remove the floppy disk drivers since I never use a floppy and it was disabled in the bios. So I dont know why it was showing up when it was disabled in the bios. I made another copy using vlite and made sure that I left the floppy disk drivers in and reinstalled and everything is good now. And thanks again for trying to help me out the other night chew*

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FoxRacR17

Thanks for the reply bingo13, I ended up figuring it out that night. I already had disabled the floppy drive in the bios, and I was using a copy of my vista ultimate that I made with vlite, and in vlite I told it to remove the floppy disk drivers since I never use a floppy and it was disabled in the bios. So I dont know why it was showing up when it was disabled in the bios. I made another copy using vlite and made sure that I left the floppy disk drivers in and reinstalled and everything is good now. And thanks again for trying to help me out the other night chew*

---

Np man wish I had been able to help.....guess it wasn't the audio driver that beat me up for a few hours.

Current settings: 3.4 @ 1.47v (235x14.5) 940mhz cas 4 4 4 12 HT 2115 NB 2350 Pretty happy with everything except NB clocks. Any suggestions? NBv= 1.28 atm, CPU NBv @ auto HTv @ 1.24

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jethro

Current settings: 3.4 @ 1.47v (235x14.5) 940mhz cas 4 4 4 12 HT 2115 NB 2350 Pretty happy with everything except NB clocks. Any suggestions? NBv= 1.28 atm, CPU NBv @ auto HTv @ 1.24

---

Raise CPU/NB voltage up to 1.300V and try NB speed at 2585, keep raising CPU/NB (or lowering it) until that setting is stable. Then raise CPU/NB by .05 and try 2820, once again raise it more or lower it until that setting is stable. Having NB speed at or near 2800 is optimal without going crazy on volts.

I have five 940's and they all do 2800NB with CPU/NB around 1.350~1.400 with the CPU at 3800 (two will do 3100 at 1.450V, the other three lock around 3000 on air), this is under Vista 64 which will require ramping the voltages just a little higher than on Vista 32 or XP. If you take your CPU above 3.6, be sure to increase SB to 1.35V and HT to 1.28V when pushing the HT reference clock.

I have been lazy on this board, time to get serious, It made it to my main bench table, Ripping in a fresh OS now......I will start work on this tuesday as work is going to keep me tied up late tonight and most of monday.....I will use a retail 940BE to start with......

http://members.cox.net/bostonreefer3/asus13.jpg

Are there any tricks to getting this board working with a ref clock over 245 or so? I was trying to do some cas 4 runs, which I know my memory is up to, but jumping the gap from 245 to 250 seems to bring on some nastiness. I get crackling over the audio when I try to switch it in windows. I tried the drive strength and clock skew settings that you posted on page 2, but they don't seem to be helping. I've got my HT multi down two notches, and my NB multi way down into the safe zone but cannot seem to get it running. I double checked the sticks on my GF's (intel) system and they still run DDR2 1040 at 4-4-4-12. I'm trying 4-5-5-12 and am not getting very far.

I'm going to stick memtest86+ on my thumb drive and see if I can find a bios setting that helps.

--Matt

EDIT: Very peculiar. I can set the settings in the bios and get into windows without any problems. Memtest86+ passes 5 passes of tests 3 and 5 with DDR2-1000 4-5-5-10. Playtime :-)

Matt those settings were memtest stable thats as far as I got and they were Micron D9 GMH, unfortunately now they are micron D9 half baked (my fault) .....back to using my OCZ's. Really don't want to invest much more money in ddrII.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by chew*

Matt those settings were memtest stable thats as far as I got and they were Micron D9 GMH, unfortunately now they are micron D9 half baked (my fault) .....back to using my OCZ's. Really don't want to invest much more money in ddrII.

---

I edited my post. I can get into windows no problem if I set the settings from the bios, even with all of the drive strengths set to auto. It must just be a strange AOD bug.

