Testing / comparing : Intel D975XBX2 / Asus P5B DX ***56K WARNING***

[finance_coder]

The 975x might need more volts to run a multiplier, on 1:1 it should be good to 3.4ghz in my experience. The memory might be slower at that point, but you will know if it's the board, cpu or memory balking the OC. Give it a shot!

Cool, thanks for the tip.

Maybe I'll up the MCH voltage a bit, too, just for kicks.

What's the consensus on how many volts/how much overclock the MCH can take before needing a better cooler? Is getting something like the Thermalright HR-05 worth it?

This overclocking thing started as a mere curiosity... it's already starting to become an obsession!

[kpax]

i run my cpu @ 3.2 (FSB 356) and I got it stable only after turning on the powerslope option in bios. probably could go higher but i'm ok with that. I don't want to find the "limit" as some headroom makes me comfortable. I did not modify any voltage (except for the RAM which is advertised at 1.9-2.1 anyway), however my cpu is a Xeon 3060.
Remeber to establish a goal and try to stick with it if you want the highest oc on stocks, work towards that one first and decide where to go from there by modifying something else (like MCH). Like I said, I had to increase the RAM voltage to 1.96V. I use 266/533 and RAM benchmarks show a better throughput than the default settings.

[scorpion]

yes,as of 6/13/07

[AndyM]

Cool, thanks for the tip.

Maybe I'll up the MCH voltage a bit, too, just for kicks.

What's the consensus on how many volts/how much overclock the MCH can take before needing a better cooler? Is getting something like the Thermalright HR-05 worth it?

This overclocking thing started as a mere curiosity... it's already starting to become an obsession!

The most I ever ran Orthos stable successfully was 1.6V on the MCH, higher didnt do anything useful. FSB was 1.3V. That would do 3.8 ghz 1:1 on my 6600, with the annoyance of occasionally shutting off the computer or locking up (even though it was 'Orthos 8 hr stable' ) . I found my board was solid at 3.7 Ghz 1:1 (412 fsb), 1.6 and 1.3 volts on the 975x. Never could get 4:5 to work at these fsb's.

Keeping those voltages in mind, you could get by with the stock block, changing the thermal pad under it for AS5, or ziptie a small fan to it (noisy), or get the HR05 (very effective for sure). Varying opinions on this. One thing about the HR05, using the hook and spring mounting on the XBX2, I feel is kind of weak. Even weaker when you ziptie a fan to it for even better cooling. The foam feet that come with the HR05 are too soft I feel to be of benefit. Solution: RTV Silicone (I like Permatex Ultra Black).

A little on the HR05 like this...




Ends up like this, much more solid once it dries...



OC becoming an obsession? Ha, I started this whopper of a hobby by simply trying to upgrade my Dell P4 with an 8800 GTS video card last winter. Good luck!

[hawk1]

Hello. I'm thinking about buying a D975XBX2 for a new system, and this forum seems like a good place where to ask for advice. I understand Intel will probably stop producing this board soon, but hopefully it's now more stable than a newly launched board will be for months.

Basically I wand to build a silent, cool, but reasonably fast system and the numbers for the power dissipation from the P35 chipset put me off. But I can't avoid wondering if I'm being silly for not picking the newer chipset. What would you advise? Is the D975XBX2 already outdated, and should I go for a P35-based board instead?

I still have some hope for Penryn support on the 975x based boards - someone mentioned in another thread that both these and the newer P35 follow the VRM11.0 specification. But I already got burned by Intel once, with an early D875 and no support for prescott (although in that case the VRM had changed), so I'm not really counting on it.

im about to build a new system myself with this board. im still on an athlon xp 2800+ system, so i know its time for a nice upgrade. i was gonna wait for P35, but it seems the Bad Axe 2 and the 975 chipset is rock solid. and i want a nice fast stable gaming system. i was goin to get this board and a core 2 duo e6600, but now i read that the price of the quad core q6600 is gonna be $266 on july 22nd. im gonna get the bad axe 2 and a q6600, that should be a monster of a system to last me years and years. from what ive read about this board, it seems everyone loves it. i had originally planned to go with the asus p5wdh, but ive read too many bad things, seems that board is nothing but trouble. even over at newegg all the reviews for the bad axe 2 are good. it seems to be an awesome board. to anwser your question i dont think your silly. i would rather trust something thats been proven to be solid and stable instead of jumpin into a new chipset. i know thats what im about too do.

[gcc]

hawk1, thanks for your reply, I'm going to get the XBX2.
About the quad cores: I'm also tempted, but the heat those two processors put together will release (a TDP 95 or 105W?) has made me lean towards the E6700.

It would be nice if the quad-core Penryns could be dropped in later. I doubt Intel will release a BIOS to allow that, but with so many people using this board we can still hope someone will come up with a way of making them work.

