ABit AX78 Overclocking/Stability

[LIKMARK]

I got this mobo a few weeks back and it has been good except for a few quirky things that I can live with. Here are my specs first of all.

Specs:

Phenom 9500 w/ Thermalright Ultima-90 HSF
OCZ Reaper 2x1GB DDR2-800 on the furthest slots.
WD 2 x 320GB B3s RAID 0
External sata2 controller, WD 750gb
XFX Geforce 8800GT
Xfi-XtremeMusic
Intel Pro1000 GT Nic
Corsair HX 620W
Antec 900 Case

Everything installs fine (dualbooting XP and Vista Ultimate, both 32bit), everything runs well in windows, the weirdest things occur with the booting process. Currently, if I shutdown my computer and cold-start it, it will not boot and I can hear the 8800GT’s fan going at full. I eventually am forced to power off the PSU, let the red light go away, and the start it all back up, everything is fine then until next shutdown.
Then, when I get into windows, the USB Logitech mouse receiver for my VX Revolution doesn’t respond in the front USB ports. I have to take out the USB receiver and plug it back in and everything is fine. A soft reboot will not result in this problem. I am on BIOS 12 and not going to move to BIOS 13 beta considering all the weird issues. I’d thought I’ll just throw that out there. Anyone notice it takes a long time for the monitor to detect the signal during bootup. I usually see my screen when the RAID setup kicks in.

I had the Silverstone Zeus 650W and Crossfire 3870s before going to the Corsair and Geforce 8800GT. This boot issue happens to both combos. Weird….

This was a strange problem, never heard of anything like it before. I have not had this kind of troubles with my setup.

AX78, 9500, 2 x 2GB DDR2 1000

BIOS13 Beta2 -

Smart RAM has three options, Disabled, Table 1 and Table Best. It sets an ECC profiles more or less. It set CAS wrong but everything else correctly for the one set of G.Skill I tried. None of us will ever use it because other things must be set to Auto for it to work.

Ok, I've got four options, the same as you plus table 2. Reckoned it was something like EPP profiles. As you say, we wont be using those anyways

I can drop the multi without issue. I've run 239 x 10.5 with 32-bit XP and now 240 x 10 with 64-bit Vista.

The highest FSB, HTT, or External Clock that I and another Mod can boot with is 240MHz. 241 is a no go and we get the “CPU is over running” message and no matter how many times we enter BIOS and save we can’t get rid of it.

Have not tried this board under Vista x64 yet, but I'm going that way as soon as I can build up enough patience to go through the installation and patching process.

Max bootable (into XP) for me is HTT 248. 250 is a no go no matter what voltage I put through it. I have tested raising HTT in AOD (2.0.17) to 250, and my system freezes instantly. Dropping multis is no problem for me either.

AMD OD -

I'm not sure if VDDC is really Vcore. My base Vcore is 1.25, I added +.15 and CPU-Z reports 1.392v under load. AMD OD reports 1.70V for VDDC.

Yes, vDDC is vcore. It shows 0,3v too much, but changes is reported correctly.

Reported CPU temps - SpeedFan, AMD OD, and CoreTemp all report the same temp. SpeedFan only reports one temp, CoreTemp reports one and three 0's for the others in the system tray.

Speedfan, AOD and coretemp shows the same values for me too, but they are showing too low temps. Between 19c and 25c idling. Knowing how hot Phenom runs this ain't right.

64-bit Vista -

So the reports that you can’t overclock as far with 64-bit Vista are true for me. Or at least you can’t overclock as far with the same voltages that work in 32-bit XP.

I've tested Vista x64 with my AM2 Crosshair, and found max stable overclock to be 2420MHz, This might be due to flaky BIOS. Didn't test it under Xp 32bit, so I've got nothing to compare with.

AbitEQ -

The only thing I was really using it for was monitoring the PWM temp. Another Mod was having trouble with it in 64-bit Vista so I installed the latest version, 2.0.0.6, from the AX78 Global page. It installed but I got the "Log in as administrator and run once so you don't see this message" with no reported values. I uninstalled it and it borked the system. I had to do a Repair by booting with the Vista DVD. It was quick and fixed the problem. I don't believe this version supports the AX78, I couldn't find the files for this MB anywhere but I could find them for other boards.

A couple of nights later I tried with the version that ships with the MB, 2.0.0.1. I installed it with UAC disabled and it installed and even reported temps. It also caused two Blue Screens in short order even though it wasn't running. I did a system restore to just before I installed it and the system is solid once again.

I too downloaded version 2.0.0.6 from Abit Global page and found it to not report anything, I did not have any trouble uninstalling it though. This was under XP 32bit. Version 2.0.0.1 (from cd) runs fine with XP 32bit, and actually reports what seems to be right temps (albeit a bit higher than I like.) CPU 57c, System 32c, PWM 50c. All this under load. I've got cpu and nb under water, and 80mm 1800rpm nochtua fan on PWM heatsink.

Question: Do your cpu FID behave strange? (as I described in earlier post). After testing a bit I believe multi changes due to cpu VID. When I boot up, it boots into windows with 5,5 multiplier and cpu VID at 1.05v on all four cores no matter what I set in BIOS. When I change cpu VID to 1.25 in AOD, cpu multi jumps up to what I set it in BIOS (In this case X9), but just on core0. For the rest cores to follow I have to press the apply button once again. WEIRD.. I believe this might have to do with P-states and some wrong values set in BIOS. It is the only viable explanation IMO.

KTE: Doesn't P-states get regulated by cpu-VID (or the other way around, but the result is the same)?

I have not tested ram performance much yet. Gonna test it soon, hoping four sticks will do better with this BIOS, Max ram freq so far is 490MHz @CL5 5 5 15 24 2t@2,2v 127,5ns - 127,5ns + 105ns - 105ns tRFC, Memclk 800 (safe settings for testing max HTT)