--Matt

It seems to turn around some mildly impressive numbers at cas 4, for 2x2GB cas6 rated sticks at least. I can get them up to 1024, but it requires switching to unganged for a nice 1000mb/sec drop in read speed. Overall, I'll probably stick with this. It's a touch faster than 1200 cas 6 as far as I can tell, and the NB clock isn't too high to boot windows with CnQ enabled :-)

Also, it doesn't really seem to make any sense. But I'm able to achieve a slightly higher CPU clock with this ref clock and multi than I am with a much lower ref clock and multi. I'm pretty sure it's not my imagination either...

--Matt

Matt I think you will find that the happier you can keep the IMC the more performance and clock you will get out of the cpu ;)

BIOS aside, which between this board and the UD5P would you say "feels" more stable while OC'ing?

Do you think you could do a really quick pro/con for the two?

Thanks for your time.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by chew*

Matt I think you will find that the happier you can keep the IMC the more performance and clock you will get out of the cpu ;)

---

Thanks! That seems to be the case! I'm not sure what the story is with AOD and high reference clocks. I tried it again and it reset my bios! I'll stay out of there for now! I also noticed that there isn't any option for setting the tRC with the DDR800 ratio. Is that common? What's the max safe voltage for the CPU/NB core? I've been sticking with 1.45, but I understand there are boards with a single power plane that lock vcore and NB vid. Is that one safe to 1.55 too? I did a bit of research and found that, in spite of the everest bandwidth scores being lower, unganged is faster than ganged. It seems like only single threaded apps benefit from ganged mode. I even did a little independent research and found it to be true.

--Matt

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by iandh

BIOS aside, which between this board and the UD5P would you say "feels" more stable while OC'ing?

Do you think you could do a really quick pro/con for the two?

Thanks for your time.

---

No clue yet, it seems stable at stock installing Sp3 :D seriously haven't got that far yet, the one time I was in windows it was on a OS geared for my 790GX, 90% of drivers were wrong...

Personally I like the layout of the gigabyte better for everyday use....I have 2 usable slots with this board when doublewide PCI X cards are installed. I had 3 usable slots with the gigabyte.

I can however run tri fire on the asus but with dual slot coolers I have no clue how they will stay cool......2 of the fans would have no breathing room....

I had to shove my post code reader in between the cards.....luckily it has an add on cable for an external mounted LCD as it's not viewable sandwiched in there.

On a plus side the ram slots are thought out better, but tall ram spreaders are still an issue in the inner slots.

Clear cmos button would have been a nice touch for a board that costs a little more....Would have liked them to place the sata ports all off the side of the board as well....and give more than 5 of them.

Enough of my rambling.

Here's the bios I was waiting for......

Improves system stability with certain memory modules......

1002 http://support.asus.com/download/dow...Language=en-us

Quote:

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Originally Posted by chew*

Here's the bios I was waiting for......

Improves system stability with certain memory modules......

1002 http://support.asus.com/download/dow...Language=en-us

---

There will be another one out next week or the week after. This one has been tuned with results from a dozen of the top selling DRAM kits in it, the next one will be tuned further and hopefully 4x2GB will be up to speed completely. However, several problems were addressed.

Cool, noticed the TRC bug is fixed in this, had to set 1 up to get the desired timing in windows.....etc 27 in bios equaled 26 in windows..guess I will have to start all over with drive strengths.......

Bingo,

Any thoughts as to why my port 80 diagnostic card is registering FF throughout the whole boot cycle?

It's installed in the available PCI slot visible in the pic in above post......

I really hate not knowing why a setting fails to boot..

seems I need more voltage to get my OCZ's to even boot on this board than the gigabyte......only needed 2.25 for 1180mhz on 790gx and they were 100% stable, they boot into memtest at 2.3v but are tossing alot of errors.....will have to tackle drive strengths tuesday.....

i will buy one

Has anyone else noticed that loading the defaults completely screws with the vcore until its set over ~1.4v? I updated to the newest BIOS last night and loaded the defaults only to find my vcore was reading 1.50v in Windows. Setting the vcore manually to 1.35v resulted in 1.475 actual in Windows. I found that if I load the defaults I have to set the vcore at or over 1.4v, save, then reboot for anything under that to set correctly. It's not really a nuisance, just a really strange oddity.

I love this board though. On my Gigabyte mATX board I couldn't boot into Windows with the NB over 2.2GHz and it wouldn't remain stable after any type of NB bump...but this board allows me to run my NB at 2.8Ghz and has no problem with higher voltages.

