Crosshair IV Formula with updated RAID ROM

[felix_w]

Just comparing the sequence of the modules of the modded bios you made with the original 2002CHIV bios...they basic roms are in complete reversed order....how did you manage that ?

Can you describe the sequence of commands with MMTOOL (which version do you have) ?

[Albertini]

Just comparing the sequence of the modules of the modded bios you made with the original 2002CHIV bios...they basic roms are in complete reversed order....how did you manage that ?

Can you describe the sequence of commands with MMTOOL 3.26 (which version do you have) ?

I only replaced the 3 pci option roms (ahci,raid,jmicron) and the misc bin module. Then saved the rom, maybe mmtool changed the order?

[NEOAethyr]

New bios for the ch4.

Crosshair IV Formula BIOS 2101
1.Improve system stability.

2.Enhance compatibility with some SATA devices

The ftp is down again but here's a direct link anyways from the asus page.
http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/...-ASUS-2101.zip


Edit:
Settings are kept when updating from the 2002 rom.
So are the cmos backup banks.


A few bugs:

Booting dos, power off by psu at the cmd prompt.
1. Wait until caps discharge (boards lights turn off), then power the psu back on and the board, board just sits there at the usb init.
2. Don't wait for the board to discharge it's caps, power the psu on again and the board will auto turn it's self on even though it's not supposed to (psu issue of mine?).

Another bug, l1, l2 and l3 cache ecc not working still unfortunately.

It does come with an updated raid rom though.

As for stability, I don't know.
I can't find single testing app that will tell me that my cpu is unstable, even when I set it to a voltage where I know it's not stable...
Takes me hours of testing, and even then it's never finished.
That's what pisses me off about this board, cpu stability needs manual testing and that takes forever .


Update:
Stability...
Mem is way more stable, got it 2128mhz stable 100% .
CPU-nb might be a bit more stable, I'm fighting it right now, past 1.4v and it's pretty close to being stable at 3192mhz, still testing on that one.

[aGeoM]

^^ Do you know if FX cpus are supported?

[NEOAethyr]

It only lists cpus up to the 1090t, the 1100t is missing from it.
It's not listed among the cpu name strings, maybe it's by it's self, I kinda doubt they cut support for the 1100t.
Low level wise, the bios supports up to 8 cores.
However on the cpu features page where you can selectively disable cores, that still only supports 6 cores max.

It does not look like it supports the fx chips.

I'm hoping they integrate the 2 bios paths soon.


Anyways I could not get my cpu-nb stable at 3192mhz.
If I clock my mem up I have to take a hit on my cpu-nb speed .

If I could reach 275mhz, aka 2200mhz mem, then things would be fine, but I can't yet.
I can boot it and bench it though.
Ohwell, I spent over 5 hrs messing around on this stuff.

[CrimInalA]

Nice to see an official bios for this board .

But would love proper FX compatibility though ..

[aGeoM]

Asked Asus for it, but no luck, they don't have any information about BIOS update for a proper FX support or Vishera.
I'm tempted do flash this 2101 bios.

Edit Didn't work, had to hot-flash it.

[NEOAethyr]

Been tempted to try my hand at bios modding on this board.
But I don't have a spare chip at the moment, from what I've heard if you flash a bad bios it's not a prob because the backup will boot / boot block, and allow you to flash it again.

aGeoM
Did you have to pull the chip and hot flash or did it come up with a boot block recovery flash thing?
I'm just curious.
Because say I made a modded bios, flashed it and it didnt' work out, I'm curious to know if there's an easy way of recovering it.

I've seen the recovery flash thing a few times when my board went nuts with certain mem timings back in the day.
I usually power off immediately and clear the cmos which does the trick instead.
A cmos clear would not fix a bad flash though lol.
So I'm just wondering if the recovery thing is even worth anything.



Anyways whatever they did to this new bios compared to the 2002 helped a shiz load for mem stability.
I can't get lower timings, but my mem clocks up at least 100mhz more then it did before, and it's stable.
Unfortunately it's not 2200mhz stable, which is really probably the sweet spot for me.
I'de like to set it at 275mhz bclk/fsb, 3025mhz nb/ht and 2200mhz mem.

My everyday is 250mhz, 3000mhz and 2000mhz.
At 266mhz, which is stable, nb/ht speed is 2926mhz, and the mem is 2128mhz, which I take a hit in performance.
Not sure if it's faster then the 250mhz setup or not.
I haven't compared them.

