Asus P5E3 Premium Wi-fi-AP

[voodo]

Leave VTT,GTL & PLL on auto. Just raise Vcore and NB voltage to get your highest stable clock. After that if u must go higher than u can play with the other things. For 1.24 fsb try 0/2 ,670 & 1/3 .680. But this should not be necessary until u get your best clocks on auto.

[voodo]

Make sure you are using bios 402 or 503 beta. They are the only ones that work

[nunor]

I tried bios 402 and then i downgraded to 204 because i couldn't run fsbstrap 266. I don't think the timmings are the prob because if i set 450 fsb, 6x multi and ram frequency to 1350 i get the same errors. btw how works PL? I don't understand what is that.

PS: I was getting some BOSD's playing @ 3.2 probably because i tried to reduce ram timmings. 7-6-6-19 ran 12hours of prime.

[soapman72]

Leave VTT,GTL & PLL on auto. Just raise Vcore and NB voltage to get your highest stable clock. After that if u must go higher than u can play with the other things. For 1.24 fsb try 0/2 ,670 & 1/3 .680. But this should not be necessary until u get your best clocks on auto.

Here is what I am wondering: Do most E8400 processors hit 450mhz FSB without having to raise FSBT and PLL from their default values? I know every one will be slightly different, but I do not have alot of experiance with newer Intel CPU's, s alot of this stuf is new to me. I rely quite a bit on reading forums like this, but the problem is that there is alot of conflicting advice when it comes to clocking these cpu's.

For what it is worth, when I read your post, I dropped the FSBT to 1.1 and PLL to 1.5 which are supposed to be the default values for 45nm cpu's. It has been running prime for 45 minutes now. No errors yet.

Last night, it ran with the settings I had (1.3 FSBT and 1.62 PLL) for over 5 hours. I threw a 3D Mark run on top of it at the end, and had no problems. I'll see if this runs for a while.

[Infa]

Can someone please put out a link to 503 bios, cant find it anywhere, tried 2 of asus ftp servers..

would really appreciate it!

regards.

[webwilli]

http://rapidshare.com/files/122711520/0503.zip

[Razmatazz]

Leave VTT,GTL & PLL on auto. Just raise Vcore and NB voltage to get your highest stable clock. After that if u must go higher than u can play with the other things. For 1.24 fsb try 0/2 ,670 & 1/3 .680. But this should not be necessary until u get your best clocks on auto.

I've been trying to go 450 fsb for awhile now with no luck. I just can't seem to get it stable. I'm going to go with your advice and move from the bottom up. Default fsb 400 and go up from there.

[Tony]

Some random observations - Edits by Tony in bold

RAM

• In general, a delay skew was needed, with more delay needed on channel A than channel B. Between 400 and 420 FSB best stability comes from Normal skew on both A and B channels. 420-440 needs a 25ps delay on channel A. 440-470 needed a 50ps delay on channel A and a 25ps delay on channel B, my board won't successfully post at higher than 470 so I can't comment above. I often need 300ps delay for micron and advanced for samsung based dimms.
• Memtest is useless for testing skew. As long as the RAM will boot, Memtest will run successfully. Best test appears to be a SuperPI run, the longer the better. I don't agree, run test 6 or 7 is catches errors better than test 5 and skew has a profound effect
• Random reboots at idle is a symptom of bad skew.
• Performance level and clock twist is limited by both FSB and RAM. My RAM (the approved 2*1GB Corsair XMP1600 CAS-7) is happy to do PL-6 at up to 420FSB, PL-7 at up to 440 and PL-8 at up to 470. Clock twist is less easy to narrow down, I seem to be able to run various settings at various FSB and RAM settings. Not much help I realise. tRD is CAS/FSB strap dependant and how good the NB is, follow the rules for tRD here and play with phase pull in.
• The P5E3 Prem in general seems happy to run 1T timings at all FSB settings 1N is not 1T, plus its ONLY really good with single rank dimms due to load, I found 2GB dimms need 2N to clock easier but can claw back performance with higher memory clock.