I'll post some results tonight when I get home

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by chew*

Bingo,

Any thoughts as to why my port 80 diagnostic card is registering FF throughout the whole boot cycle?

It's installed in the available PCI slot visible in the pic in above post......

I really hate not knowing why a setting fails to boot..

seems I need more voltage to get my OCZ's to even boot on this board than the gigabyte......only needed 2.25 for 1180mhz on 790gx and they were 100% stable, they boot into memtest at 2.3v but are tossing alot of errors.....will have to tackle drive strengths tuesday.....

---

I have no idea, still trying to figure it out. My POST codes are just fine actually. However, I am able to reach DDR2-1300 now but my NB speeds are limited to 2.6GHz on two CPUs that both did 3.1GHz on the 0903 BIOS. :confused: It is always something.... I have a meeting with them tonight.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by bingo13

I have no idea, still trying to figure it out. My POST codes are just fine actually. However, I am able to reach DDR2-1300 now but my NB speeds are limited to 2.6GHz on two CPUs that both did 3.1GHz on the 0903 BIOS. :confused: It is always something.... I have a meeting with them tonight.

---

try the PCI slot above the lower blue PCI X slot. Just solid FF during entire post even when it fails to post, will pull a card and try in another slot.

Seems I was wrong memory is passing now with less volts, had to give vcore a boost at 3080 mhz though......doesnt make much sense this cpu was tested prior does 3.2 fine at stock volts...

EDIT now all of a sudden port 80 is working.......changed DPS setting for memory..

I'm having terrible luck with 1002 as well. I couldn't get 3.7Ghz stable on the core with any NB or memory frequencies. The best I could do was half of an iteration of linpak. I also couldn't get DDR 1200 stable, even with 3.49Ghz on the core and a 2250mhz NB. I was running with the exact same timings, voltages, and skew settings that work perfectly on 801. This bios seems worse than 903 on my setup. I'm back on 801 and happy (and stable) as ever :-)

Bingo: What NB voltage are you running to attain 3.1ghz?

--Matt

Odd I just completed cinebench @ 3960/2860NB/586ram with my cheap OCZ golds.....not prime or linpack but still one of the hardest benches to complete with high cpu/nb clocks.

Probably prime stable around 3840 as that is about this chips max anyway. Even though ram passes memtest or wahtever your testing try running it an known previous clocks and then crank cpu/nb again and retry it...I know these sticks are 100% stable at this speed..... they pass higher but I decided to go with proven ground first...

Working on 4gig benchable, done it before with this chip...trying to see if can crack 22k 3d06 on this board as well My guess at this speed = 21,7xx

http://members.cox.net/bostonreefer3/asus.JPG

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mattkosem

I'm having terrible luck with 1002 as well. I couldn't get 3.7Ghz stable on the core with any NB or memory frequencies. The best I could do was half of an iteration of linpak. I also couldn't get DDR 1200 stable, even with 3.49Ghz on the core and a 2250mhz NB. I was running with the exact same timings, voltages, and skew settings that work perfectly on 801. This bios seems worse than 903 on my setup. I'm back on 801 and happy (and stable) as ever :-)

Bingo: What NB voltage are you running to attain 3.1ghz?

--Matt

---

I was using 1.425V on CPU/NB and 1.28V on NB and HT voltages for 3.1GHz. The board will not even POST with 1002 and NB set to 2.8 with my setup now. I rolled back to 0903, better NB speeds although memory speed is down from 0801. ASUS is working on it though....

Hmmm I'll try some prime......benching 2800+ NB doesn't seem effected by 1002 though. Fell asleep after that post. woke up to this, preety much where I expected it to be.

http://members.cox.net/bostonreefer3/asus3d.JPG

If you guys haven't seen i. there is a New bios out (1002) with the following changelog:
1. Improve system stability with certain memory modules.

you can download it here - http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/...eluxe-1002.zip

Haven't tried it myself yet though.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by chew*

Even though ram passes memtest or wahtever your testing try running it an known previous clocks and then crank cpu/nb again and retry it...

