OCZ DDR Booster on an Asus A8V -mini review

First let me caveat this test bu saying that the current asus A8V 939 board that I am using has been somewhat ddr voltage FUBAR'ed since I got it. Any setting other than 2.6 or auto in bios for ddr voltage either won't post or will freeze screen quickly in windows. I have tried 2 FX53's and 2 sets of ram, 3700EB's and Corsair XL's. Same result. So since I know that at least some of the A8V's out there can run same ram at least 2.8v, I have to say that there is a voltage problem with this board. That said, the Booster does work in the A8V, with a couple of important buts.

First off Ram MUST go in slots 2 and 4. his still provides dual channel and runs fine. Then the booster can either go in slot 3 which will more or less touch the back of the ram in slot 2 (keep in mind the heat sinks on the booster mofsets get way hot, so that may not be the best place to have heat up against. The other place and where I choose to place the booster is obviously slot 1. No at least on the A8V, there is a tall cap nearby and this results in a slight mod of the lower heatsink. Since they are only "taped on", it is no biggie, just replaced the stock sink with 2 smaller ones and moved it slightly up so that a bit of the lower right mofset is showing bare. You will most likely need a fan blowing on the booster which will help the ram anyway. Even at low voltage you can only touch the sinks for a few seconds.

So all that done, the next thing is at first boot, the booster voltage comes to rest fairly slowly, so you have to wait till it settles to make any changes,. Then turn the knob very slowly just a bit at the time like any other vmod and wait a couple seconds for a reaction. It may need to be calibrated to match the voltage set in bios, or actual reading from meter, bu a slight turn of the tiny screw under the LED readout area. It reads only to the nearest tenth of a volt.

So it does work and with a little creative replacement of the heatsinks, it probably can be fit on most boards. It probably needs anywhere form 3/8" to 1/2" clearance beyond the dimm slot for clearance, depending on the height of your ram. It will go in boards with heatspreaders removed easier than ones with however. It is laid out in the Intel and not AMD dimm slot style, but works fine with AMD as long as you can fit it.

Lastly, it is probably my wacky board, but at bios set to auto and the booster set to just below 2.7v, I get a pin one read on the open dimm slot of 2.85 or so. Anyway, I have to test this on a board that isn't voltage limited. Even at only 2.6v I can still run this A8V at 252 sync ddr400 with the 3700EB sticks, which speaks well for how the EB clock at low voltage. I know you guys want to hear what it does at 3.3v+, but at that point I'm guessing it will behave just like any other vddr mod. The point is it works and like any other mod, you can kill hardware and the only thing that is warrantied is the booster itself, so be careful with this thing. more later..

In slot one.

nice!

whats the max you tried then?

I can set it up around 3 v in a dos prompt, but the board is just F'ed. It has nothing at all to do with the Booster. The MB won't hold anything in bios over 2.6v for some reason. The mem can take volts in another board, so it has to be the a8v. I guess I'll try another one.

please try it on the abit av8 and on the gigabyte ga-k8nsnxp-939:)

it's kinda odd to me, that you would try so much different hardware, but keep the same motherboard.

especially when it comes to getting another FX 53 ;)
haha...

anyways, get a new board, and lets see what this thing can really do :D

nice!

how hot is 'way' hot for those heatsinks on booster ? measured the heatsinks yet ?

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Originally posted by Kunaak


anyways, get a new board, and lets see what this thing can really do :D

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I'm in the same boat, but there's not a hole lot of boards to choice from, It's bad and worse (gigabyte, Abit) as far as boards go that are avialible to us. I'm riding this A8V out until I see some thing released from Chaintech, DFI or shuttle.

Seeing that booster work in the gigabyte might be interesting thow.

Personally, I'd just mod the giga. A piece of 18 gauge runs pretty cheap and it works pretty well with eb or bh-5

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Originally posted by FX Freak
please try it on the abit av8 and on the gigabyte ga-k8nsnxp-939:)

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I sent those boards back for now.

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Originally posted by Kunaak
it's kinda odd to me, that you would try so much different hardware, but keep the same motherboard.

especially when it comes to getting another FX 53 ;)
haha...

anyways, get a new board, and lets see what this thing can really do :D

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I've had 3 A8V's, one AV8, and one Gigabyte 939. All had one issue or another. I do testing for a systems builder so I can move stuff around. I'll get a new board Tues., but quite frankley, all of the new "fixed" rev's won't be out for a week or two at best.

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Originally posted by eva2000
how hot is 'way' hot for those heatsinks on booster ? measured the heatsinks yet ?

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about as hot as an overvolted mofset on a MB.

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Originally posted by cowpuppy
I'm in the same boat, but there's not a hole lot of boards to choice from, It's bad and worse (gigabyte, Abit) as far as boards go that are avialible to us. I'm riding this A8V out until I see some thing released from Chaintech, DFI or shuttle.

Seeing that booster work in the gigabyte might be interesting thow.