[LoneWolf]

Hi guys,

Glad I found this thread. Just did a rebuild of my system for reference, here's the specs:

Core 2 E6600
Intel D975XBX2 (of course), rev 505, latest BIOS (6/13/2007, IIRC)
2 x 1GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800 4-4-4-12 @2.2v
2x Seagate 7200.10 400GB SATA hard disks
2x Pioneer DVR-212D SATA DVD writers
XFX Geforce 8800GTS, Powercolor ATI Theater 550 Pro, Creative X-Fi XtremeGamer
Antec NeoHE 550 PSU (in a modded Antec P160SW case)

I'm having a few minor problems that some people have probably already experienced, so I'm hoping for some answers. First off, my Tuniq Tower 120 heatsink's 120mm fan is not detected by the board, so I get no RPM reporting, though it is running. Fan connector is a 3-pin rather than 4-pin and has a pass-through speed controller that was included with it, but I don't believe that should make a difference. I have tried turning CPU and system fan monitoring to off, it doesn't change things. My one case fan plugged into a three-pin connector (my other case fans go into Molex) is reported correctly.

Next off, POST time is miserably slow. From turning on the system to the time it takes to get to the XP boot logo, I'd say it takes at least a minute. My Socket 938 MSI K8N Neo 4 Platinum took half the time or less to go from power-on to boot logo. Once the boot logo is displayed, the system gets to the logon screen and performs the way it ought to. By the way, a side note: Does anyone know how to turn off the Intel splash logo and show a normal detailed POST, or isn't this available? I didn't see the option in the BIOS.

Finally, I can't find out how to set the command rate for my memory. CPU-Z reports that I'm running at a 2T command rate. I'm sure my memory can do 1T, but have seen nowhere in the BIOS where I can change this. Is there something I'm missing, or is there a BIOS revision that has this, and some that don't?

I don't even want to fool with overclocking until I've got all my minor issues ironed out. I've already solved a few (like the constant-on HDD light, fixed by BIOS update) but have several to go. Thanks for any help you guys can provide.

[nealh]

Hi guys,

Glad I found this thread. Just did a rebuild of my system for reference, here's the specs:

Core 2 E6600
Intel D975XBX2 (of course), rev 505, latest BIOS (6/13/2007, IIRC)
2 x 1GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800 4-4-4-12 @2.2v
2x Seagate 7200.10 400GB SATA hard disks
2x Pioneer DVR-212D SATA DVD writers
XFX Geforce 8800GTS, Powercolor ATI Theater 550 Pro, Creative X-Fi XtremeGamer
Antec NeoHE 550 PSU (in a modded Antec P160SW case)

I'm having a few minor problems that some people have probably already experienced, so I'm hoping for some answers. First off, my Tuniq Tower 120 heatsink's 120mm fan is not detected by the board, so I get no RPM reporting, though it is running. Fan connector is a 3-pin rather than 4-pin and has a pass-through speed controller that was included with it, but I don't believe that should make a difference. I have tried turning CPU and system fan monitoring to off, it doesn't change things. My one case fan plugged into a three-pin connector (my other case fans go into Molex) is reported correctly.

Next off, POST time is miserably slow. From turning on the system to the time it takes to get to the XP boot logo, I'd say it takes at least a minute. My Socket 938 MSI K8N Neo 4 Platinum took half the time or less to go from power-on to boot logo. Once the boot logo is displayed, the system gets to the logon screen and performs the way it ought to. By the way, a side note: Does anyone know how to turn off the Intel splash logo and show a normal detailed POST, or isn't this available? I didn't see the option in the BIOS.

Finally, I can't find out how to set the command rate for my memory. CPU-Z reports that I'm running at a 2T command rate. I'm sure my memory can do 1T, but have seen nowhere in the BIOS where I can change this. Is there something I'm missing, or is there a BIOS revision that has this, and some that don't?

I don't even want to fool with overclocking until I've got all my minor issues ironed out. I've already solved a few (like the constant-on HDD light, fixed by BIOS update) but have several to go. Thanks for any help you guys can provide.

this board does not support 1T only 2T

not sure you can do anything with the splash screen or post times

[Woland]

Slow posting might be related to bios fan control, disable all of it. If you do find a way to remove the intel boot logo let me know

[kpax]

if you don't use the marvell sata ctrller, disable secondary sata controller from bios (will save some post time); don't think you can get rid of splash; also, disable all the things you don't use (for example, unless you have a firewire device disable it until you get to use it; disable parallel and serial ports - if you use usb printer); after disabling, i saw less checkup codes appear during the post; post still takes some time and i prefer bx2 to control my fan speeds (better fan management than speedfan or anything else)

[LoneWolf]

if you don't use the marvell sata ctrller, disable secondary sata controller from bios (will save some post time); don't think you can get rid of splash; also, disable all the things you don't use (for example, unless you have a firewire device disable it until you get to use it; disable parallel and serial ports - if you use usb printer); after disabling, i saw less checkup codes appear during the post; post still takes some time and i prefer bx2 to control my fan speeds (better fan management than speedfan or anything else)

Did most of that...I disabled the Marvell, turned off serial/parallel ports (I have a networked laser anyway), turned of USB Legacy and USB boot, turned off Network boot, moved one of my two SATA burners to the bottom of the boot order, and still no faster. I can't recall a mainboard I've owned that took this long to post, and we're going back to the 386DX/20 board that went in my the first machine I built in `93.

