The OFFICIAL Asus AV8 tips, tricks and guide thread

I just got a v2.0 A8V and a 044 3000+ winnie. New machine i built to replace my barton 2500 @ 218x10. I went with a VIA chipset instead of a Nforce to give VIA a chance again. I havent had a VIA board in AGES.

Whats the deal with the AGP drivers in the 4 in 1? I have installed the 4.51 drivers and find them to run pretty good. If i dont run with them , i get a tad less performance in benches.

So far im prime stable at 238x9 @1.5v my ram is running 8-3-3-2.5 @ 2.7v. Im running Sync with FSB....HT is 1000 (x5). I do have a few strange questions though.

In regards to HT@1000 vs 800, is there anything to be lost of gained from either?

*EDIT* I got the USBs working...for some STUPID reason...my Coolermaster case has the 1394 connector in BLUE....yes the same BLUE that the USB headers on my board has. I had them plugged in backwards. I guess i didnt cause any damage to the board, it seems to be working now. Even though doing it, says it will damage the mother board in the manual.


I cant remeber stepping of my chip, but it seems to me that i might be able to run higher then this. I have got into windows at 245 x 9 but get all sorts of weird BSOD shortly after.

Specs listed below are correct for new machine

HT 800 with an fsb of 250Mhz equals HT 1000 with an fsb of 200Mhz...
So on the HT-side, there is no difference in performance between the two...

When overclocking, x4 (HT800) is the setting to go for.
People with very good memory who are able to do more than 275fsb will have to swich to x3 (HT600)...

On most boards, 1100Mhz on the HT side is no problem (HT800, x4, 275Mhz fsb). Some will reach even 1200, but I couldn't keep the A8V stable at 1200...
--> 245*5 = 1225Mhz (that's what you tried) seems to be too high for your board (causing those bsod's)
--> switch back to HT 800, up the fsb to 250Mhz and feed the vCore 1.55Volt
Ah yes, the TCCD-chippies will be happy with 2.8V, 2.5-3-3-7 should work fine until 260-280Mhz, depending on the quality...

Last thing, don't forget to set the AGP/PCI fequency fixed to 66.66/33.33...

OneyedK : How did you manage to get to 1200 HT ? Because I have noticed that if I leave HT 5x (1000) and I pass a certain fsb (~210-220 MHz I think) it will auto-drop to 4x (it will not show in the BIOS, but if you check CBID or any other utility that shows you the HT freq. you'll notice that you are running at 4x HT).

HighLife : Have you tried a little more vcore ? The A8V undervolts by ~0.05V and the vcore is not that stable as well. So your 1.5v will in fact give you some 1.40v-1.45v, depending on the quality of your PSU. As a general advice you should lower your HT to always keep it under 1000 MHz (but somehow my board seems to lower it automatically from 5x to 4x ... not sure if any board does that).

HT speed was set to 800 in bios...
so actually that's x4
so with 300Mhz fsb you get an actual 1200Mhz HT
--> wich I could not get stable :(
--> 1100Mhz or 275Mhz fsb was no problem at all...
the autodrop from x5 --> x4 works, but it stays there afterwards, so if you get to high in fsb x 4, the thing simply crashes or gets unstable...

I set it to 1000 and bench/prime.....ran fine at 240x9 1.55v in bios (speedfan and asus show 1.55-1.6). 7 3 3 2.5 timings.

I turned it down to 800 and rebooted, set to 245 and it wasnt stable =(

Im using pretty good ram...TCCD seems to have high rating for overclocking. Im using PQI PC3200 Turbo 2x512.

I think im limited to my chip....oh well.....369mhz overlock isnt bad for a chip that cost me 100$ used. =)

Still running 1:1, are you???
A8V maxes out at that speed... (around 240Mhz)

You will get better results if you run is asynchronous with your ram at 2-2-2-5...

I just installed my A8V back in,till I get my DFI NF4 sli board.
I got the A8V upto 280 x 10, 1:1 on my ram. :cool:

:eek: No :banana::banana::banana::banana:! That's awesome! Guess you achieved that with bios 1008???
--> memory was not the problem (did 275 2.5-3-37 on P4C800 E deluxe)
Was actually OCZ PC3200 plat.rev.2 tccd
--> cpu did 280 async
My conclusion was that it only could be the board/bios...

But someone made me an offer I couldn't refuse and I sold the whole rig before I could test some more... Exploring lga-limits atm :banana4:

Yep, I am currently using bios 1008.
My A8V seems solid now that I did the droop & vddr mods to it.

how much have u managed to get HTT ?

346HTT
this is mine ;)

btw, this is a great mobo, i just have problems with Twinmos 2x256MB and A-Data 512MB memory.. they wont work(doesnt boot :( ) together, i think its because the A-Data is double sided and twinmos single sided.. have to change those to get 1GB ..

ps. 512MB of memory sucks!

pss. greetings from finland =) (new on this board..)

Never got over 300, it's at 275 I got the highest corespeed...
Pushing HTT left me with lower corespeed and worse performance...

I got my A8V system a month ago along with my winchester 3200+.
Im using bios ver. 1009 final.
Also i have a pair of Corsair twinX XMS4000pro 1Gb dualkit.
I cant however get them to run 1:1 (or in the bios 2:1). It just goes black. not even bios screen. And thats at 250MHz FSB.
I can however get my FSB up to 260 (more would be great but nooooo :-(..) and then set my ram to auto. Then they run at 216MHz. the system runs fine at this point.
But im disapointed that i cant run my RAM at 1:1 and with my watercooled rig i cant get the FSB over 260MHZ either...
Anyone got any ideas??

It's the bios... Flash it back to 1008 and get some nice 1:1 performance back...