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Again, you guys have to remember that with a few notable exceptions, the first issue Via chipset was pretty much defective. It will work, but has limitatons and stability problems. The revised Via boards should be hitting soon and they say fix these issues. As far as Nforce 3-250-939, I had the gig and it wasn't stable. I have seen posts on the MSI one with similar problems, I don't know what if any issues are there with the NF3, but I'm thinking there may be some there too.

The thing is that the booster does work and do what is supposed to do, but the results will be the same as any vdim mod, just easier to install and control.

I wouldn't call the giga unstable. In fact just the opposite. Its more like a beautiful woman. Once you figure out which buttons to push, she'll run beautifully for ya all night long. The only question I have about it is its overclockablitly and that will have to wait for someone to put a cascade on it.

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Originally posted by pkrew
I wouldn't call the giga unstable. In fact just the opposite. Its more like a beautiful woman. Once you figure out which buttons to push, she'll run beautifully for ya all night long. The only question I have about it is its overclockablitly and that will have to wait for someone to put a cascade on it.

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lol.....heheehhehehehehehe!

so true :D

I switched to a new A8V board and set it up with the Booster again. I noticed that my 3v rail had been set above 3.5 and my 12v was almost 13, so I turned the 3.3 to 3.4x and the 12 to 12.5 and retried raising the voltage and although now I can run at 2.8 whereas the other board was stuck at 2.6 vddr, higher voltage causes instability or freeze. Is it possible that both my 2x512 EB3700 and my Corsair XL's both can't take more than 2.8-2.9v?

Either that or it is the rare exception that a vddr mod on the A8V will work right above 2.8v. I have heard several posts stating just that on the A8V, the AV8 and even the MSI NF3 board. Maybe, but I need some more statistics on ANYONE run the A8V over 2.8v without freezes and would consider the system stable?

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Originally posted by pkrew
I wouldn't call the giga unstable. In fact just the opposite. Its more like a beautiful woman. Once you figure out which buttons to push, she'll run beautifully for ya all night long. The only question I have about it is its overclockablitly and that will have to wait for someone to put a cascade on it.

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mmmhhhh i like that comparison :D

I almost switched from my A8V to the Gigabyte when I was testing only on stock air, but when I put it under the Cascade, It has proven so far to be a good OC'er.

I really would like to have seen what the Gigabyte would do in my system.

ATM, I'm STILL tryin' to find where to buy this OCZBooster to improve on what I've Got for Now!:D

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Originally posted by xgman
I switched to a new A8V board and set it up with the Booster again. I noticed that my 3v rail had been set above 3.5 and my 12v was almost 13, so I turned the 3.3 to 3.4x and the 12 to 12.5 and retried raising the voltage and although now I can run at 2.8 whereas the other board was stuck at 2.6 vddr, higher voltage causes instability or freeze. Is it possible that both my 2x512 EB3700 and my Corsair XL's both can't take more than 2.8-2.9v?

Either that or it is the rare exception that a vddr mod on the A8V will work right above 2.8v. I have heard several posts stating just that on the A8V, the AV8 and even the MSI NF3 board. Maybe, but I need some more statistics on ANYONE run the A8V over 2.8v without freezes and would consider the system stable?

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Me again, xgman.......
You have to do the cap-lift mod for the A8V Vddr mod to work. Mines solid as a rock to 3.15v. Unfortunately I wish it'd do 3.5 or so..... what we really need is a Vddr mod like the GB mod, where you connect the 3.3v rail direct to the DIMM power..........

C

charlie - if you could figure out which chip controls overvoltage protection it'd be quite simple to do.

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Originally posted by charlie
Me again, xgman.......
You have to do the cap-lift mod for the A8V Vddr mod to work.

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So does this mean that the booster is essentially useless on a non-modded A8V?

thought you sold your board charlie?

check for sale section.. i'm too lazy to look right now ;)

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Originally posted by stevenmh
So does this mean that the booster is essentially useless on a non-modded A8V?

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I don't think it' s a over volt protection that is causing the lock ups on the A8V. It's more like something is on the same voltage line as the mem and after a certain point it's taken out of speck and then we get our window freezes. The S.bridge is on fire on my board, I put a sink on it but it didn't help.

Did the 3.3V direct to DIMM which gave me around 3.44V but no post :rolleyes:
System runs but no screeny...

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Originally posted by cowpuppy
I don't think it' s a over volt protection that is causing the lock ups on the A8V. It's more like something is on the same voltage line as the mem and after a certain point it's taken out of speck and then we get our window freezes. The S.bridge is on fire on my board, I put a sink on it but it didn't help.

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I guess what I'm trying to say is that it sounds like I should scrub my plans to get the booster. I'm not having any trouble at 2.8v, and was hoping to push 3.0v with the device, but from what I'm reading here 2.8v is probably all the board will do anyway. I gave up on hardware voltage mods after I toasted my last board, so I'll just have to be content with what I'm getting now. I can't whine too much about 250 x 10.5, 10-2-3-3.