Last night I spent a few hours on the drive strengths.
Using the 275mhz fsb/blck and 2200mhz mem, all the way up to 281mhz fsb and the equ mem speeds (around 2250mhz+).
Which is bootable, sometimes.
280mhz is bootable np, 281 is hard to boot windows, 282 I only got it to boot the bios once...

Using testmem5 (from the russian dude that makes s&m), booting up the bios and windows.
Just comparing all that stuff, to try to figure out which is the best.
I came up with this info on my own ram, hynix h9c-bfr.

I don't know the names off hand, but this is the order they are in the bios.
I used the same for both chans.

1.5x (Best)
1.5x - 2x (I think 1.5x is best but not sure, the only other value that is ok'ish is 2x)
1.5x (Best)
1.25x (Best)
1x (Best)
0.75x - 1.5x (I think 0.75x is best but not sure, this is the only setting where all of the values are on my piece of paper and not X'ed out...)
60ohms (Best)

I only got 2 settings left in the drive str's to figure out.
Unfortunately even with the correct, and best values for those, it isn't enough for 2200mhz mem stability on this board .
I triple checked all of the values in one sitting...
So the above info is good, just not quite complete.

Btw, has anyone else noticed that if you set 12t on any of your main timings for the mem that the board flips out?
Highest it really lets me go is 11t.

[aGeoM]

Had to pull chip out, and flash on other board (CH III), using windows flash tool from asus , the annoying bit is that I have to swap the VGA to bottom slot, and need to do it every time ( PCIe power cable don't go there, but it boots ok without it ).

Sometimes when settings go wrong or to much OC, the recover boot kicks, searching for valid BIOS.ROM. Not in this case.

If you want to try bios modding I can test it for you.

Btw, has anyone else noticed that if you set 12t on any of your main timings for the mem that the board flips out?
Highest it really lets me go is 11t.

Don't know with PII X6, but with FX I'm at the moment 11-12-11 testing Ripjaws X 2133 @2333.

[Albertini]

Had to pull chip out, and flash on other board (CH III), using windows flash tool from asus , the annoying bit is that I have to swap the VGA to bottom slot, and need to do it every time ( PCIe power cable don't go there, but it boots ok without it ).

Sometimes when settings go wrong or to much OC, the recover boot kicks, searching for valid BIOS.ROM. Not in this case.

If you want to try bios modding I can test it for you.



Don't know with PII X6, but with FX I'm at the moment 11-12-11 testing Ripjaws X 2133 @2333.

did you try the USB flashback method via the ROG usb port before hot swapping the chip? http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread...BIOS-Flashback

[CrimInalA]

I've updated my modded 2002 to the official 2101 . The official latest bios does indeed have the 3.3.1540.17 raid rom (nice!) .
Not going to touch the system as of now , as it was stable before . Will see if the newer bios is as stable before changing any settings (and try to overclock more) .

[aGeoM]

did you try the USB flashback method via the ROG usb port before hot swapping the chip? http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread...BIOS-Flashback

Nop, I'm old school, straight to hotflash

Will try that next time. So the bios name should be something like C4F.ROM ?

[Albertini]

Nop, I'm old school, straight to hotflash

Will try that next time. So the bios name should be something like C4F.ROM ?

Haven't tried it myself, after reading some of the comments in the ROG forum I wonder if only the C4 EXTREME has that feature, even though the asus homepage states that the FORMULA should have that feature as well. The manual doesn't mention flashback, only crashfree bios 3...

[aGeoM]

I couldn't get it working, I named C4F.ROM , don't know if is the correct one, and don't know either where is my CD to check the correct bios name for recovering. I guess this function it's only available for I***l boards.

[Albertini]

I couldn't get it working, I named C4F.ROM , don't know if is the correct one, and don't know either where is my CD to check the correct bios name for recovering. I guess this function it's only available for I***l boards.

the name is correct - just looked on the file on the CD. so it seems every ROG board after the C4F has that function - bad luck

[aGeoM]

On that thread the guys with C5F didn't get it to work.

[NEOAethyr]

The other night I extracted all of the rom modules and compared them.
This is the info i gather so far, showing the diff's between 2002 and 2101.

1B single link arch bios
1. E:\Code\ROM Build\Src\ASUS\Crosshair IV Formula\2002\1B\1B-0004DFB8.BIN: 485,000 bytes
2. E:\Code\ROM Build\Src\ASUS\Crosshair IV Formula\2101\1B\0004DFB8.ROM: 485,000 bytes
120 difference(s) found.

06 smbios
1. E:\Code\ROM Build\Src\ASUS\Crosshair IV Formula\2002\06\06-00037864.BIN: 3,328 bytes
2. E:\Code\ROM Build\Src\ASUS\Crosshair IV Formula\2101\06\000EF038.ROM: 3,328 bytes
4 difference(s) found.