Well i couldnt go 1:1 before 1009 so i dont think that will help. But i'll give it a shot.
But another thing just came up. Suddenly after i got my geforce 6800 i cant get the the FSB any higher than 250MHz :confused:
The system crashes randomly at 260MHz and some of my programs actually died and needed to be reinstalled.

has anyone tried 1010.02?

I was wondering something myself. Its not a .AMI file....so basically do i have the change the extention to read av1010.ami ?

1010.003 is already out ... I've tried 1010.002, but didn't noticed any dfferences .. the same goes for 1010.003

EDIT : ftp://ftp.asuscom.de/pub/ASUSCOM/BIO...e/1010__03.zip

thanks, do i have to rename this to .ami before i flash it?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by m@d-m@x

Well i couldnt go 1:1 before 1009 so i dont think that will help. But i'll give it a shot.
But another thing just came up. Suddenly after i got my geforce 6800 i cant get the the FSB any higher than 250MHz :confused:
The system crashes randomly at 260MHz and some of my programs actually died and needed to be reinstalled.

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I would suspect your PSU is a little too weak for the new video card. Also, did you do a fresh install of the OS?

Nope, you don't have too :D ... just write it. I usually use the Asus Update from Windows. Just select "Update BIOS from a file" and select the BIOS you want to write.

It is recommanded to leave the "Clear CMOS" checkbox on :D ... After a flash to 1010.002 from 1009 final, my 1.50vcore jumped to 1.70vcore, while in BIOS I still had the same 1.50V slected. After selecting another value (1.525v), rebooting and selecting again 1.500v, the vcore "problem" was solved.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by scorp

Nope, you don't have too :D ... just write it. I usually use the Asus Update from Windows. Just select "Update BIOS from a file" and select the BIOS you want to write.

It is recommanded to leave the "Clear CMOS" checkbox on :D ... After a flash to 1010.002 from 1009 final, my 1.50vcore jumped to 1.70vcore, while in BIOS I still had the same 1.50V slected. After selecting another value (1.525v), rebooting and selecting again 1.500v, the vcore "problem" was solved.

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kewl thanks, i never knew you could pick the file to update with the ASUS updater. I thought it always had to pull it off the web. Kewlness....i dunno if i should do this or not....i mean, 1009 working fine i guess....and you say there is no difference between them...so maybe just wait and see. Im getting a MSI Neo2 to play with tomorrow. I wanted to test out both VIA and Nforce for a fair comparison of each.

Is everyone hear using the Promise controller? Anyone using the Via controller and have a FSB above 240?

Update- I sucessfully moved to the Promise controller from the via. Also all of the walk throughs dont tell you to use the drivers mark IDE instead of the RAID drivers in the Promise folder on the disc. I downloaded the RAID driver off Asus's site and it DOES NOT include these drivers. I did notice that with Sandra File System benchmark, that i dropped 3 megs. I scored a 47mb with VIA controller and 44 with the promise, could this prove that the VIA isnt locked?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HighLife

Is everyone hear using the Promise controller? Anyone using the Via controller and have a FSB above 240?

Update- I sucessfully moved to the Promise controller from the via. Also all of the walk throughs dont tell you to use the drivers mark IDE instead of the RAID drivers in the Promise folder on the disc. I downloaded the RAID driver off Asus's site and it DOES NOT include these drivers. I did notice that with Sandra File System benchmark, that i dropped 3 megs. I scored a 47mb with VIA controller and 44 with the promise, could this prove that the VIA isnt locked?

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Well it didnt help my overclock at all. I still only able to hit 240, must be my chip. I know this ram will do 260. Oh well, will have my NEO2 here to test on friday...

and btw for those who dont know....

RAZER DIAMONDBACK IS THE BEST EVER!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HighLife

Is everyone hear using the Promise controller? Anyone using the Via controller and have a FSB above 240?

Update- I sucessfully moved to the Promise controller from the via. Also all of the walk throughs dont tell you to use the drivers mark IDE instead of the RAID drivers in the Promise folder on the disc. I downloaded the RAID driver off Asus's site and it DOES NOT include these drivers. I did notice that with Sandra File System benchmark, that i dropped 3 megs. I scored a 47mb with VIA controller and 44 with the promise, could this prove that the VIA isnt locked?

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Running 250 FSB 24/7 with SATA on VIA. And I had absolutely no problems.

Ok back from the dead boys. I sold my 3200XL 1GB Corsair kit and traded it in for PDP Patriot 3200+XBL and that did the trick. I new it had to be the memory because I went on a ton of diffrent forums and performed every trick that was advised to me. The revision on that corsair memory was 1.1. I dont know if that matters. I think that both versions are based on the TCCD chips. I wonder how come they couldnt run stable on any OCs on my baby. Im now happily pushing 2.3ghz at 2-3-3-6 1T 2.7volts, 5.25 core. HTT 800. I passed Prime95 torture test as well I now can play all meh games. This puppy is blazing fast. Im sure I could push it much further, but this is good for now. I dont see another 100-200mhz giving much of a gain in my games. I have my 6800GT OCed to ultra speeds, and I havent had any slow down in games yet. Ok end of my crappy rant. Im glad I didnt give up on this board, and give it a bad name. It is solid. Peace out.



PS
Thanks for all the help.


Hey what does the HTT effect? I ran benches on 1000HTT and 800HTT and I dont see any diffrence. What does it do as far as performance goes. On intel I notice going fron 533mhz bus to 800mhz bus was huge(least I noticed)

The HTT has a very minimal impact on performance. Basically the HT bus is used only to communicate with the PCI cards or with the AGP card, as the memory controller is placed on the CPU.

On Intel platforms however the bus is used for transfers with the memory. So an increase in FSB, will also give you more available bandwidth for memory transfers and the P4 is a very bandwidth-hungry architecture.