680i SLI is too expensive? Asus as the solution : P5N32-E SLI PLUS

[dccmadams]

this board oc'ed like crap 4 me on my quad, sent it back.

[>GSXR<mrbusa]

this board oc'ed like crap 4 me on my quad, sent it back.

And....

[spajdr]

0901 bios is same crap as 0805 for quadcore, 3 Ghz and end, back to 0803 once again

[Snyxxx]

I like this board for a nice mild overclock and mainly SLI. It also has a great layout for watercooling all the hot spots.

[dccmadams]

....and I ordered a asus 780i that i hope will oc a quad....to be continued....

[DarkCow]

0805 bios is utter CRAP. 0801 went beautifully 9x333 with all settings AUTO. I'm now pushing 6x450 with my quad @ 1.65v NB, all other voltages @ default.

I just ordered this board (Open box from Newegg, unfortunately i don't think im getting an SLI bridge nor a sound card, but i do have a spare sound card, just not the sli bridge which is a pain) also got a q6600 g0 on the way as well and some great OCZ Reaper ram which will hopefully let me do up to 500 FSB, if i can get there. Going to have some fun getting hopefully 3.2 ghz or there abouts.



Im curious if your going to try the 9 times multi again and see what kind of NB voltage you had to give it to max out your CPU. need to know if im buying a NB cooler or not. ill probably just leave my 220CFM fan on 24/7


Thanks

[Leeghoofd]

also got a q6600 g0 on the way as well and some great OCZ Reaper ram which will hopefully let me do up to 500 FSB, if i can get there.
Thanks

Plz be realistic so many users are even having probs to get the quads up to 450FSB, I really don't see how you could push the board with a quad up to 500FSB... I hope you get up to 450 then you already have a board many of us dreamed off... ( my Striker never got 450FSB stable, 425 no issue )

[DarkCow]

Plz be realistic so many users are even having probs to get the quads up to 450FSB, I really don't see how you could push the board with a quad up to 500FSB... I hope you get up to 450 then you already have a board many of us dreamed off... ( my Striker never got 450FSB stable, 425 no issue )

lol, don't worry, im not crazy, just overly optimistic, i'll be happy to get 333 FSB (3.0ghz).

i've read 70% of this forum trying to find the best way to push this board to its limits, but it looks like the only way im going to pull it off is by buying some 3rd party coolers.

[Leeghoofd]

Wel I just don't want you to be dissapointed if you shouldn't achieve ya high FSB goals... with Vdroop mod and aftermarket cooling 415 -425 FSB is possible mate....

[DarkCow]

Wel I just don't want you to be dissapointed if you shouldn't achieve ya high FSB goals... with Vdroop mod and aftermarket cooling 415 -425 FSB is possible mate....

yea, ill probably end up doing that, the Vdroop is a pencil mod right? the last volt mod i tried ended up in a blackend mess.

for the 3rd party cooling is cooling the NB only necessary or should i just do the whole lot? (NB, SB, Mosfets etc...)

[spajdr]

I exchanged NB and SB cooling with thermalright ones, since its too hot even if you move a big cooler on it, get a 0803 bios, choose 7x multiplier, then 1800FSB, unlinked memory and it should work if you want higher clocks you need to replace NB and SB cooling. That 7x450 is stable with stock cooling. I didnt cool mosfets, just some fresh air from fans. I also have vdrop pencil mod, cause you get bad vdrop with anything over 3Ghz with quad.

[DarkCow]

I exchanged NB and SB cooling with thermalright ones, since its too hot even if you move a big cooler on it, get a 0803 bios, choose 7x multiplier, then 1800FSB, unlinked memory and it should work if you want higher clocks you need to replace NB and SB cooling. That 7x450 is stable with stock cooling. I didnt cool mosfets, just some fresh air from fans. I also have vdrop pencil mod, cause you get bad vdrop with anything over 3Ghz with quad.

great, thanks, ill keep that in mind, i'll defiantly install the 0803 bios and train my 220cfm fan onto my MB lol, well i gotta say goodbye to silence...

I'll see how high i can get the FSB at 7x multi and if im not happy with it ill do the pencil mod, or try a higher multi. I've never done a pencil mod, but I'm sure I'll find the post about it and go from there, should be a peice of cake to some extent.



I just have one question about the linked vs unlinked, i sort of understand what it does, but im still clueless about what exactly it does. Chances are im just going to unlink it, set the ram timings looser, and then get the ram as close to ddr-1000. but its best to know. does it affect SLI in any way?