1. E:\Code\ROM Build\Src\ASUS\Crosshair IV Formula\2002\30\30-0003FE40.BIN: 84 bytes
2. E:\Code\ROM Build\Src\ASUS\Crosshair IV Formula\2101\30\0003FE40.ROM: 84 bytes
11 difference(s) found.

1. E:\Code\ROM Build\Src\ASUS\Crosshair IV Formula\2002\A2\A2-00033AF0.BIN: 5,632 bytes
2. E:\Code\ROM Build\Src\ASUS\Crosshair IV Formula\2101\A2\00033AF0.ROM: 5,632 bytes
236 difference(s) found.

1. E:\Code\ROM Build\Src\ASUS\Crosshair IV Formula\2002\F1\F1-00092014.BIN: 60,416 bytes
2. E:\Code\ROM Build\Src\ASUS\Crosshair IV Formula\2101\F1\000DA4B8.ROM: 23,552 bytes
23,401 difference(s) found.

20 raid
1. E:\Code\ROM Build\Src\ASUS\Crosshair IV Formula\2002\20\20-00082C2C.BIN: 63,488 bytes
2. E:\Code\ROM Build\Src\ASUS\Crosshair IV Formula\2101\20\00092014.ROM: 65,536 bytes
62,787 difference(s) found.

1. E:\Code\ROM Build\Src\ASUS\Crosshair IV Formula\2002\21\21 ML-B5.BIN: 70,722 bytes
2. E:\Code\ROM Build\Src\ASUS\Crosshair IV Formula\2101\21\21 ML-B5.ROM: 70,722 bytes
4 difference(s) found.

1. E:\Code\ROM Build\Src\ASUS\Crosshair IV Formula\2002\21\21 ML-DE.BIN: 60,484 bytes
2. E:\Code\ROM Build\Src\ASUS\Crosshair IV Formula\2101\21\21 ML-DE.ROM: 60,484 bytes
4 difference(s) found.

1. E:\Code\ROM Build\Src\ASUS\Crosshair IV Formula\2002\21\21 ML-FR.BIN: 64,588 bytes
2. E:\Code\ROM Build\Src\ASUS\Crosshair IV Formula\2101\21\21 ML-FR.ROM: 64,588 bytes
4 difference(s) found.

1. E:\Code\ROM Build\Src\ASUS\Crosshair IV Formula\2002\21\21 ML-GB.BIN: 70,996 bytes
2. E:\Code\ROM Build\Src\ASUS\Crosshair IV Formula\2101\21\21 ML-GB.ROM: 70,996 bytes
4 difference(s) found.

1. E:\Code\ROM Build\Src\ASUS\Crosshair IV Formula\2002\21\21 ML-JP.BIN: 75,445 bytes
2. E:\Code\ROM Build\Src\ASUS\Crosshair IV Formula\2101\21\21 ML-JP.ROM: 75,445 bytes
4 difference(s) found.

1. E:\Code\ROM Build\Src\ASUS\Crosshair IV Formula\2002\21\21 ML-US.BIN: 57,454 bytes
2. E:\Code\ROM Build\Src\ASUS\Crosshair IV Formula\2101\21\21 ML-US.ROM: 57,454 bytes
4 difference(s) found.


Under the folder F1, there's a file that's a bit diffrent from the 2002 bios.
If I remember right, the 2002 bios ver of this is not compressed, while the 2101 ver of it is.
The compression format is lh5.
Just trip off the 1st few bytes and it becomes a lzh file which can be opened with winrar, and misc.bin can be extracted.
There's some differences but the structure of the file changes a bit so it's hard to say what the actual diffs are.

[davidm71]

Any one try the 3029 beta on the crosshair iv formula? I noticed its using the 3.2.1540.6 raid rom. Kind of an oldie..

Also if I was to mod that to 3.3.1540.17, update ahci to 3.1.0.0, and jmicron to latest would there be option rom size issues anyone?

Thanks.

[davidm71]

If anyone wants to try my modded 3029 Asus Crosshair Formula bios heres the link.

Updated Raid to 3.3.1540.17
AHCI to 3.1.0.0
Jmicron to 1.07.28

Worked on my CH4 without issues but use at your own risk. Havent tried setting AHCI mod on yet though...

Thanks.

[CrimInalA]

i found this on the net : http://docs9.chomikuj.pl/2178886282,...dules_LIST.txt
has been confirmed to work on another forum as far as i remember .
Maybe you can try it or compare that bios to your own modded one