I built a system based on the original BadAxe for my sister and brother-in-law this past fall, and it posts noticably faster too. Only differences are, I didn't use SATA optical drives, I did a RAID 1 mirror for their setup (it's going to be used in a high-stress environment), and I think their board's BIOS had Rapid BIOS boot technology as an option. Doesn't make sense to me either that Intel would market an enthusiast board without the ability to see POST details, either (shrug), heck, the i865 Socket 478 mATX Intel board I bought for my wife's system shows detailed POST, and takes half the time too.

[kpax]

using only the intel controller; 1 ide dvd-rom; post takes 15-20 secs; most of the time used to be spent by the marvell controller; have hdd first in boot order; don't know if your sata drives add that much time or it's something else; try to disconnect everything except the hdd (including usb web cams and what not) to get the best possible post time and start adding them back 1 by 1 and maybe you'll find the culprit

[wa2000]

I had 2 Bad Axe 2 before. One board needs about 15 seconds more than the other board before showing the Intel logo screen after pressing the power button.

Both boards had the same settings in BIOS and tested with the same CPU, ram and display card. I returned the board that takes longer to post back to the store.

[LoneWolf]

using only the intel controller; 1 ide dvd-rom; post takes 15-20 secs; most of the time used to be spent by the marvell controller; have hdd first in boot order; don't know if your sata drives add that much time or it's something else; try to disconnect everything except the hdd (including usb web cams and what not) to get the best possible post time and start adding them back 1 by 1 and maybe you'll find the culprit

I just timed mine from display sync to time the progress bar just before the Windows XP boot logo hits.

Total time: 1 minute, 18 seconds.

I put both the floppy drive and the SATA burners at the bottom of the boot order list before doing so, and disconnected my Dell 2407WFP's USB card reader. I have an iPod dock in the 1394 port, but the iPod hasn't been docked with this system config ever, let alone at boot time. I removed my USB joystick just in case. IDE is turned off, since I have no IDE drives, and the Marvell controller is off. Parallel and serial ports are turned off. The longest code I see during the splash screen is "BA", but after the codes disappear, I just have a blank screen for probably 25 seconds before the progress bar shows up prior to boot logo, if I was less patient I'd have thought my system wasn't booting at all.

Are most people running the current 2770 BIOS (dated 6/13/07) or are they going with something earlier? I have no explanation for this, and while the board works great once I hit the boot logo, it's really frustrating to have a POST time of nearly a minute and a half.

Thanks to everyone who has tried to help me here (and listening to me vent). I've owned dozens of system boards over fifteen years, and nothing took this long to start to boot. I've now filled out the support form on Intel's website and escalated it through the reply e-mail I've got. I really think there's a BIOS bug of some kind at this point, I've run out of ideas.

[wa2000]

IIRC the last code before boot is 0 or 00. Is the 25 seconds black screen appeared before or after that?

If the black screen appear after code 0/00. I think your problem maybe not related to the board/BIOS.

Also, remove any disc in your DVD drive during boot.

[theonlybabyface]

The new 2770 bios was not good for me. Lost my overclock and stability was really flakey. Reverted back to 2747 and back at 3400 mhz @ 1.34 v.

[kpax]

same here, with 2770, could not overclock; my RAM would always reset to 800 when i tried to set 266/533 and the watchdog would kick in. reverted back to 2747 for a 3.2 GHz @ all stock voltages.

[Peanuts]

Can someone please tell me which revision of the XBX2 is newest?

The newest revision is 507 and it comes with bios version 2674.

[ubiquityman]

From what I' know, rev 501-505 is the same hardware version (different bios versions), and 506-507 is another hardware version.

The newest revision is 507 and it comes with bios version 2674.

[kpax]

Are there important (hardware) differences between 501-505 and 506-507?

[abig]

Hi,
I have this board (revision 505), Is this board compatible with E6850 ?
Thanks

[screwtech02]

Are there important (hardware) differences between 501-505 and 506-507?

I'm thinkin this is super secret "Intel" only info... Cause i have never seen it DISPLAYED ANYWHERE.....

[astrodave]

Hi,
I have this board (revision 505), Is this board compatible with E6850 ?
Thanks

I just signed on to ask this very question. Has it been determined if this board supports the new 1333 chips? I want to get an E6850 for this board in the next few weeks if it will support it. I have a rev 502 board running BIOS 2618. Thanks!

[hawk1]

Hi, i was talkin with a few people a few posts back about this cooler. I was wondering if the people that have this cooler installed on there BX2 would mind posting a picture of it? I just wanna see what it looks like mounted to the BX2 before i get one, thx so much!

[screwtech02]

Well, it seems that Asus has released a bios to allow 1333 procs to run on their 975x chipset and other boards. I'm wondering if Intel is going to follow suit, or try to ram another revision board down our throats here.....