Asus A8N32-SLI initial impression....WOW!

[Ic3man]

Hello all.

I am new to this board, and I have read much of this thread, but not all of it. I have enjoyed computers for many years (I can still remember my Commodore-64), but I have just built my first PC completely from scratch with the A8N32-Sli Deluxe. I have an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+, 2 GB of Corsair 3500LL Pro, an ATI All In Wonder X1800XL, Creative X-Fi Xtreme Music, and a bunch of Seagate 250 GB SATA-2 Hard Drives and 2 NEC DVD burners.

I have been doing a lot of reading on overclocking, but I am still somewhat unsure of how to proceed. I got my system up to 2.62 GHz (238 MHz X 11), but it was extremely unstable, and started to ignore my PS-2 Keyboard.

Right now (after clearing CMOS), my keyboard is functional, and I am running SuperPi without any errors at BIOS defaults. My approach the other day (that resulted in an unstable system) was to lower the memory clock to 100 MHz, and gradually increase the CPU clock. Once I got it to 238, I increased the memory clock to 183 MHz, as prior experience told me that the system would not boot with a CPU clock of 238 MHz and memory clock of 200 MHz. This is when I ran into trouble.

I realize that the MB is new, and experience is limited, but can anyone out there suggest some settings for this CPU/MB/memory combo that have been successful?

Thanks a lot, any help will be greatly appreciated.

Mark

Welcome to XS!

I have almost the same spec (see sig) and found that the memory divider works alot better when set to 166 or 133. 183 caused instabilty for me too and wasn't recognised in the bios post.
My system runs fine @
Memory 2.8v
2.5-2-3-6 1T on a 166 divider

CPU
opty 165 at 1.3v(+0.2v)
290x9(2.610ghz).

Chipset
K8 to NB 600mhz - all others auto.

This is with all the overvolt options enabled and EEC disabled.

Hope this helps.

[mhorgel]

Welcome to XS!

I have almost the same spec (see sig) and found that the memory divider works alot better when set to 166 or 133. 183 caused instabilty for me too and wasn't recognised in the bios post.
My system runs fine @
Memory 2.8v
2.5-2-3-6 1T on a 166 divider

CPU
opty 165 at 1.3v(+0.2v)
290x9(2.610ghz).

Chipset
K8 to NB 600mhz - all others auto.

This is with all the overvolt options enabled and EEC disabled.

Hope this helps.

Thanks...this is just the kind of help I was hoping for! What is the default multiplier for your Opty? For my chip, it is 200 MHz x 11. Should I lower the multiplier and increase the FSB? Or just leave it at 11 and try to get the FSB back up to 238? Or should I play with both approaches? Will I have to do anything to my PCI-E clock?

Thanks again,

Mark

[qdemn7]

Does any know the BIOS Savior model for the board?

Never mind, they don't make one for this board. Sigh...

[Ic3man]

Thanks...this is just the kind of help I was hoping for! What is the default multiplier for your Opty? For my chip, it is 200 MHz x 11. Should I lower the multiplier and increase the FSB? Or just leave it at 11 and try to get the FSB back up to 238? Or should I play with both approaches? Will I have to do anything to my PCI-E clock?

Thanks again,

Mark

mine is 9x

see how far you can get with everything stock (238?) then increase the vcore by 1 notch and add another 5mhz. If it still wont boot add another notch to the vcore but dont go past 1.5 for now. If it does boot then go back into bios and raise another 5mhz and load again...keep going until it will not boot or your cpu temps go too high. If you find that increasing the vcore dosn't help at all then try relaxing your memory timings a little. (2-3-2-6 is standard so next try 2.5-2-3-6 and so on).

Remember tho that just becuase your PC boots dosn't mean it is stable, after each increase in clockspeed test for stability....but thats a whole new subject.

[mhorgel]

Remember tho that just becuase your PC boots dosn't mean it is stable, after each increase in clockspeed test for stability....but thats a whole new subject.

I found this out the hard way...I had my system up to 2.62 GHz with the RAM divider at 183 MHz, and the thing would generate an error during Prime95 in about 5 seconds. Also, the system could not find my PS-2 keyboard, a situation I only fixed by resetting the CMOS.

I'll try some of these ideas out right away. Thanks again.

Mark

[physics_geek]

Any places to get asus A8N32 SLI?

[qdemn7]

Any places to get asus A8N32 SLI?

Check you local Fry's Electronics they have the board on sale at their B&M stores ONLY, not Outpost.com. I picked one up at the Arlington, Texas store. Price was $249.99 + Tax. I had the salesman do a SKU lookup, and they had < 10 at most of their stores. SKU is 4612868, and this is a Rev 1.01 board.

Also Ecost.com is selling the board for $206.94. With Free Ground shipping and a $7.95 handling fee, you can get the board for as little as $214.89. FEDX Next Day Air is only an additional $15.00. They are supposed to get some in this week or the next week. You can order and pay for it, and they will ship when it gets there.

[physics_geek]

Check you local Fry's Electronics they have the board on sale at their B&M stores ONLY, not Outpost.com. I picked one up at the Arlington, Texas store. Price was $249.99 + Tax. I had the salesman do a SKU lookup, and they had < 10 at most of their stores. SKU is 4612868, and this is a Rev 1.01 board.

Also Ecost.com is selling the board for $206.94. With Free Ground shipping and a $7.95 handling fee, you can get the board for as little as $214.89. FEDX Next Day Air is only an additional $15.00. They are supposed to get some in this week or the next week. You can order and pay for it, and they will ship when it gets there.

Thanks, but do you know any alternatives?

[qdemn7]

Thanks, but do you know any alternatives?

Sorry, no.

[mhorgel]

Thanks to Ic3man's advice, I have my system running SuperPi stable at 2.62 Ghz. I hav all the Overvolts enabled, VCore at 1.325 (+.2), VDIMM at 1.75 (+.1), FSB at 238 X 11, K8 to NB at 600 MHz, memory divider at 166 MHz, memory timings at 2.5-2-3-6 1T. AI Booster shows my VCore at 1.54 and my VDIMM at 2.80, but I am not sure that these readings are trustworthy.

I tried upping the FSB to 245, but the system was unstable. I then tried to loosen the memory timings to 2.5-3-3-6, and it wouldn't boot. I then reverted back to the above settings, and she's running rock stable. CPU temps are 41-43 C at idle, 45-46 C under load.

Originally, I told myself that 2.62 GHz was my goal, but with hearing reports of X2 3800's running at over 2.8 GHz, I feel I can do better. I apologize for my noobness, but I have never overclocked a system before, and I am not sure how to proceed. Is it simply a matter of trial and error? Or is there a logical progression of adjustments? Should I increase my FSB, see if the system boots, and if it does not boost VCore a notch or 2, and if that doesn't work, loosen the memory timings?

Thanks again,
Mark