Board

• vTT (called FSB Term) and vPLL are needed to push high FSB on a quad, with vTT having a greater effect on stability. Between 400 and 420FSB a vTT of 1.2 and a vPLL of 1.6 were needed. Between 420 and 440FSB a vTT of 1.26 and a vPLL of 1.66 were needed. Up to 470 FSB a vTT of 1.3 and a vPLL of 1.7 were needed. I did not feel comfortable running higher voltages than this on a 45nm chip, especially as Intel lists the max safe vTT as 1.35V and many users report killing 45nm chips with vPLL settings of 1.8V. SOUND advice, but PLL at 1.7 will degarde the CPU over a few months heavy testing
• Setting strap to "Auto" is useless, set it manually. The board does not seem to realise that at a higher FSB setting a higher strap is needed, and instead changes strap according to the RAM speed setting you've selected. 333 strap was stable up to about 440FSB, 400 was needed above 440. Be aware that RAM dividers are linked to strap settings so your RAM OCing may suffer somewhat.Ratio's are linked to strap as is the FSB and tRD, tune the NB GTL's to open the NB's ability to scale FSB
• Board is quite heat sensitive. Aftermarket cooling or directed airflow is recommended - the X48 chipset has the highest rated TDP of all Intel chipsets at ~35W. Keep it below 48C for high clocks
• NB voltage appeared to have little affect on results after 1.4V was reached running 2*1GB. This may change at 4*1GB or at FSB speeds above 470.more memory load lowers the ability to add voltage, with 8GB you can not use 1.4V, 1.37 was my max here, 4GB 1.4V was usable but 1.42 was not, 2GB load is best for high memory and high FSB testing as it allows NB voltage to help.

Hope that helps

Added some points I have found with this board, for me this is the benchmark board for all others to follow but you have to know the limits abd be aware different memory loads and the use of quad core CPU's makes a huge difference.

[soapman72]

I've been trying to go 450 fsb for awhile now with no luck. I just can't seem to get it stable. I'm going to go with your advice and move from the bottom up. Default fsb 400 and go up from there.

I suspect it is the Quadcore that is giving you the issue. 450mhz can be quite a challenge for some qudcores, or so it would seem. I have a dual core, and it seems as though it is going to cooperate with my efforts to minimize voltages. It has been running for over 3 hours now with the FSBT and PLL set back to their minimum values.

[Booj]

Added some points I have found with this board, for me this is the benchmark board for all others to follow but you have to know the limits abd be aware different memory loads and the use of quad core CPU's makes a huge difference.

Thanks for those tips Tony

[voodo]

I don't know why you people want to get prime stable for hours . It not necessary. No application or game will ever stress your commuter as much as prime. Run this test. Get a meter called Kill A Watt. Its reads how many watts the computer is using. Plug your power supply into it. Run prime. Take a note of how many watts the system is pulling in. Then run your favorite game or software. For example. When i run prime i am pulling in 290 watts. When i run my favorite software i am using 235 watts. Intel saids if you using more than 70% of your CPU power then they recommend stepping up to the next faster processor. So these stress test degrade your system when its not necessary. The different between 425 fsb and 450 fsb is 3 frames per second. I ask you is all this worth it?

[nick2006]

please help me!!! i have this problem.
i have this system:
mobo:Asus P5E3 Premium with X48 chipset,
CPU Intel QX9650(batch L744B156)
and memory: Corsair Dominator DDR3 at 1800Mhz.
i don't want to make something extreme with this.
i only want to put the memory to play at 1800mhz. so in bios i put
manual,
multiplier to 7.0,
FSB Strap to Northbridge 400,
FSB at 450,
PCI-E:100,
the memory 1800,
timings : 7,7,7,20,
command rate: 2N
and memory voltage 2.0V
all the memory settings are the stock settings.
all the other settings i leave them to auto.
also the DRAM Static..and DRAM Dynamic...i put them to disabled and load line calibration i checked to both normal and performance and CPU Spread Spectrum and PCIE Spread Spectrum also disabled.
so i have the CPU at 3.15GH and memory at 1800Mhz.
Now the problem is that the system is not stable.
if i run CPU Stability Test after 1-2 minutes says problem in TPrime module. also in Prime95 multicore after a while fails in 2 cores.
please can you advice me what settings may i put to make my system stable?
also i noticed in Real Temp that from cpu the core 1 sensor is stuck at 40c always.only if i overclock to 4Gh the sensor starts to work. in my system i have a watercooling solution from Thermaltake. but the cpu temp is idle at
45c. is it right this temp for this cpu? also if i underclock,the temp stays at
45c.
i think something is wrong here.i have bad luck with my cpu? should i RMA it?