---

Still no go at 3.7Ghz, but I managed to get the sticks stable at 1200. It seems like they messed with the baseline settings for the clock skews. Pushing them to 300 instead of 150 as I use with 801 did the trick. Oddly, 801 is prime/linpak stable with 150 or 300. I've got a sneaking suspicion that something was done with ACC in 903 and 1002 that wasn't done in 801. I have the same clocking issues, that are corrected by +2% to the last 2 cores in 801, with both of those versions.

--Matt

Ahh I get it now matt....

here's that magical 4.0 22k 3d06.......no benifit with 4850's and 16x by 16x over my gigabyte with 8x by 8x.....Maybe 4850's can't bottleneck the PCI X lanes.....have to try with my 4870 slammed in there.

My 3d06 scaling calculator I made is preety damn nifty and accurate....

http://members.cox.net/bostonreefer3/asus3d1.JPG

Well, I think we located a few problems with the skew tables last night. I have BIOS 1102 now, will post it up once I make sure it does not melt the board down. ;)

Lol, according to unspoken amd subforum rules you are required to give up the goods regardless of any restraints you are under or damage it may cause :D after all we are all responsible adults, If we blow up boards we will just rma them :shakes:

Now on a serious note bingo, all I did was set known good timings/clocks, fooled with dps , settled on normal. Havent touched drive strengths yet with this ram all auto for now, reserved for fine tuning.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by bingo13

Well, I think we located a few problems with the skew tables last night. I have BIOS 1102 now, will post it up once I make sure it does not melt the board down. ;)

---

Looking forward to it :)

The skews has acted quite strangly for me. If set to auto, on boot it will switch between normal/150 delay and 300/300 delay, on random :shrug:
(thats with 0903, will give the new one a try tonight)

BIOS 1102

I have not thoroughly tested it yet, so "Danger Danger Will Robinson" rules are in effect here.

Will give it a shot tommorow and report anything odd I find..

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by chew*

Will give it a shot tommorow and report anything odd I find..

---

1. Still have a slight Core VID overvolt (+.0125) situation with Auto, but manual settings over 1.4V seem to be holding true again.
2. Best to set manual settings, reboot, go back into the BIOS, save, and reboot again. I had the memory settings change to SPD settings a couple of times on me, not every time, but something to check. The same held true for HT link speeds, auto wanted to default to 1600 on the 720BE once NB speeds were raised above 2000, not every time, but enough for me to tag it.
3. Northbridge speeds and voltages are back to 0801/0903 levels.
4. Auto settings seem to be dialed in again on skew and delays.
5. Will test more later tonight.

Good to see you and Gary working together on this board here. It's only the enthusiasts who can get these changes put in to play. :up:

they should get paid:ROTF:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by EnJoY

Good to see you and Gary working together on this board here. It's only the enthusiasts who can get these changes put in to play. :up:

---

honestly they should use that info (tested by MoFo enthusiasts) in their marketing! It would be excellent example of truth telling marketing!

imagine chew*'s avatar on ASUS box :D

Thanks for the tips Bingo. Im at 2585 NB with 1.4v cpu and cpuNBv on auto now. Ill get brave and try again soon but a few corrupted installs have me chillin for now. Im using 1002 bios atm. Cant get AOD to work worth a flip in Beta 7 :(.

Eh gary's the man here. I have patience but from having done it in the past running through multiple os's is grueling......I'm just reporting stuff thats hindering my path to ocing :p:, in all fairness he probably noticed all that stuff allready.

Bingo, have you put the board under sub zero with any of these bios's? If not I can probably tackle it this weekend see if any anomalies appear when cold.

Pick the chip, 720 or 940......you probably know which one is more likely to show issues.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nedjo

honestly they should use that info (tested by MoFo enthusiasts) in their marketing! It would be excellent example of truth telling marketing!

imagine chew*'s avatar on ASUS box :D

---

gigabyte needs to add chew* tested mother approved to their box....that board is one tough cookie for a budget board....I really put the screws to that board to get it to perform up there with the more expensive options....

