Any info on 4pca3+ ?

[SoulEdge]

I'm gonna be picking up another cpu to test soon hopefully. Now it's priming and looping 3dmark again at 3.3ghz. This is just throwing me for a loop. Maybe time to give it a break for tonight. Sleep deprivation and troubleshooing these litte nuisances is not fun

[althes]

This is one weird mobo.
I am hoping mine does nt do that crap.
Well testing a 2.4c on p4c800e and will do 300fsb at auto. But wont 3dmark.only at 290fsb.
Noticed the epox takes a while to boot up also.
I have a rev 2. Will give it a battery of tests tomorrow.

[Rio71]

hi,
i have read radeons 9xxx don't like high vagp.
1.6v are ok, but 1.7v and up would kill the card.
... but clevor run 2.0v and 9800p
*confused*, please me.

[SoulEdge]

*Sigh* I don't know what to do w/ this thing. I let prime run overnight at 3.3, wakeup and it had dropped w/ an error after 2.5 hours. This was w/ my corsair back in, so I'm thinking maybe the its the ram, throw some different sticks of BH-5 in and restart. Errors after 57 min. WTF. I just restart prime cuz I'm pissed and walk away. Is going fine for nearly an hour then when I come back in it bluescreens w/ a win32k.sys message.

[gouda96]

Originally posted by Rio71
hi,
i have read radeons 9xxx don't like high vagp.
1.6v are ok, but 1.7v and up would kill the card.
... but clevor run 2.0v and 9800p
*confused*, please me.

vagp is the nb voltage on thie machine

man soul...that realy stinks. Have you tried a fresh os install? Would be nice if you could toss another cpu in there.

[SoulEdge]

Interesting, I didn't know the vagp was NB voltage. I wonder if that's what's causing some of my errors as I've had it at default this whole time but I haven't felt the need to bump it up as I haven't experienced any of the windows slowdown at 300fsb w/ my radeon like some people are reporting. Is it unusual for a p4 to be benchable at a given speed (in my case 3.6) but to drop out of prime w/ errors after serveral hours at 300 mhz less (3.3) ? pc ice is going to be getting me a good 2.4 so hopefully I can drop that in soon. I'll see how that does in this board and if things are still flaky, I'll just get a p4c. I REALLY want to like this board, got all the right features and performance at a nice price... we'll see how things go this week.

[Clevor]

Well testing a 2.4c on p4c800e and will do 300fsb at auto. But wont 3dmark.only at 290fsb.

The Asus boards are like that, due to the thin 4-layer PCB and 2.5 phase power system. My P4C800-E boots and is 2D stable at 292 but have to drop down to 287 to be 3D stable.

On the 'Aggressive'Mode' setting, that only shows up on the 4PCA2+ boards, probably to force PAT.

You pretty much have to run at least 1.8 VAGP for stability at extreme overclocks. It's the same deal with the Epox 845PE board. I don't think it really affects the video card so much as NB.

You should always backup your clean OS using DriveImage or Ghost. It only takes 3-5' to restore it. Overdoing the ram or CPU will corrupt it real fast, on any motherboard.

Sorry, I do not have experience running over 3.36 gig on the 4PCA3+, but it's been rock stable for me on my 2.40C.

Don't underestimate the power of unbuffered bandwidth! At 'just' 277 fsb and 5:4, 2-2-2-5 on the XMS3500, I am getting 3300 unbuffered on the 4PCA3+. I am playing with a DFI 875P Infinity board now, where I can run three 2.40Cs on it at 3.5 gig on air, 3D stable! But at 3.5 gig, 292 fsb, 2800 unbuffered (due to having to run 3:2 on the ram), the 4PCA3+ is getting about the same 16M/1M SuperPi times, and it's only at 3.32 gig.

[gouda96]

Originally posted by SoulEdge
Interesting, I didn't know the vagp was NB voltage. I wonder if that's what's causing some of my errors as I've had it at default this whole time but I haven't felt the need to bump it up as I haven't experienced any of the windows slowdown at 300fsb w/ my radeon like some people are reporting. Is it unusual for a p4 to be benchable at a given speed (in my case 3.6) but to drop out of prime w/ errors after serveral hours at 300 mhz less (3.3) ? pc ice is going to be getting me a good 2.4 so hopefully I can drop that in soon. I'll see how that does in this board and if things are still flaky, I'll just get a p4c. I REALLY want to like this board, got all the right features and performance at a nice price... we'll see how things go this week.

That is a chipset issue, and happens on every single 865/875 board over 300 fsb. It is caused when the agp/pci lock fails above 300 fsb. Just oc to your max fsb in bios, then use setfsb or clockgen. They don't change the agp/pci frequency when you raise the fsb, so that is how you oc over 300fsb. When you raise the nb voltage the nb temps will increase. At the very least you should lap the stock hsf, apply as5 (as3 for those of you poor suckers that don't have as3 yet ), and add a fan to it.

I am not so sure about this mobo myself. I was thinking of picking up a p4c800-e from newegg. Whichever one I like I will sell the other, or eat the restocking fee.

[althes]

Originally posted by gouda96
That is a chipset issue, and happens on every single 865/875 board over 300 fsb. It is caused when the agp/pci lock fails above 300 fsb. Just oc to your max fsb in bios, then use setfsb or clockgen. They don't change the agp/pci frequency when you raise the fsb, so that is how you oc over 300fsb. When you raise the nb voltage the nb temps will increase. At the very least you should lap the stock hsf, apply as5 (as3 for those of you poor suckers that don't have as3 yet ), and add a fan to it.