running 0503 bios(also tested 0401,0402)

Try my settings posted HERE... http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...&postcount=293

For better stability increase NB voltage to 1.55. Made so, had no errors in prime and CPU Stability Test 6.0

[voodo]

Oh by the way people this board is the best money can buy. So why so many problems? Easy answer. BIOS. Do you people know what a bios is ? A bios is a set of instructions that tells the hardware what to do. Think about the thousands of hardware combinations that is possible. This is a new board. Like a new operating system. Its going to take time. I am using XP. Why did you upgrade to Visa? What does visa do that Xp cant do.? Look at the problems they are having with Visa. (I know the answer to that.) No difference with a new motherboard. So relax and have fun knowing you have the best out there. And when they get the bios figured out it will be unstoppable. By then Nehalem will be out. And a new set of problems. Such is life.

[SoulsCollective]

Added some points I have found with this board, for me this is the benchmark board for all others to follow but you have to know the limits abd be aware different memory loads and the use of quad core CPU's makes a huge difference.

Excellent, we can pick your brains then

Firstly, I'm running the Corsair recommended RAM - not that I knew it was recommended before I bought it, so that worked out rather well. I believe it's Micron based, but I'm not 100% sure. I'm finding as I said that delay skew over what I've listed means the board doesn't boot, but I tested this by starting at normal and working out. Is there a sort of FSB-black-hole type effect here such that some settings will not post but other, higher settings will?

Interesting that our Memtest experiences differ so much. As I said, if the skew is such that the RAM will post Memtest can do three or four consecutive passes of the entire test schedule without any errors, and then SuperPI will crash within seconds on these same settings. Possibly I'm not running the right skew here? As I said, maybe there's a black-hole type effect where the board will not boot those skew settings while the RAM needs higher - but it still doesn't explain why Memtest is stable yet SuperPI is not.

I'm afraid you've lost me in terminology here This is my first Intel board, and my first on DDR3. Are you saying that tRD is the same as PL (performance level)? What rules for tRD? I've seen the phase pull-in settings, but had no idea what they were for, so I just left them alone.

xN =! xT? I assumed they were the same thing, seeing as they were under RAM settings and the options were either one or two. If it's not the T setting, what is it?

Thanks for the PLL advice

NB GTL? Do you mean the setting that has only 1.63 or 1.67?

[soapman72]

Just finished a 4 hr 30 minute Prime95 run. No errors with PLL and FSBT (VTT) set to their minimum values. Who Knew? I would have thought that I would need a small bump to one or both to run this speed. Anyway, the way I look at adding voltage, it is that Less is More. I don't add it if I don't need it.

SoulsCollective,

Yes, our boards only have 2 settings for NB GTL. I was asking earlier, if playing with the GTL might possibly help stabilize my board for 3D games while using less NB voltage. Maybe I'll try it sometime, but for today, I feel bad about running 15 to 20 hours of prime while testing different settings, so I'll put that test off for a while. All this testing is tough on our equipment.

[Razmatazz]

Interesting that our Memtest experiences differ so much. As I said, if the skew is such that the RAM will post Memtest can do three or four consecutive passes of the entire test schedule without any errors, and then SuperPI will crash within seconds on these same settings. Possibly I'm not running the right skew here? As I said, maybe there's a black-hole type effect where the board will not boot those skew settings while the RAM needs higher - but it still doesn't explain why Memtest is stable yet SuperPI is not.

I am working on two sets of goals.
First, with 2GB ram, I'm trying to up the fsb in order to run ram at higher frequency.
Second, with 4GB I'm still trying to get system stable at fsb 400, DRAM frequency 1600.

I am prime95 stable for over 6 hours with 4GB ram. I will get random crashes at low load states such as web browser. I agree that memtest is not helpful for what we are trying to do with adjusting clock skew. I do not get any memtest errors. I downloaded and ran superpi for the first time today. Superpi does indeed crash indicating that the system is unstable. I will post stable skew settings if I am able to find them. If others find them please do the same.

