The Maximus Formula Thread - Help/OCing/Guide/Rampage conversion

[atomica]

replaced the 4 X 1GB Team Elite 677MHz RAM with 2 x 1GB Crucial Ballistix Tracer 8500 and it works like a dream at default setting.

before this i used to get errors when i ran memtest and sometimes the machine just won't boot.

however, the 4 X 1GB Team Elite 677MHz RAM are working perfectly on my other machine with an msi board.

[eSp!s0]

I got one for you guys...

So I've been playing with my OC for the last couple hours and I'm having a blast. Running 4.0 on my quad and my mem @ 1200. No problems (after figuring out crazy complicated bios)

I was doing some priming when I happened to notice that CPU-Z told me that I only had 3 gigs of memory... I flipped out thinking I had blown a stick and booted into bios. Bios says I still have 4 gigs... So I boot back into OS and CPU-Z still says 3 gigs.

I shut down and let it be for a minute and rebooted...

Gues how much ram I have now???



WTF???
can someone tell me whats going on here??? lol

Sometimes CPU-z makes mistakes. After restarting it`s gone most of the times it happens.
But I noticed, that I had more mistakes in CPU-z, when my old ram was still in system, which ran not that great on the board, only 1000mhz max at 2gb(1066 specs).
With my 2gb Transcend 1200mhz, which run much better (they run there specs 1200mhz in 333strap and 400strap) I can not remember of seeing a CPU-z mistake with this board till now.

[Grnfinger]

keep restarting your pc, you could be upto 8GB's by the end of the day

[iadstudio]

It seems that no matter what I do, I can not get this board stable. I even lowered my OC to 3.6 and I either get a soundacrd glitch, hangs in UT3 or something funky.

I'm not sure if it's becasue of the high voltage my chip needs (1.575 @3.6), but do you think this board needs RMA or am I simply not taking enought time with my OC?

[FZ1]

@ eSp!s0 -Have you tried everest or another app?

[FZ1]

I'm not sure if it's becasue of the high voltage my chip needs (1.575 @3.6), but do you think this board needs RMA or am I simply not taking enought time with my OC?

Probably the latter. I haven't read through all of your posts but have you isolated the FSB, CPU and RAM to find out each of their limits? If not, how do you know what is causing the issue? There are a crapload of settings to mess with in this BIOS so there are a lot of options to try. Not the answer you prolly want to hear but getting a good OC is more art than science and it takes a lot of patience and trial and error.

[iadstudio]

agreed. The problem is I know my CPU max is 3.75 x10 stable at 1.65v and I know it'll run 3.6 stable at 1.575v, both on my old 680i. So far I've only been able to get 3.6 stable on this board. My memory seems to run stable at rated speeds, but when it goes over 400fsb I can't tell if the NB is hurting from the 4x1gb sticks or if the memory just oc's for crap so I'm trying to get it stable at <400fsb and 3.6 for the cpu. It actually passes Orthos for both memory and CPU, but I still get a soundcard glitch and stutters in UT3 which I'm told could be a latency problem.

Is it possible that this board isn't playing nice with my memory and CPU (more likely CPU)? I'd rather not replace either unless I have to.

[Grnfinger]

It seems that no matter what I do, I can not get this board stable. I even lowered my OC to 3.6 and I either get a soundacrd glitch, hangs in UT3 or something funky.

I'm not sure if it's becasue of the high voltage my chip needs (1.575 @3.6), but do you think this board needs RMA or am I simply not taking enought time with my OC?

I had to raise CPU PLL way up to 1.70 to keep cpu volts down

at 450x8@1080 on the 333 strap

CPU Voltage : 1.50
CPU PLL Voltage : 1.70
North Bridge Voltage : 1.49
DRAM Voltage : 2.1
FSB Termination Voltage : 1.40
South Bridge Voltage : 1.050
Loadline Calibration : Enabled

[iadstudio]

I'll try that. I found that when I started to raise my fsb core voltage I gained some stability but it startes to get pretty high (1.64) and no stability was gained so I abandoned that method. The CPu Pll voltage is one of the few things I haven't messes with too much yet.