I am not so sure about this mobo myself. I was thinking of picking up a p4c800-e from newegg. Whichever one I like I will sell the other, or eat the restocking fee.

Thanks for the heads up. Will use the clockgen on the board.
My p4c800ed is doing fine at 300fsb no3d, but can do 3d at 295 all day long.
This epox board is fun. Running it thru the wringer this week.

[SoulEdge]

Althes, what kind of cpu temps are you seeing? I just wanted to see if others were getting high temps on this board also. People w/ the Asus report temps in the 20's w/ air cooling, but this epox gives me load temps in the 60's w/ stock cooler and 40's w/ water cooling.

[gouda96]

Originally posted by SoulEdge
Althes, what kind of cpu temps are you seeing? I just wanted to see if others were getting high temps on this board also. People w/ the Asus report temps in the 20's w/ air cooling, but this epox gives me load temps in the 60's w/ stock cooler and 40's w/ water cooling.

The epox seems like it might be a little high, but pretty close, but the asus...you think about that. Do you think your cpu, which produces about 60w of heat(I think) is only 68f? That is cooler than my house is. Those asus tesmps are a joke. Like 10-20c too low. My friend's p4p800 says his cpu is cooler than his nb, and they are both below the ambient room temp...

If I am not too lazy I will get my prommy on tonight...I have a question though. My dielectric grease has a range of -40-180 degrees, but the evap head of the prommy gets down to about -47. Is this a problem? Until I get a response on this I will just make sure to turn the machine on when the evap head is about -35c.

[SoulEdge]

I know very well that the asus temps can't possibly be accurate, I was just using them as a point of reference. If similar chips w/ similar cooling are getting significantly different results then it's safe to assume that it's just the way the mobo reports the temps. I've just ordered a compunurse so I can stick a thermal sensor to the side of the IHS. Not the true hotspot of the cpu, but I can at least get an accurate reading, mobo's are so fickle....

[Alexandrus]

Yeap, the ASUS boards report the temp too damn low, while the EPoX is pretty accurate IMO.

[SoulEdge]

Originally posted by Alexandrus
Yeap, the ASUS boards report the temp too damn low, while the EPoX is pretty accurate IMO.

I think the epox may be a bit high and the true reading is probably somewhere in between. I used to get load temps in the low 30's w/ my highly overclocked xp (2.1 vcore) in an 8k3a+ which read the xp's internal diode and is considered one of the most accurate in that respect. Even though that was an entirely different processor, I doubt a northwood running at default vcore is running 44C at load.

My watercooling setup consists of a 172mm comair rotron fan pulling 150 cfm of room temp air (26-28C) through a dtek heatercore. Eheim 1250, 1/2" tubing, white water block, NB and GPU blocks, no kinks or air bubbles in the lines. Paper thin layer of AS3 w/ the mounting springs fully compressed...

[Clevor]

I use a digital temp probe on my CPU on all my motherboards; forget about the temps in the BIOS. They are off +/- 10C on most the boards. I see about the same stress temps on all the boards using the probe. Right now, about 35-38 C with room temp of 21-23 C. During summer up to 43 C. If that sounds low the probe is only touching the edge. Now the AMDs run hot. I've seen up to 55 C with them.

[althes]

The epox I have reads the temps right on the nose. I would say it really helps with OC.

[gouda96]

If I can manage to keep myself from taking a nap between classes tomorrow I will finally get my prommy on mine, and we will see just how well this board will oc.

[JNav89GT]

so after reading this thread I'm still confused on the overall consensus on this board. I'd like the ide raid(HPT) but not sure if it'll oc any better than the 2 IS7's I have.
And the price is a bit high :O

[gouda96]

I am still undecided...and seems like most are split. I doubt there would be much difference between it and your is7's, or any decent mobo.

The price is very good for a 875 board with alot of features, so that isn't a negative on this board for me.

[OneProdigy]

Here is something i don't quite understand...why is FSB260 1/1 CL2-3-2-5 equal or slower compared to CL3-4-4-8?
I thought it would have to be a lot faster.

Well, see for yourselfs. Here are the Benches i just ran:


----------
Specs:
4PCA3+
P4 2.8C
2*256MB A-Data PC4000
1*256MB Kingston PC2700 (only for testing till i find a second one)

[gouda96]

maybe if you have the 2700 in single channel? maybe that has something to do with it, or maybe they are just bad modlues.

I have never seen anything like that before.

[Clevor]

Too bad you only have one Kingston stick. I'd be interested in a DC comparison between the Kingston at 5:4 fastest timings you can versus the PC4000 at 1:1, 3-4-4-8. You have only SS sticks so it would be a valid comparison.

I'm not familiar with single channel benches so I can't explain what you see there. But that Kingston PC2700 does 260, 1:1 at 2-3-2-5??? Looks like it's the one with BH-5 chips. But the memory marks are about the same with PC4000 at 3-4-4-8 so it's not surprising the 3DMark score is equal.

[althes]

So how has everyone epox board been doing so far.

[OneProdigy]

@Clevor
That kingston stick is stuffed with winbond bh-6 chips and runs at 3.3V without a hickup.
Unfortunately i still can't seem to find a second one...still searching desperatly!

I'll see what i can do about that bench you are interested in.

[SoulEdge]

Anyone know how to disable APIC (no ACPI) in the bios? I couldn't find it anywhere. I'm trying to fix my audigy crackling and when I changed the pc driver to "standard pc" it will hard lock as soon as it boots into windows now. I'm wondering if there's something I overlooked in the bios or if I'll just need to reformat and specify which config to load when I install windows...