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by bingo13

1. Still have a slight Core VID overvolt (+.0125) situation with Auto, but manual settings over 1.4V seem to be holding true again.
2. Best to set manual settings, reboot, go back into the BIOS, save, and reboot again. I had the memory settings change to SPD settings a couple of times on me, not every time, but something to check. The same held true for HT link speeds, auto wanted to default to 1600 on the 720BE once NB speeds were raised above 2000, not every time, but enough for me to tag it.
3. Northbridge speeds and voltages are back to 0801/0903 levels.
4. Auto settings seem to be dialed in again on skew and delays.
5. Will test more later tonight.

---

So, overall, worth a try? Any idea what ACC related changes were made in 903? They seem to be no good for my chip, which is helped greatly by ACC on the 801 bios. My M3A78-T had a bios update that mentioned a similar fix, but didn't seem to harm my OCs.

--Matt

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by chew*

Eh gary's the man here. I have patience but from having done it in the past running through multiple os's is grueling......I'm just reporting stuff thats hindering my path to ocing :p:, in all fairness he probably noticed all that stuff allready.

Bingo, have you put the board under sub zero with any of these bios's? If not I can probably tackle it this weekend see if any anomalies appear when cold.

Pick the chip, 720 or 940......you probably know which one is more likely to show issues.

---

That would be great. I sent over a board and ummmm a special chip to my sub-zero guy for testing. I have no idea how the BIOS will react at this point but do know that 0801 was tested at sub zero in Taiwan. I will be tardy on updates today, spent most of the day getting the new MSI and DFI boards up to speed after a few BIOS changes last night.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mattkosem

So, overall, worth a try? Any idea what ACC related changes were made in 903? They seem to be no good for my chip, which is helped greatly by ACC on the 801 bios. My M3A78-T had a bios update that mentioned a similar fix, but didn't seem to harm my OCs.

--Matt

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I have not tried ACC on 1102 yet, but I did request that it work again. ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bingo13

I have not tried ACC on 1102 yet, but I did request that it work again. ;)

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Excellent :-) I'll give it a shot tonight.

--Matt

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bingo13

That would be great. I sent over a board and ummmm a special chip to my sub-zero guy for testing. I have no idea how the BIOS will react at this point but do know that 0801 was tested at sub zero in Taiwan. I will be tardy on updates today, spent most of the day getting the new MSI and DFI boards up to speed after a few BIOS changes last night.

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allright, I will toss the 720 in as I have a feeling that will be the problem child of the 2 retail parts if any problems are going to show themselves.

Ok definitely having issues with prime and 1002, seems it was easily benchable, not so prime stable however not even with NB downclocked.

Having trouble getting prime stable with either bios, seems to need more volts than my 790gx and then temps become an issue, may need to ditch the scythe ultra kaze and dice some carrots.

http://www.heatsinkfactory.com/delta...igh-speed.html

*EDIT* Well I think I figured it out, this board has some preety wicked v droop......1.6125 = 1.5875 ( what I need for 3800+ and prime to pass ) Will verify with a multimeter, just need to find the read points........I think this is a volt mod candidate.

With almost twice the PWM phase of my 790 gx thats kinda :/

I can confirm the vdroop being rather significant. I wasnt sure if it was Heat or my PSU to blame. I "assumed" with 8 phase the board wouldnt even be an issue ! I cant go over 1.4v without issue atm. Bios 1002 atm, didnt notice this with 701.

Woot! My ram is stable at 1200 in the 1102 bios! The skew values that auto provided are still way out there, but setting them manually to 300/150 works on this one as well as it did on 801! 1102 seems to bring some extra memory bandwidth with it clock for clock and timing for timing as well. My everest read speed in unganged mode is up 200mb/sec over the 801 bios. Clocking tests next.

--Matt

Matt i'm wrapping up a prime stable 1 hour run. I will take a shot of bios to give you a ballpark...for 3800+ prime. Boards sort of finicky.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by chew*

Matt i'm wrapping up a prime stable 1 hour run. I will take a shot of bios to give you a ballpark...for 3800+ prime. Boards sort of finicky.

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My luck seems to be consistent with yours. My clock is stable at the same level that it was under 801. I've passed 4 iterations of linpak at 3.7 so far, which is about 8x as far as I was able to get on 1002. Not a hint of memory instability at 1200 either.