I was hesitant after anandtech's assesment of the setting:

CPU PLL Voltage: Maximum of 2.78V. Out of all the voltages the user can manipulate this one is by far the most dangerous. Maximum vCPUpll, as established by Intel, is 1.60V (default for this board) making 2.78V a whopping ~75&#37; over specification! (As an aside, this would be the equivalent of subjecting your 65nm CPU to a core voltage of over 2.5V). Exercise extreme caution when utilizing higher values as setting this value too high can result in the CPUs "losing cores" after being subjected to voltage in excess of ~2.0V. The good news is that we did not see an increase in overclocking potential with voltages above 1.68V.

However, It seems like I need to start exploring the pll voltage and transaction booster settings a bit more.

Another funny thing has been happening as well. My keyboard has a delay in regards to when it get power durring boot. I actually have to wait at the Vista login screen for 5-10 seconds before the keyboard or mouse will work. I don't think it's a sb voltage issue bacause the problem surfaced without touching sb voltages.

[Grnfinger]

I did not see that about PLL , thanks for the info
I might dial mine back a notch or 2 and see if stability is still there.

You should play with trans booster it helps once you get the right setting for your oc stability, it took me a few weeks to get a stable 3.6, the board is hard to figure out, alot of unkown setting there ( for me atleast ) I'm comming from a A8N-SLI Deluxe mobo so there was quite a bios difference.
Its alot of shooting in the dark but I do some of my best work in the dark

[Warboy]

I did not see that about PLL , thanks for the info
I might dial mine back a notch or 2 and see if stability is still there.

You should play with trans booster it helps once you get the right setting for your oc stability, it took me a few weeks to get a stable 3.6, the board is hard to figure out, alot of unkown setting there ( for me atleast ) I'm comming from a A8N-SLI Deluxe mobo so there was quite a bios difference.
Its alot of shooting in the dark but I do some of my best work in the dark

I dont think it has anything to do with the CPU PLL volts really, If you my last post. it seems to take awhile for these board to be burned "into settings".

Because I'm running 1.456 volts at 423x9 right now, Like these

CPU Voltage : 1.456
CPU PLL Voltage : 1.50
North Bridge Voltage : 1.45
DRAM Voltage : 2.18
FSB Termination Voltage : 1.50
South Bridge Voltage : Auto
Loadline Calibration : Enabled

[FZ1]

I'm still not even sure WTF CPU PLL actually does? Even with Anandtech's info, it's not very clear. Google hsn't helped much.

[Grnfinger]

I dont think it has anything to do with the CPU PLL volts really, If you my last post. it seems to take awhile for these board to be burned "into settings".

Because I'm running 1.456 volts at 423x9 right now, Like these

CPU Voltage : 1.456
CPU PLL Voltage : 1.50
North Bridge Voltage : 1.45
DRAM Voltage : 2.18
FSB Termination Voltage : 1.50
South Bridge Voltage : Auto
Loadline Calibration : Enabled

What bios are you running?

[atomica]

Sometimes I have difficulty booting the system up especially after a restart.

To get it working again I have to switch it off and switch it on again.

Everything is at the default setting except that I am using SuperMem Profile 1, which on the Tracer Ballistix 8500 sets the speed to 800MHz, latency to 4-4-4-12 2T and voltage to 2.2v.

Just can't figure it out. Is the board wonky? Help, pls. Thanks.

[iadstudio]

I think it is. Although some people are reporting 100&#37; stability, most (at least the novice OC'rs) are reporting some sort of quirkiness on this board even after a lot of work on it. I'm selling my 4gb of RAM and either going to pick up a 2x2gb kit or a 2 x 1gb kit of those Ballistic 8500. I think my RAM at least plays a pert in my OC woes.