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Originally posted by charlie
Me again, xgman.......
You have to do the cap-lift mod for the A8V Vddr mod to work. Mines solid as a rock to 3.15v. Unfortunately I wish it'd do 3.5 or so..... what we really need is a Vddr mod like the GB mod, where you connect the 3.3v rail direct to the DIMM power..........

C

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I am really starting to think that the A8V has some ddr over voltage protection after 3v. Maybe after 2.9 or so. I put my EB's back in slots 1 & 3 and took the booster off and now finally can run at 2.857 vddr (meter with a 3.48v 3.3 line) at 3-2-2-7-1T 252/252. I noticed that when the screen froze when the booster was set to 2.9, the booster would freeze at 3.0, so maybe there is some protection. In any case something doesn't like high voltage, but I can be happy with these numbers now. I'll still go for board rev. 2.0 though when it comes out.

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Originally posted by stevenmh
So does this mean that the booster is essentially useless on a non-modded A8V?

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I think before we can say that a couple others might have to try. I've tried it on 2 so far.

Pushing the 3.3v line to 3.48v results in 2.8v in bios = 2.857 in meter read, so mayube the thrick here is to just boost the 3.3 line as far as you think is safe and use some ddr like the EB that runs well at 2.8-2.9v.

In any case, this Booster is so easy to use, I can see it coming in very handy down the line as long as the boards don't have these sort of issues.


COWPUPPY: My SB sink is cool to the touch , but I have all onboard sound and sata's turned off in bios. But mofsets NEED sinks. They are fire breathing suckers!

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Originally posted by xgman
mayube the thrick here is to just boost the 3.3 line as far as you think is safe

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I realize there's no simple answer here, but what would you consider safe? I think I'm around 3.45 right now on my 3.3 line, according to Asus Probe. Is 3.6 too far? I would be happy to keep my 250 FSB and just gain the ability to run 10-2-2-3.

Also, what do you guys recommend for reading voltages? The 5 and 12 rails on Asus Probe aren't even close to what I get on my Digital Doc...the 12v rail is almost a half volt lower than the Digital Doc, while the 5v rail reads higher.

What are you using to measure DDR voltage? The OCZ Booster? Is there somewhere I can stick a multimeter? Any software monitors that will read it?

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Originally posted by stevenmh
I realize there's no simple answer here, but what would you consider safe? I think I'm around 3.45 right now on my 3.3 line, according to Asus Probe. Is 3.6 too far? I would be happy to keep my 250 FSB and just gain the ability to run 10-2-2-3.

Also, what do you guys recommend for reading voltages? The 5 and 12 rails on Asus Probe aren't even close to what I get on my Digital Doc...the 12v rail is almost a half volt lower than the Digital Doc, while the 5v rail reads higher.

What are you using to measure DDR voltage? The OCZ Booster? Is there somewhere I can stick a multimeter? Any software monitors that will read it?

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You can measure DDR voltage Pin one of any ddr slot (1st pin on the left) to ground on a multi meter.

I personally don't feel confortable setting 3.3 higher than 3.5v 24/7.

2.86v seems more or less ok to get 3-2-2-7-1T on the EB's.

What do you use to determine your 3.3 rail? With AP being so far off on 5 and 12, I can't really trust it on 3.3. I guess I haven't compared the BIOS monitor to Digital Doc, so I can try that and see if it's any better.

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Originally posted by stevenmh
What do you use to determine your 3.3 rail? With AP being so far off on 5 and 12, I can't really trust it on 3.3. I guess I haven't compared the BIOS monitor to Digital Doc, so I can try that and see if it's any better.

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Measure your Vddr straight off of the mosfet. Also you can get a measurement from the molex.
Now about this issue, let me repeat AGAIN, if you guys lit the resistor and put in a VR, you will get 3.13v +/-...........
Not the method of soldering to the pins, but remove the resistor and solder to the pads!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 3.13V!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Originally posted by stevenmh
What do you use to determine your 3.3 rail?

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Bios, sandra, Asus Probe, all say the same. I have external pots for all 3 rails so I can watch them in real time and know from previous boards about where the real voltages are. My bios readings seem correct.

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Originally posted by xgman
Bios, sandra, Asus Probe, all say the same. I have external pots for all 3 rails so I can watch them in real time and know from previous boards about where the real voltages are. My bios readings seem correct.

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Hmm. Maybe my digital doc sucks. I'll have to compare Sandra, BIOS, and Asus Probe and see how it looks.

Use a digital multimeter....

I gave the booster a try for myself last night, and it made my system unstable just having it installed, even with the voltage pot turned all the way down. I emailed OCZ, and they confirmed that it's not compatible with the A8V.

However, I emailed OCZ last night, and today they responded to say they will work with ExcaliburPC to get me a refund. Can't ask for better customer service than that.