*pats Asus on the back for fixing ACC and memory clocking*

--Matt

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mattkosem

My luck seems to be consistent with yours. My clock is stable at the same level that it was under 801. I've passed 4 iterations of linpak at 3.7 so far, which is about 8x as far as I was able to get on 1002. Not a hint of memory instability at 1200 either.

*pats Asus on the back for fixing ACC and memory clocking*

--Matt

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Well you gotta wait for another hour, downclocked the NB, 2800+ just not gonna happen on this bios already test 2600 + and that was fine. Tried to compensate for vdroop and just no luck, benching seems solid but 24/7 stability just isn't up to snuff yet.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by chew*

Well you gotta wait for another hour, downclocked the NB, 2800+ just not gonna happen on this bios already test 2600 + and that was fine. Tried to compensate for vdroop and just no luck, benching seems solid but 24/7 stability just isn't up to snuff yet.

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I see .01v over requested under linpak. My board never drops down to or below the requested voltage as far as everest is reporting. What tool are you using to check voltages?

--Matt

Quote:

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Originally Posted by chew*

Well you gotta wait for another hour, downclocked the NB, 2800+ just not gonna happen on this bios already test 2600 + and that was fine. Tried to compensate for vdroop and just no luck, benching seems solid but 24/7 stability just isn't up to snuff yet.

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2920 is the highest I have reached on NB speed so far with this BIOS, but 2800 has been rock stable. I finally got up to 1180 on memory with a 4GB kit also, overall this BIOS is better, but still needs work.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bingo13

2920 is the highest I have reached on NB speed so far with this BIOS, but 2800 has been rock stable. I finally got up to 1180 on memory with a 4GB kit also, overall this BIOS is better, but still needs work.

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Hmm I find it kinda weak NB wise compared to the 790GX IIRC I primed with 2800 NB plus, Ill get comparison for you in a bit, I managed 1200 now on a set of 1066 ram with rated timings for 1066 mode.

Ram clocks seem strong on the retail 940BE and this board but NB is lacking with ram downclocked compared to what I know this chip can do.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mattkosem

I see .01v over requested under linpak. My board never drops down to or below the requested voltage as far as everest is reporting. What tool are you using to check voltages?

--Matt

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HW monitor in bios and measured with multi meter.... windows software is wrong.

Needs just some minor tweaking looks like my ram needs about .02 volts.

http://members.cox.net/bostonreefer3/asus%20prime.JPG

i tried the 1002 BIOS for 48 HRS but ended up going back to the 801 version. With 801 I could get the NB slightly above 2800MHz pretty easy, but with the 1002 I couldn't get it stable past 2600MHz. I also wasn't able to get my chip stable at 4GHz whereas I could on the 801. I'm going to wait for the next release and hope it will let me run my high NB speeds like the 801 does.

Prime stable 3 hour at 3800+ with 2800+ NB and bios settings it takes

Added max NB clocking with high ram and some PI to show efficiency also.

Post #2 first page.

Bugs 1102
Cpu-z reports voltage incorrectly after 1.45v
K10 stat Pstate tab is not usable, even setting it to defaults = BSOD, believe this could be due to improper voltage reporting (AOD 2.14 works and current tab in K10 stat works)
vcore voltage is way off, off by 2 full steps, 1.6125 = 1.5875

Not really a bug but its somewhat of a struggle to get stable speeds that were known good on another board with same chip.

Updated more results page 1 post 3

Just thought I would note something, I'm finding this board very inconsistent.

I am for now going to attribute it to bios but in the back of my mind i'm thinking dirty power is the culprit.

Chew:

What makes you think this board is inconsistent? Do you mean you are stable at certain times and not at others without touching the settings?

I've found this board to be quite quirky with vcore and I'm never really sure how much I'm getting once in Windows because I can't find an accurate piece of software. My clocks seem to be quite consistent, although they vary from BIOS to BIOS. I'm hoping a later BIOS release will help with the vcore issues. but otherwise I'm quite pleased with this board.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HardCode

Chew:

What makes you think this board is inconsistent? Do you mean you are stable at certain times and not at others without touching the settings?