Anybody tried these
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227277

or

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820144110

2x2gb kits on this board?

[FZ1]

I agree, it seems ppl running 4 x 1GB of RAM seem to be suffering the most. I'm using 2GB and sticking with XP for now. I'm happy about that decision

[iadstudio]

I agree, it seems ppl running 4 x 1GB of RAM seem to be suffering the most. I'm using 2GB and sticking with XP for now. I'm happy about that decision

I would only assume this gets worse with quarcore. Can anyone verify this?

[eSp!s0]

@ eSp!s0 -Have you tried everest or another app?

For what?
I use Everest, Cpu-z and CoreTemp!?

[Warboy]

What bios are you running?

0907

I think it is. Although some people are reporting 100% stability, most (at least the novice OC'rs) are reporting some sort of quirkiness on this board even after a lot of work on it. I'm selling my 4gb of RAM and either going to pick up a 2x2gb kit or a 2 x 1gb kit of those Ballistic 8500. I think my RAM at least plays a pert in my OC woes.

Anybody tried these
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227277

or

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820144110

2x2gb kits on this board?

Yea, There is alot of quirkiness in these board, I can't get stable past 423x9 @ 100% CPU Usage but if I test at 97%, its stable (tested it via 3Dmark05/Mark06 CPU tests )

[Grnfinger]

I dont think it has anything to do with the CPU PLL volts really, If you my last post. it seems to take awhile for these board to be burned "into settings".

Because I'm running 1.456 volts at 423x9 right now, Like these

CPU Voltage : 1.456
CPU PLL Voltage : 1.50
North Bridge Voltage : 1.45
DRAM Voltage : 2.18
FSB Termination Voltage : 1.50
South Bridge Voltage : Auto
Loadline Calibration : Enabled

After a quick 30 min test in my opinion CPU PLL has a direct affect on stability.
Took these settings

at 450x8@1080 on the 333 strap

CPU Voltage : 1.50
CPU PLL Voltage : 1.70
North Bridge Voltage : 1.49
DRAM Voltage : 2.1
FSB Termination Voltage : 1.40
South Bridge Voltage : 1.050
Loadline Calibration : Enabled

my ONLY CHANGE was CPU PLL, it was lowerd to 1.60 and prime would not run for more than 2 mins b4 BSOD

Set it back to 1.70 and prime ran 30 mins small fft b4 I stop'd it.
So there must be a direct relation to stability?

[iadstudio]

sooo, what to do about it? Do we keep plugging away and try to go for 100&#37; stable, give up and look elsewhere or just acceot the limitations?

[iadstudio]

After a quick 30 min test in my opinion CPU PLL has a direct affect on stability.
Took these settings

at 450x8@1080 on the 333 strap

CPU Voltage : 1.50
CPU PLL Voltage : 1.70
North Bridge Voltage : 1.49
DRAM Voltage : 2.1
FSB Termination Voltage : 1.40
South Bridge Voltage : 1.050
Loadline Calibration : Enabled

my ONLY CHANGE was CPU PLL, it was lowerd to 1.60 and prime would not run for more than 2 mins b4 BSOD

Set it back to 1.70 and prime ran 30 mins small fft b4 I stop'd it.
So there must be a direct relation to stability?

Anand said no added stability over 1.68v. Maybe try that and see if there is any difference.

[Grnfinger]

testing 1.66 PLL
then 1.68 to see if there is any benifit in going to 1.70

[FZ1]

For what?
I use Everest, Cpu-z and CoreTemp!?

To show RAM amount. Do they show correctly or is is just CPUZ?

[The Dome]

Hey guys, I see there is a new version of Maximus Formula non se. Anyone have any experience with how well the new NB/SB/PWM heatsink works, or would it be recommended to remove and replace them with aftermarket pieces.

Also I should probally be noted that the mobo would be powering a overclocked X3210 that is watercooled, so there wont be much airflow around the mobo.