[SoulsCollective]

Going on Tony's advice above and assuming my RAM is Micron, I'm now running a CLK skew (all other skew on auto) of 300ps delay on the A channels and 275ps delay on the B channels. Everything else is at stock volts, including vCore, vTT, NB voltage and vPLL, at 400FSB / 8x. System is now SuperPI stable and I haven't had any random low-load reboots yet.

CHEERS TONY! This was getting very frustrating, but it appears that you were right! My board seems to have a skew black hole between about 75 and 125 delay

[soapman72]

I am working on two sets of goals.
First, with 2GB ram, I'm trying to up the fsb in order to run ram at higher frequency.
Second, with 4GB I'm still trying to get system stable at fsb 400, DRAM frequency 1600.

I am prime95 stable for over 6 hours with 4GB ram. I will get random crashes at low load states such as web browser. I agree that memtest is not helpful for what we are trying to do with adjusting clock skew. I do not get any memtest errors. I downloaded and ran superpi for the first time today. Superpi does indeed crash indicating that the system is unstable. I will post stable skew settings if I am able to find them. If others find them please do the same.

I can help with your 4gb goal. My suggestion: Try some different RAM. I am not bashing OCZ, but the platinum kits do not seem to work well in these boards. I had 3 kits, and none of them would work in my board-excuse me-make that boards. I had so many difficulties, that I thought I must have gotten a bad mobo. I ended up RMAing a board for nothing.

I now have OCZ 4gb 1800mhz Reapers. If I had the NB voltage set correctly, they would have worked immediately. No messing with clock skews, GTL's etc. They JUST WORK. Like good memory should. I don't know what the issue is with the 1600mhz kit, but mine were the 1600mhz 4gb EB series with rated timings at 7-6-6-24. Not only would those timings not work, but neither would 7-7-7-24. The weird thing is, the latest kit that I had did work at first, at 7-7-7-20 @ 1.88v, but eventually (a couple of weeks) my computer started freezing and getting BSOD's. A quick check confirmed Memtest errors on test 4 and sometimes test 6.

Oh well, the new memory is great so far. The last 2 months fighting with the old memory may be enough to keep me from trying to overclock these, though. LOL.

[Razmatazz]

I can help with your 4gb goal. My suggestion: Try some different RAM. I am not bashing OCZ, but the platinum kits do not seem to work well in these boards. I had 3 kits, and none of them would work in my board-excuse me-make that boards. I had so many difficulties, that I thought I must have gotten a bad mobo. I ended up RMAing a board for nothing.

I now have OCZ 4gb 1800mhz Reapers. If I had the NB voltage set correctly, they would have worked immediately. No messing with clock skews, GTL's etc. They JUST WORK. Like good memory should. I don't know what the issue is with the 1600mhz kit, but mine were the 1600mhz 4gb EB series with rated timings at 7-6-6-24. Not only would those timings not work, but neither would 7-7-7-24. The weird thing is, the latest kit that I had did work at first, at 7-7-7-20 @ 1.88v, but eventually (a couple of weeks) my computer started freezing and getting BSOD's. A quick check confirmed Memtest errors on test 4 and sometimes test 6.

Oh well, the new memory is great so far. The last 2 months fighting with the old memory may be enough to keep me from trying to overclock these, though. LOL.

Thank you for noting your expierence. I have 2 of the 2GB platinum ddr3-1800 kits. Timings rated at 8-8-8-24. I'm not quite ready to give up yet but will keep it in mind. I'm glad you are having better luck with the Reapers. A number of people are having good luck also with Cellshock.

[nick2006]

Thank you for noting your expierence. I have 2 of the 2GB platinum ddr3-1800 kits. Timings rated at 8-8-8-24. I'm not quite ready to give up yet but will keep it in mind. I'm glad you are having better luck with the Reapers. A number of people are having good luck also with Cellshock.

I'm using 4x1GB cellshock 1800Mhz (8-7-6-21) and managed so far (with a lot of try-and-error effort) to push them stable at 7-7-7-20-1T !!!!