I've found this board to be quite quirky with vcore and I'm never really sure how much I'm getting once in Windows because I can't find an accurate piece of software. My clocks seem to be quite consistent, although they vary from BIOS to BIOS. I'm hoping a later BIOS release will help with the vcore issues. but otherwise I'm quite pleased with this board.

---

I've been saving profiles. Sometimes it passes prime somtimes it doesn't this is usually attributed to ripple = dirty power source. I double checked to see if somehow the profiles were'nt being applied properly and mnauallly set all settings from a new flash, same results.....

I can bench one time then fail 2 times bench again and pass then fail 3 times then pass 2 times........totally inconsistent....no rhyme or reason.

Heat is thine enemy! A cool day breaks 3.5g's : This board just wants more xtreme cooling!


http://content.glidesociety.com/imag...6-8c379fdd0335

Quote:

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Originally Posted by chew*

I've been saving profiles. Sometimes it passes prime somtimes it doesn't this is usually attributed to ripple = dirty power source. I double checked to see if somehow the profiles were'nt being applied properly and mnauallly set all settings from a new flash, same results.....

I can bench one time then fail 2 times bench again and pass then fail 3 times then pass 2 times........totally inconsistent....no rhyme or reason.

---

Seeing the same here. Tested with two 940's now and getting strange behavior on both. Very similar too my old K9A2 plat v2 in that matter, dodgy when you push it :/

Edit: That inc 1102 :)

Page 1 updated Dry Ice 720BE results.

Bingo, 1102 bios was much better than another bios i was using (mod bios ).

Still a little inconsistent, most notable bug was at 1.63v measures 1.7vcore with voltmeter and in bios hardware monitor.....

I explored further and it seems everything after 1.6125 overvolts a rather large amount. .050 or greater.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by chew*

Page 1 updated Dry Ice 720BE results.

Bingo, 1102 bios was much better than another bios i was using (mod bios ).

Still a little inconsistent, most notable bug was at 1.63v measures 1.7vcore with voltmeter and in bios hardware monitor.....

I explored further and it seems everything after 1.6125 overvolts a rather large amount. .050 or greater.

---

Where is the vcore read point chew? I'd like to check the voltage out on my setup.

--Matt

Will try to get a pic for you, tired today...long night. Board is still drying out.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by chew*

Page 1 updated Dry Ice 720BE results.

Bingo, 1102 bios was much better than another bios i was using (mod bios ).

Still a little inconsistent, most notable bug was at 1.63v measures 1.7vcore with voltmeter and in bios hardware monitor.....

I explored further and it seems everything after 1.6125 overvolts a rather large amount. .050 or greater.

---

ASUS is working on it, we had the same problem under LN2 this weekend, voltages just flat ran away on us. Also, figured out the low NB clocking compared to 0801, should get that fixed also. MSI just got me a BIOS that looks like it might work this time. ;)

Sounds good, will keep plucking away at it. Tried upping NB btw....2925 is the limit. Voltage is useless.

Sounds good looking forward to the MSI.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mattkosem

Where is the vcore read point chew? I'd like to check the voltage out on my setup.

--Matt

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Matt as per your request.........I'm working out a vmod as we speak but bear with me i'm amatuer at best with this stuff.....I will likely get a second hand opinion as I hate giving misinformation.

Adding this to page 1 so it doesn't get lost in posts......yellow circled is the chip pic 1.....yellow circled pin is read point pic 2. Have fun :)

http://members.cox.net/bostonreefer1/asusvcore1.jpg

http://members.cox.net/bostonreefer1/asusvcore2.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by chew*

I personally don't like paste directly on mosfets, having no cushion between a metal object and a source of power other than paste gives me the heebee jeebee's. I ended up bolting the PWM part of the heatsink down to ensure good contact.

Sinking the PWM for the memory is a good idea as well..

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Chew,

Sorry for the stupid q, but what do you mean about the PWM? I have this board coming with a 940BE, 4G Dominator w/fan and a Sapphire Toxic 1G 4870. I only have a 9700LED for now but plan on Swiftech H20-220 APEX Extreme kit for cooling. Stuff it all in my Antec 1200 with Antec TP 1KW psu. Any pointers would be greatly appreciated. Aloha.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lathode

Did you run Windows update? Do you have ATK0110 ACPI UTILITY listed under System devices in device manager?