[Radical_53]

@snyxxx: Thanks for the link I'm using the Thermalright backplate right now, seems to be ok. I might want to try to cut one myself, using a thicker material.

I'll try the 901 bios in a couple of days. I had painful problems with my sound card, so maybe this does something against it.

[Jultsu]

I'm running 6x450 UNLINKED with my quad, mem@563MHz.

Why are 3 out of 4 cores FAILING in my prime95 when i'm benching "max. heat, max. power"

http://www.aijaa.com/img/b/00051/1384800.jpg


And when i run "max. FPU stress" all 4 instances run beautifully.

http://www.aijaa.com/img/b/00089/1384740.jpg


Plz help?

[Radical_53]

Maybe you should check your RAM for that. Super Pi still does some good work there, or increase the frequency slightly and use Memtest. It did a great work for me when I had to find the correct voltage, sub-timings and such.

PS: Any problems getting that high FSB with a quad? It didn't have much luck with that so far.

[Jultsu]

I've tried 0801, 0801bt, 0803, 0805 and 0901.

0805 and 0901 are crap.

0801bt went 9x333 with all settings AUTO, no other bios has yet to manage that.

Now I'm testing 0803 again, 7x450. Just pump up the NB voltage to 1.7v and you're all set Although i recommend better cooling than the default heatpipe system

Still fails instantly with "max. heat" but runs beautifully with "max. fpu"

[Jultsu]

welll...it WAS my ram HCL memtest failed with 4 sticks, took out two and now it's running 125&#37; without any errors. But STILL my prime95 FAILS with "max. heat" on all four cores. I just don't get it.

And when I started another instance of HCL, it found memory errors again. Goddamnit. Back to bios.

[Jultsu]

Well:

2 sticks of ram @ 200MHz (400 DDR) 4-3-3-9 1T

and it's now running all 4 cores with "max. heat" flawlessly. Must be the damn subtimings that are causing all these troubles. Maybe i should just get a pair of bulk 2GB sticks and run them 400MHz.

[Jultsu]

http://www.aijaa.com/img/b/00025/1386677.jpg

Am I onto something here? Maybe a sanding + vdroop mod could give me a bit more stability? I'd love to run 4GHz 24/7.

[Jultsu]

after some lapping:

http://www.aijaa.com/img/b/00069/1386739.jpg

nice temps

next: the vdroop mod

(Hmm, maybe i should've posted all of these in just one single post...oh well.)

[DarkCow]

that is one killer overclock. I'll probably be asking for some helping overclocking mine once I get my video card in.

keep pushing it though!



what are you using to cool the northbridge though?

[Leeghoofd]

[url]Am I onto something here? Maybe a sanding + vdroop mod could give me a bit more stability? I'd love to run 4GHz 24/7.

Don't we all would love that I think ya Vcore will mess up the overal stability with 4ghz in mind mate... any chance to run the ram at 4-4-4-10 to improve stability or just 2T command rate, also with my Striker it always was better to run ram FSB 1:1 so in your case 900mhz...

[Jultsu]

I think I am getting somewhere with this one.

http://www.aijaa.com/img/b/00029/1390562.jpg (this was done without any optimizations, hence the crappy time)

Yesterday I couldn't run anything with cores 0 and 1, they would crash the machine.

Today it's 7 degrees colder outside than yesterday (where my rig has been for the last 2 months) and I'm getting some extra stability. The 32M SuperPI was run with all four cores, flawlessly. Yesterday i had to manually set the affinity to core 3. Now, i can run "moderately" things with all four cores. Still not 100&#37; stable, but it's a start.

The droop is still very bad, maybe i'll try fixing it today. I think the 1.2v HT voltage is also affecting the stability positively.

Oh, and I also replaced the faulty RAM, with good results

[Jultsu]

vdroop mode done and 100&#37; working, ZERO droop now! I must have done like 50 lines (with a regular crappy HB pen) But still 4,05GHz is far from prime-stable. Maybe I need even better cooling...

3,6GHz seems to be pretty stable with 1.488v (maybe it doesn't even need that much, haven't tried) but I am trying to get 4,05GHz 24/7 stable.

[lesterLL]

@jultsu
wow!! i am very much impressed... i too have q6600 and asus p5n32-e sli plus... i never thought that anyone can OC this board with a quad more than 3ghz... wow wow wow!!