FIY, never had any stability issues with these quality modules (only at first, while trying the pairs on different memory sockets, until I got no errors at stock speed with memtest86). The "try-and-error effort" thing is that while overclocking to meet the ram's clocks, I also needed to make them run faster than stock 8-7-6-21 (and, as it seems, I finally did it !!! ).

I've heard that corsair are doing fine job too...

[Tony]

1N is 1.5Clocks where 1T is 1 Clock, so you see its better than 2N which is 2 Clock but it never will be 1T.

Skew holes, nope no such thing, you just were not running where it needed to be, micron likes delay and samsung seems to like advanced.

NB GTL is limited on the Premium but 0.61 works best for me at 400FSB or higher and with high load. 8GB I start with 1.3V NB and fine tune from there, it usually will not allow much more.

Command skew will help you boys looking for high 1N performance,for 2N or high memory load I would leave it to AUTO.

0503bios is a wonderful piece of kit, 0401 comes close but 0503 is much more tweakable for me and I have hit my most stable high clocks with it to date, I had higher with 0401 but not as stable at 0503.

Premium is the benchmark board for all others at this time, just the NB GTL is a pain as only 2 options but I can live with that. Presently testing DFI T3R and BlackOps to see how they compare

[Tony]

you guys looking to buy OCZ ram for this board let me give you a little advice.

If you want just 2GB, get the 1333 EB ReaperX, if you want 4GB get the 4GB kit of the same ram. If you want thinner HS get the 1333 6-6-6- Reaper as its very close to the same BIN.

Now why 1333 over say ther 1800? well the answer is in the binning, because they come from high yield Micron we then rebin for tight timings, this gives you the best of both worlds I was testing 1300 5-5-5-18 a few days ago 1N and I will tell you it was as fast as sammy running 9-9-9 at 2000 LOL

Im pushing a Reaper version of the 1333 6-5-5- EB product out soon to offer these wonderful modules with a cheaper slimmer heatspreader option, for me at this time they are the best universal modules we offer.

1333 EB http://www.ocztechnology.com/product...nced_bandwidth

1333 reapers: http://www.ocztechnology.com/product...666_reaper_hpc

stay tuned for the 1333 Reaper EB coming soon

[SoulsCollective]

1N is 1.5Clocks where 1T is 1 Clock, so you see its better than 2N which is 2 Clock but it never will be 1T.

Ah, gotcha. Thanks for the clarification.

Skew holes, nope no such thing, you just were not running where it needed to be, micron likes delay and samsung seems to like advanced.

It's certainly seeming like that to me. At 400FSB, no CLK skew is SuperPI stable but system randomly reboots. Instability increases as you delay CLK skew up to 75ps delay, at which setting it will not boot. System will boot again at 150ps delay, but is very unstable and won't boot Windows, and stability increases again up to 275ps delay, at which point system is rock stable.

NB GTL is limited on the Premium but 0.61 works best for me at 400FSB or higher and with high load.

Cheers, will give that a go.

Command skew will help you boys looking for high 1N performance,for 2N or high memory load I would leave it to AUTO.

Cheers - what worked best for you - delay or advance?

0503bios is a wonderful piece of kit, 0401 comes close but 0503 is much more tweakable for me and I have hit my most stable high clocks with it to date, I had higher with 0401 but not as stable at 0503.

Flashed straight from shipped BIOS to 0402, finding that board will boot higher FSB on quad with 0503 so agreed there.

[djstx2003]

Thank you nick2006 for your help. i did what you told me and i saw a little better stability. with Prime95 for 2 hours no errors at all. but in CPU Stability Test in 3 minutes i had errors. here a screenshot:

Also nick2006 i see in Real Temp the core 1 always stuck at 40c and my temp is 45c at idle at 3150Ghz. is it right the temp for me? i have a watercooling solution and with my old QX6700 the temp was 28c at idle.
whats your temps at idle and full load? also when i test the sensors i see the core 1 at 0(stuck). do i have to worry about this? or i should RMA the cpu?
here a screenshot from Real Temp:


Thank you nick2006 Be well!!!

Spiros!!!

[Tony]

Not tested command skew that much yet, been pushing 4 and 8GB hard 2N so not really needed to tweak it much as of yet