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Hey Lathode,

I am building that same machine.

Mobo: M4A79 Deluxe
CPU: Phenon II 940BE
Ram: 4gb Corsair Dominator (Maybe 8)
CPU Cooler: CNPS9700LED (soon Swiftech H20-220 Apex Ultima Extreme Kit)
Vid: Sapphire Toxic 1GB 4870
Sound: Onboard but have X-Fi Extreme Gamer just sitting here in a box
HD: OS - 300Gb Velociraptor (Striped eventually)
Data - 1TB WD
DVD: (2) Asus DRW-2014L1T Sata
Case: Antec 1200
PSU: Antec TP 1KW

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KrzyMoke

Chew,

Sorry for the stupid q, but what do you mean about the PWM? I have this board coming with a 940BE, 4G Dominator w/fan and a Sapphire Toxic 1G 4870. I only have a 9700LED for now but plan on Swiftech H20-220 APEX Extreme kit for cooling. Stuff it all in my Antec 1200 with Antec TP 1KW psu. Any pointers would be greatly appreciated. Aloha.

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4 mosfets at the bottom of the ram slots get a tad hot, will have to be low profile heatsink....vidcard willl interfere....

Just some observations: with bios 0801 i was able to boot the system right into windows at 260htt with all voltages at stock apart from Vcore and Vdimm, with bios 1102 anything over 210htt resulted in no boot!

Trying to get my new 2x1GB OCZ Platinums stable i had to set Vdimm manually to 2.1V and Trfc to 195ns for both. I got a few errors in the black slots but none in the yellow ones. :)

Yesterday i was able to boot at 19,5x200 and run 3d mark06 at just 1.51Vcore, after that it isn't even stable in windows any more at the same settings and still ain't.

I'm still pretty much puzzled by this sytem. :shrug:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zeus

Just some observations: with bios 0801 i was able to boot the system right into windows at 260htt with all voltages at stock apart from Vcore and Vdimm, with bios 1102 anything over 210htt resulted in no boot!

Trying to get my new 2x1GB OCZ Platinums stable i had to set Vdimm manually to 2.1V and Trfc to 195ns for both. I got a few errors in the black slots but none in the yellow ones. :)

Yesterday i was able to boot at 19,5x200 and run 3d mark06 at just 1.51Vcore, after that it isn't even stable in windows any more at the same settings and still ain't.

I'm still pretty much puzzled by this sytem. :shrug:

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Zeus set your clock skew DPS to normal for the OCZ's with 1102 I'm using 2.24v for 1200 ram ;) you want a shot of my timings? I might be able to be persuaded to whip out my platinums, Preety sure i can crack 1200 with them.......just don't need that much power atm....

Yes please show your timings.

Your plats will probably have more headroom at slacker timings....It will also take some stress off the IMC, in the end you will likely see faster performance. They will most likely go higher than mine etc over 1200 with the 1102 bios....you will have to add a tad of volts though....i've run up to 2.26 and had no issues.

Leave drivestrengths on auto for now, I haven't fine tuned them for max performance yet, as I've been busy and its time consuming to get it right. Looks like I forgot to set DCT mode, Run it unganged......

I'm running in the black slots. 2 x2g OCZ golds, might give my 2x2g OCZ plats a spin tommorow......

http://members.cox.net/bostonreefer1/memory1.jpg

http://members.cox.net/bostonreefer1/memory2.jpg

http://members.cox.net/bostonreefer1/memory3.jpg

here's a little performance comparison I did.

http://members.cox.net/bostonreefer1/comparison1.JPG

http://members.cox.net/bostonreefer1/comparison2.JPG

http://members.cox.net/bostonreefer1/comparison3.JPG

Does anyone know why my board is having problems reporting the FSB correctly? Like I will have it set to 200 in the bios, but cpuz reports it as 200.7, or even sometimes it went down to 193MHz when set to 200, with a 16.5 cpu multi, NB of 2400, and HT link of 2.0. And if move the FSB up to even 201 it still reports as 201.7 I'm running vista x64 also if that matters.